RESETTLEMENT QUESTION IN THE SOVIET NATIONAL POLITICSIN KAZAKHSTAN IN THE 1920s
The resettlement aspect of the Soviet national politics in Kazakhstan in the 1920s is under investigation in the essay. The resettlement issue was closely related to the solution of the national question in Kazakhstan which as­sumed factual and legal equality of nations, as the Bolsheviks tried to get the trust of national minorities. In Kazakh­stan, the main knot of contradictions was associated with land administration and the alienation of land from the Ka­zakh population to the resettled peasants. To control those problems, it was necessary to develop new approaches to the problems of resettlement. In the first half of the 1920s, maximum concessions to national minorities were made, and Kazakhstan was closed to migrants. In practice, that politics led to a new round of inter-ethnic tensions and un­dermined the confidence in the Soviet state by the migrants. The national communists were the main opponents of the resumption of resettlement to Kazakhstan because they feared the withdrawal of ethnic composition of the popu­lation. In the second half of the 1920s, the previous national politics was revised by becoming "ethnically neutral" and prompting protests of the national communists. As a result of cleansing the administrative apparatus and the de­feat of the national opposition in the late 1920s, Kazakhstan was reopened for resettlement, including the forcible deportation of kulaks and "punished" peoples.