Инструктор Отдела пропаганды и агитации ЦК ВКП(б) Гончарок Секретарю ЦК ВКП(б) Маленкову о феодально-байских и религиозных пережитках в Казахской ССР Department of Propaganda and Agitation Instructor Goncharok to Malenkov concerning religious and feudal-bai vestiges in the Kazakh SSR

Translation

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To VKP(b) CC Secretary Cde. M.A. Suslov

I submit for your consideration a memorandum from Cde. Goncharok, a VKP(b) CC Department of Propaganda and Agitation instructor, concerning feudal-bai and religious vestiges in the Kazakh SSR.

By decision of the VKP(b) CC Secretariat adopted 1 July 1949, Goncharok traveled to the Kazakh SSR and, in cooperation with officials from the Kazakhstan KP(b) CC, investigated signals coming through the Ministry of State Security.

K. Kalashnikov

[Signature]

12 September 1949

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To VKP(b) CC Secretary Cde.  G.M. Malenkov

Concerning Feudal-Bai and Religious Vestiges in the Kazakh SSR

In accordance with the VKP(b) CC Secretariat resolution, my investigation, carried out in cooperation with the KP(b) CC of Kazakhstan, determined that there are widespread feudal-bai, private-grasping, tribal, daily-life and religious vestiges in the Kazakh SSR.

To the detriment of the interest of strengthening collective farms, in a number of Kazakhstan's southern oblasts there have been private-grasping vestiges and an accrual of private farms by individual officials and collective farm workers. For example Otarov, the chairman of the Karaspan village council, Arys Raion, Southern Kazakhstan Oblast, has a private farm with 40 sheep and goats, 2 horses, 3  heads of large horned cattle, 2 houses, and 2 yurts. Nobody in his family works at the collective farm. Beismembaev, head of the finance department at the Chaian Raion executive committee in that same oblast, has 24 sheep, 2 cows, and 2 horses. Utebaeva, a member of the Turksib Collective Farm in Zhualy in that same oblast, has 50 sheep, 2 cows, and 2 mares on her private farm. Over 7 months, she has not earned a single workday unit at the collective farm.

Numerous instances of the squandering and appropriation of collective farm goods, theft, and embezzlement greatly harm the republic's socialist construction. Over the last year and a half, 3,250 people have been expelled from the party for such crimes, primarily senior officials of collective farms and district offices.

The spread of criminal attitudes toward public property is enabled by the protection certain senior officials give to criminals. The case of Shorabaev, who worked as chairman of a number of collective farms in Karatal and Kirov Raions, Taldy-

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Kurgan Oblast, is typical. For five years, Shorabaev squandered and appropriated collective farm property and beat the workers with impunity. Instead of taking Shorabaev to court, the party's Kirov Raion committee transferred him from one collective farm to another. After the workers of the Karatal Collective Farm removed Shorabaev from his post, the raion and oblast committees started protecting him. The oblast committee issued a party reprimand against the oblast prosecutor, Cde. Fedorenko, who took part in relieving Shorabaev of his job as collective farm chairman. Only after the collective farm workers sent a letter to Cde. A.A. Andreev did the Kazakhstan KP(b) CC get involved, and Shorabaev was convicted.

Fraud and deception of the state persist in Kazakhstan's party and government offices and organizations. Nobody is being brought to justice for the many crimes of this nature. Data from Kazakhstan's KP(b) CC show that, as a result of fraudulent information submitted by a number of the party's oblast committees and executive committees hiding problems with the procurement of feed, more than 700,000 heads of cattle were lost during the winter of 1948–49.

The atmosphere of impunity and the shifting of people who failed at one job to other responsible posts exist in the republic due to the tenacity of feudal-tribal vestiges. People's relationships are still defined by their tribe. There are instances when collective farm brigades and units are formed based on tribe. Fights broke out recently between two tribes at the Tuzkok Collective Farm in Ilyinsky Raion, Alma-Ata Oblast. There are many instances of collective farm chairmen providing patronage to members of the same tribe.

The struggle against tribal vestiges is currently very weak. In1947, in Burliu-Tiube Raion, Taldy-Kurgan Oblast, the brazen perversion of Bolshevik principles in selecting and placing cadres were being covered up. The party's raion committee and executive committee were abetting divisions along tribal lines and promoting people from their own tribe to positions of responsibility in the raion center and collective farms. The tribal principle in selecting cadres enabled the cover-up of crimes and the theft of collective farm property. After this question was discussed within

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Kazakhstan's KP(b) CC, similar instances were uncovered in Akmol, Aktiube, Eastern Kazakhstan, Guriev, Dzhambul, Kzyl-Orda, Pavlodar, and other oblasts.

Later, however, the struggle against tribal vestiges stopped, and in 1949 even more striking instances were uncovered. In Turgai Raion, Kustanai Oblast, the large-scale violation of agricultural cooperative regulations was permitted. Almost all of the top officials in raion organizations, including 5 members of the party's raion committee bureau and the chairmen of collective farms and village councils, were involved in stealing collective farm property. In the Kazakhstan KP(b) CC resolution "On the Gross Perversion of Party Policy in Collective Farm Construction in Turgai Raion, Kustanai Oblast," tribal vestiges among the raion's leading officials is pointed to as a cause of unprincipled squabbles. In fact, the presence of tribal vestiges enabled gross violations of agricultural cooperative regulations, since the criminals always found members of their own tribe in raion organizations to protect them. Fighting among tribes spilled over into politics when, at the raion party conference, "Turgaians" turned out to be in the majority and blocked the candidacies of many former members of the raion committee bureau from the "previous" "Zhogalbail" tribe during elections to the raion committee plenum. The Kustanai Oblast committee knew about this but did nothing to stop it. The Turgai Raion bureau was disbanded only when the Council plenipotentiary for collective farm affairs uncovered the gross violations of agricultural cooperative regulations.

Because of family, ethnic, and social connections, more than one hundred former bais, Alash-Orda people, their relatives, members of the White Guard, and people previously convicted of counterrevolutionary crimes managed to get into the Kazakh Academy of Sciences, making up 13 percent of the total number of Academy employees. Many of them are related to the Academy president, Satpaev. Among them are four sons-in-laws, children, nephews, people from the same aul, and other tribesmen of Satpaev. Other top officials of the Academy and its institutions have many relatives among Academy employees. Some fake positions have been created to support people who are not needed but enjoy the patronage of the Academy leadership. Candidate and doctoral dissertations

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in some cases are accepted and defended with blatantly lowered demands, since those seeking advanced degrees enjoy the protection of top Academy officials. Even those close to Satpaev admit, "Instead of a center of science, the Academy is now a center of squabbles and discord based on the tribal group principle."

The hiring of cadres based on ties of family and friendship and the patronage of talentless and hostile elements creates an atmosphere of lawlessness and impunity. On 18 May 1947, A.P. Golovchanskaia, a junior professor of organic chemistry and candidate of sciences at Kazakh State University, committed suicide. The cause of death was badgering by the department chair, Azerbaev, a politically suspect person. A number of teachers have described Azerbaev as a talentless scholar. To build a scientific reputation and justify his lack of productivity over the past several years, he decided to become coauthor of a scientific work Golovchanskaia had prepared for publication. When Golovchanskaia refused to allow this, he drove her to suicide. Golovchanskaia wrote: "The scoundrel, swindler, and ignoramus Azerbaev can bully people as much as he wants, he can get his advanced degree and top position without knowledge just because he is a Kazakh and friend of Satpaev, despite being a thief and villain." Azerbaev was prosecuted on the insistence of state security, but Golovchanskaia's suicide did not entail any serious political consequences. This question was decided "efficiently" within the Kazakhstan KP(b) CC, which did not adopt any resolutions.

Underlying the fact that old society vestiges persist among the Kazakh people is Islam, a religion that is very flexible in terms of rituals and that in the past was adapted to the Kazakh people's nomadic way of life. Before the revolution, the mullahs migrated with the people. Now, there are more than 500 itinerant mullahs who are not officially registered, and there are 22 registered mosques. No measures are being taken against the activities of the itinerant mullahs; no taxes are being imposed on them, and they conduct religious services all around the republic unhindered. Among religious rites, "sunnat" (circumcision, a sign of true belief) is almost universally practiced, including within families of communists. Circumcisions are performed under anti-hygienic conditions, and boys suffer lengthy illnesses. Juma Namaz (Friday prayers)

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and Eid Namaz (prayers on the days of the major holidays Uraza Bairam and Kurban Bairam) are conducted everywhere with large numbers of people. Uraza Bairam is preceded by a 30-day fast, Uraza.

This year, during the Uraza period, mullahs significantly intensified their religious and preaching work and collected "Fitr-Sadaka" (per capita almsgiving). On the day of Uraza Bairam and Eid-Namaz (celebratory prayer), 2,500 people gathered at the Alma-Ata mosque, 1,500 at the Kzyl-Orda mosque, and 3,000 at the Dzhambul mosque. Prayer gatherings were also held on that day in places where they is no mosque, in courtyards, graveyards, and fields. These prayers were attended by young people and children--not just old men. To keep a large part of the population under their influence, the mullahs also allowed women on Eid-Namaz. To some extent, Eid-Namaz affects work both in the city and country. The workers of Akademstroi, by agreement with their supervisors, did not go to work. The workers did not work at the collective farms Oktiabr; Bulat-Koshchi, Dzhambul Raion, Dzhambul Oblast; and Dikhan-Zhol, Sairam Raion, South Kazakhstan Oblast, among others.

Religious vestiges include numerous instances of polygamy, the giving or receiving of "kalym," the marrying off of minor girls, and "amangerstvo" (a man or boy inheriting the wife of his dead brother). Last year and during the first three months of this year, 735 people were convicted of polygamy in the republic, 32 for marrying minor girls, 28 for forcing women to enter into a marriage, and 27 for giving or receiving "kalym." Crimes of this sort are on the rise in comparison with 1947. Numerous instances where the guilty have not been brought to justice have been identified, and some heads of local party and government bodies help criminals cover up or get away with their crimes. Some cases resulted in very light sentences. For example, the People's Court in Arys Raion, South Kazakhstan Oblast, sentenced Ismakov, who married 15-year-old Zhakanova in 1949, to a one-year suspended sentence. Often judges sentence the guilty to only a fine, which makes people confidant that they can commit crimes with impunity and leads to incorrect political conclusions: people see the fine as additional "kalym" to the state. Someone who pays

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a fine or serves their sentence (one year of forced work in their own or the neighboring collective farm) might typically continue to live with all his wives without further punishment.

Many communists and some of the rural intelligentsia actively perpetuate feudal-bai vestiges. Three Kazakh girls left high school in Arys Raion, South Kazakhstan Oblast, in March of this year. They were forced into this by the school's director, Sailibaev, a party member. First he asked them to cohabitate with him; then he asked them to marry his close relatives. The girls were forced to leave school and get married. On 25 May of this year, in Chimkent Raion in that same oblast, a teacher named Musabaev and a group of horsemen abducted a 15-year-old girl, Datkabaeva, while she was working in the field and married her by force. In September of last year at the Kalinin Collective Farm, Amangeldy Raion, Kustanai Oblast, after a rally to celebrate the farm being honored as a Hero of Socialist Labor, some drunken carousing was organized involving the raion party secretary, Dosmagambetov, and the head of the raion Ministry of State Security branch, Aimbetov. That night, when they were thoroughly drunk (alcohol was dispensed from a samovar), four schoolgirls were forcibly brought into their yurt. The school director, Usepov, got the girls drunk and left them overnight in the guests' yurt. Over the past two years, 12 girls from that school dropped out of grades 3 to 7. Three of them were underage brides.

Due to the poor job being done to instill proper attitudes, Kazakh girls do not complete high school. This year in Dzhambul Oblast, only 4 Kazakh girls completed high school and in Akmol Oblast, only 15. Over the past 5 years in Vishnevka Raion, Akmol Oblast, not a single girl has completed high school.

Religious obscurantism has led to nationalistic outbursts, sometimes by communists. For example, on the urging of his parents, the head of the Zhana-Urnek Collective Farm in Zhana-Semei Raion, Semipalatinsk Oblast, party member Suleimanov, brutally killed his pregnant wife, a Russian woman whom he married while serving in the Soviet Army. After the murder, the criminal married a Kazakh woman. Also on the urging of his parents, party member Alim Temirov, facilities manager for the school at the Internat Collective Farm, killed his wife an ethnic Russian, with an axe

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in Bostandyk Raion, South Kazakhstan Oblast. There have been several such incidents in that oblast. Other than the conviction of the criminals, no political consequences followed from these gruesome ethnic incidents.

In Kazakhstan, the party's oblast committees and the KP(b) CC take an indifferent approach to instances of feudal-bai vestiges among communists and just mindlessly rubber stamp expulsions from the party. Over the past year and a half, KP(b) oblast committees have expelled 471 people for polygamy, "amangerstvo," "kalym," and for performing religious rites. There have been sporadic instances where party organizations failed to expose and prosecute violators of Soviet laws. The Alma-Ata Oblast committee and the Kazakhstan KP(b) CC are aware of the behavior of Dzhokebaev, a party secretary for one of the oblast's rural raions, who was getting ready to marry for the fourth time after kicking out his third and pregnant wife, Nasymbaeva, who was studying at the republic's party school. This matter has yet to be resolved.

The Kazakhstan KP(b) CC is taking a number of measures to promote women's political involvement. For example, 171 women (80 of whom are Kazakh) are working as oblast party secretaries; 7 women (5 of whom are Kazakh) have been promoted to posts as deputy ministers of the republic; more than 18,000 women have been elected as deputies in local Councils of Workers' Deputies; and a Kazakh women's pedagogical institute has been opened. However, in a number of raions, especially in the southern oblasts, both in collective farm production and in daily life, the emphasis is still on an unequal position for women that insults their dignity. A woman does not interfere in a conversation when men are talking, and without her husband's permissions she will not sit down with guests but merely listen in, and so forth.

In collective farm production, as a rule, the men do the managing and the most difficult physical--at times backbreaking--labor is done by women; on top of that they often contract severe female maladies. According to reporting by birthing centers, in 1948 there were 3,815 premature births, and more than 20 percent of the premature infants died at the birthing center. On the collective farms of South Kazakhstan Oblast, women make up 60 percent of the workers. Nevertheless, throughout the entire oblast, only 65 women work as brigade leaders and 21 as collective farm chairpeople.

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A network of women's councils has been created at the republic's enterprises and collective farms. Party organizations do not support their work. Furthermore, those at the party's raion committee offices who are supposed to be working with women are, as a rule, used as permanent plenipotentiaries for various campaigns and have little influence on party organizations' efforts to improve the situation of women in collective farm production and in daily life.

The daily life of collective farm workers still bears the mark of a nomadic lifestyle. People have moved from yurts into houses, but they still do not use tables, benches, chairs, shelves for dishware, spoons, forks, individual mugs or glasses, or wash basins. They are not even sold in rural stores. Food is prepared unsanitarily, eaten with hands out of a common dish placed on the floor, with no spoons or forks, and people drink out of a common drinking bowl that is passed around. Such lack of culture, stemming from their former nomadic lifestyle, is passed off as a national trait. Almost no collective farms with Kazakh populations have banyas. The houses are dirty, the linens and clothing are covered with insects. Over the past year and a half, approximately 11,000 cases of typhus, more than 4,000 cases of syphilis, and more than 9,000 cases of pulmonary tuberculosis have been registered, and trachoma is widespread.

In collective farms' seasonal day care centers, children lie sprawled over dirt floors or on dirty, trampled sackcloth, with no cribs. They don't wash the children, whose noses are wiped with dirty rags. Infants are covered in adornments (bracelets, feathers on their heads, silver coins on their clothing). Over the past year and a half approximately 47,000 cases of measles, approximately 7,000 of scarlet fever, and more than 44,000 of severe intestinal ailments have been identified among children.

The republic has 553 rural medical stations, which is clearly insufficient for the size of the Kazakh SSR.  Large population segments have no health care. In Shevchenko Raion, Guriev Oblast, one feldsher woman serves far-flung livestock pasturing stations that are home to 7,000-8,000 collective farmers. "Bakshy"--sorcerer folk healers--operate in remote areas under such conditions.

Most Kazakh women still give birth at home, with the assistance of mullahs, based on ancient custom. It is not unusual for mullahs to "help" mothers in labor by holding them by the hair and beating them with a kamcha (lash) to drive out the "devil."

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The network of birthing centers is extremely thin. For example, in Georgievka Raion, South Kazakhstan Oblast, there are only 16 maternity beds for 69 collective farms spread out over a radius of 70 kilometers.

Old customs persist due to the strong influence of the elderly. Seriukbai Emberdiev, the chairman of the Altyn-Tiube collective farm in Chimkent Raion, South Kazakhstan Oblast, a party member since 1938, former staff propagandist for the party's raion committee, and a tank unit lieutenant during the Patriotic War, related his efforts to organize at least his own daily life in a civilized manner after he returned from the army: he cleaned his boots, shaved, and began to eat at a table and use a spoon. His elderly parents were offended that he did not join them sitting on the floor and the neighbors made fun of him. "Nobody supported me, and I again began living the old way," Emberdiev said. "Now I don't even read newspapers."

Soviet socialist culture is not penetrating the aul well. Even the songs the people sing are the old ones. Soviet songs are not translated into Kazakh, and only seven original contemporary songs in Kazakh have been published. The work of cultural-educational offices in the rural areas of a number of raions and oblasts is being neglected. Movies and radio are extremely rare for those working on many remote collective farms, especially those involved in livestock grazing. The rural population is poorly supplied with literature. On average, one rural library in the republic serves 11 rural councils. These libraries have a tiny supply of books, usually outdated books and brochures. Only seven of the republics' raions have bookstores.

Efforts to spread scientific-atheist propaganda are poor. During an inspection of 5 oblasts it was determined that a large number of raion reading groups and rural lecture halls are inactive.

Huge numbers of collective farm workers are unable to read newspapers and books in Kazakh, since during the campaign to eliminate illiteracy they were taught using the Latin alphabet, and they do not know the Russian alphabet. Among communists it was found that 44,500 are barely literate or illiterate. Of the 2,135 literacy schools organized for them, 681 completed the academic year, teaching only 9,000 people. Mass-political work is assigned to barely literate

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people incapable of reading a newspaper to collective farm workers. All the scientific and cultural institutions and organizations that have been created in the Kazakhstan SSR (an Academy of Sciences, university, opera theater, writers' union) have been used by the republic's leaders to cover up the huge job they have to do in terms of raising the general cultural level. There is a disconnect between the achievements of the Kazakh intelligentsia and the masses' huge cultural backwardness. 

In the work of scientific and cultural institutions, there is an evident preoccupation with the Kazakh people's prerevolutionary past. Instead of being taught the biographies of our party's leaders, the heroes of the October Socialist Revolution, the Great Patriotic War, and Heroes of Socialist Labor, the people are being led deep into past centuries in search of heroes in feudal society. We know of serious mistakes in the first edition of the "History of the Kazakh SSR" and works by the Institute of Language and Culture. We also know that in letters to the front from the workers of Kazakhstan, Kazakh warriors were urged to "be like Edyge." "Kazakhstan in the 1920s–1940s," a book by Bekmakhanov, a doctor of historical sciences, glorifies a new "hero" of the Kazakh people, Khan Kenesary. A discussion about Bekmakhanov's book showed that a large portion of the Kazakh intelligentsia supports the author and places Kenesary among the leaders of the Kazakh people in the struggle for independence, ignoring his reactionary activities to consolidate his khanate and his brutal suppression of poor nomads.

The literary works of  Kazakh writers embellish and glorify nomadic daily life. M. Auezov's novel, "Abai," is no exception. Using the power of his talent, he compels his readers to believe that the Kazakh aul of the past was a place of genuine wellbeing. Fondly painting a rosy picture of all of feudal-bai society's rituals of religion and daily life, he inspires regret for their loss. The life of the poor and the class struggle in the prerevolutionary aul are weakly illustrated and seem artificial. Auezov enjoys extraordinary renown in the republic; he is idolized by young people, and an entire section in the republic's museum is devoted to him. Furthermore, this formerly active Alash-Orda supporter has yet to renounce his nationalist leanings and continues to have a negative influence on the young.

Kazakhstan's KP(b) CC and the party's oblast committees are not actively struggling against feudal bai and religious vestiges. According to signals from

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state security, the necessary measures are not being taken. Resolutions adopted in 1947 by the CC and oblast committees of the KP(b) of Kazakhstan concerning feudal-bai vestiges played a positive role, but they are starting to be forgotten. All questions surrounding the struggle with feudal-bai vestiges have been farmed out to departments that are supposed to be working with women. There is no broad united front in efforts by party and local-government organizations to struggle against vestiges of the old in people's consciousnesses and behavior, in struggling against alien feudal-bai ideology.

What is needed first and foremost is a broad program of criticism and self-criticism in the republic's party, government, scholarly, and cultural institutions against feudal-bai private-grasping, tribal, daily-life and religious vestiges, regardless of the individual implicated. To this end, it is desirable that a Plenipotentiary of the VKP(b) CC and VKP(b) CC's Party Control Commission be sent to the Kazakh party organization for an extended period.

The USSR Ministry of Justice must be asked to review and strengthen measures to uphold Soviet laws on the family and marriage as they apply to conditions in the Kazakh Republic.

A number of questions relating to significant improvements in public health, public education, cultural-educational efforts, and commerce in the Kazakh Republic must be studied and resolved by the USSR Council of Ministers.

The VKP(b) CC Department of Propaganda and Agitation must adopt a new attitude toward the ethnic republics and take a different approach to their needs in its political, ideological, and cultural work with the population and communists.

All VKP(b) CC departments should maintain constant oversight over the selection and placing of cadres in the union republics, bearing in mind the tenacity of tribal vestiges.

The VKP(b) CC apparatus should maintain better oversight over efforts to promote women's involvement in politics, the economy, and the cultural life of the ethnic republics.

I request an opportunity to report to you in person on certain matters.

VKP(b) CC Department of Propaganda and Agitation Instructor [signature] (Goncharok)

8 September 1949