The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Kazakhstan, the Kazakh SSR, KSSR, or simply Kazakhstan, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1936 to 1991. Being located in northern Central Asia, the Kazakh SSR was created on 5 December 1936 from the erstwhile Kazakh ASSR, which was an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR. It shared borders with its fellow Soviet republics of Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, while also sharing an international border with the People's Republic of China.
At 2,717,300 square kilometres (1,049,200 sq mi) in area, it was the second-largest republic in the USSR, after the Russian SFSR. Its capital was Alma-Ata (today known as Almaty). During its existence as a Soviet Socialist Republic, it was ruled by the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR (QKP). It was the most economically advanced of the central Asian Soviet Republics, having a significant base in mineral extraction and agriculture.
On 25 October 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh SSR declared its sovereignty on its soil. QKP first secretary Nursultan Nazarbayev was elected president in April of that year – a role he remained in until 2019. On 17 March 1991, the Kazakh SSR accepted the New Union Treaty with 95% of citizens voting in favor.
The Kazakh SSR was renamed the Republic of Kazakhstan on 10 December 1991, which declared its independence six days later, as the last republic to secede from the USSR on 16 December 1991. The Soviet Union was officially dissolved on 26 December 1991 by the Soviet of the Republics. The Republic of Kazakhstan, the legal successor to the Kazakh SSR, was admitted to the United Nations on 2 March 1992.
The republic was named after the Kazakh people, a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia who formed the majority in the Kazakh SSR's territory. Historically, the Kazakhs were nomads who created a powerful khanate in the region before being defeated and annexed by the Russian Empire.
Established on 26 August 1920, it was initially called Kirghiz ASSR (Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) and was a part of the Russian SFSR. On 15–19 April 1925, it was renamed Kazak ASSR (subsequently Kazakh ASSR) and on 5 December 1936 it was elevated to the status of a Union-level republic, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.
In September 1920, the Ninth Soviet Congress of Turkestan called for the deportation of illegal settler colonists in the Northern parts of the country. The proposed land reform began in 1921 and lasted until 1927, targeting Russian settlers, Ukrainians and Cossacks in the region and from 1920 to 1922, Kazakhstan's Russian population dropped from approximately 2.7 to 2.2 million. A further 15,000 Cossack settler colonists were deported between 1920 and 1921 as part of the process of returning control and sovereignty of land to the Kazakhs.
On 19 February 1925, Filipp Goloshchyokin was appointed First Secretary of the Communist Party in the newly created Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic. From 1925 to 1933 he ran the Kazakh ASSR with an iron grip, surprisingly with virtually zero interference from Moscow. He played a prominent part in the construction of the Turkestan-Siberia railway, which was constructed to open up Kazakhstan's mineral wealth.
After Joseph Stalin ordered the forced collectivization of agriculture throughout the Soviet Union, Goloshchyokin ordered that Kazakhstan's largely nomadic population was to be settled in collectivized farms. This, alongside the disastrous agricultural and scientific policies of Trofim Lysenko, eventually culminated in the deadly Kazakh famine of 1930–1933 in Kazakhstan which killed between 1 and 2 million people.
In 1937 the first major deportation of an ethnic group in the Soviet Union began, with the removal of the Korean population from the Russian Far East to Kazakhstan. Over 170,000 people were forcibly relocated to the Kazakh and Uzbek SSRs.
Kazakhstani Korean scholar German Kim assumes that one of the reasons for this deportation may have been Stalin's intent to oppress ethnic minorities that could have posed a threat to his socialist system or he may have intended to consolidate the border regions with China and Japan by using them as political bargaining chips. Additionally, historian Kim points out that 1.7 million people perished in the Kazakh famine of 1931–1933, while an additional one million people fled from the Republic, causing a labour shortage in that area, which Stalin sought to compensate by deporting other ethnicities there.
Over one million political prisoners from various parts of the Soviet Union passed through the Karaganda Corrective Labor Camp (Karlag) between 1931 and 1959, with an unknown number of deaths. The Great Purge affected many Kazakh families, sometimes even decimating entire lineages.
Major improvements in literacy were recorded, by the 1960s nearly 97% of the country was literate with minimal disparity between male and female citizens. Various forms of technical and research-oriented education were provided to the citizens, which led to the fading away of the traditionalist culture systems.
During the industrialization drives ordered by Joseph Stalin and the shift of key industries from the Eastern Front (World War II), Kazakhstan developed many oil wells, mines, steel plants and mineral refineries. However, the focus on heavy industry stunted the development of light industries that could manufacture consumer goods. In 1949, the Turkestan–Siberia Railway was constructed in the Kazakh SSR which linked the country to Russia via rail. Thousands of kilometers of road were constructed throughout the country, linking the previously disconnected parts of the country and facilitating development. Many Kazakhs served with distinction in the Great Patriotic War, with Bauyrzhan Momyshuly, Manshuk Mametova and Sadyk Abdujabbarov becoming household names. (see List of Kazakh Heroes of the Soviet Union)
During the 1950s and 1960s, Soviet citizens were urged to settle in the Virgin Lands of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. This was initiated by Nikita Khrushchev to utilize potential land for cultivation and to boost agricultural production. From the 1960s onwards, many manufacturing units for chemicals, defense equipment and alloys sprung up throughout the country. Agriculture soon became an important part of the economy, with wheat, beetroot, rice and cotton being grown in the country.
The Baikonur Cosmodrome was built in the 1950s and served as a launchpad for the ambitious Soviet space program, which intensely competed with the Americans' space efforts. Baikonur was the launch site of several landmark operations, launching the pivotal missions involving Sputnik 1, Yuri Gagarin, Valentina Tereshkova and Toktar Aubakirov.
During the 22-year tenure of Dinmukhamed Kunaev, the Kazakh SSR saw further advancements in economic prosperity, energy production and industrialization. He enjoyed a strong working relationship with Leonid Brezhnev, which saw him rise to prominence in the Soviet Politburo. Kunaev was extremely popular among the people due to his growth-oriented policies and improvements in living standards. Many people in modern-day Kazakhstan express fondness for his premiership.
The immigration policies of the USSR led to a drastic influx of Russians, eventually skewing the ethnic composition of the republic. With non-Kazakhs becoming the majority, the use of the Kazakh language declined and would only see a revival after the dissolution of the USSR. The Russian language would become the Lingua franca and dominant language. Other immigrant nationalities in the SSR included Ukrainians, Germans, Kyrgyz, Belarusians, Koreans, Tatars, and Uyghurs. Kazakhs mixed well with the immigrants and helped create an inclusive multi-ethnic state. The Kazakh SSR had the highest concentration of Germans in the entire country. Post Kazakh independence, many of these immigrants have chosen to emigrate to countries like Russia, Germany and Ukraine.