PARTICIPATION OF ETHNIC SPECIAL SETTLERS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF VIRGIN LANDS IN KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

The plowing of virgin and fallow lands in the East of the country was the largest agrarian reform of the Soviet state in the 1950s and 1960s, in which people of different nationalities took part. There are many works in Soviet historiography that consider various aspects of the history of virgin lands. However, due to the ideologization of Soviet historical science and the limited access of researchers to party archival funds, the problems associated with attracting people who were deported to Kazakhstan in the 1930s and 1940s to labor processes in the virgin lands remained unexplored. Based on the analysis of declassified archival documentary materials, the article considers the issues of participation of ethnic special settlers in the development of virgin lands. Data from the collections of Kazakhstan archives on the number, national composition and settlement of special settlers in the virgin regions of Kazakhstan: Akmola, North Kazakhstan, Pavlodar, Kostanay and Kokchetav. On the basis of previously unknown archival documents, the level of involvement of special settlers in the labor processes for plowing virgin land and developing virgin farms in Northern Kazakhstan, their attitude to agricultural labor is analyzed. In a comparative aspect, the article considers the economic and living conditions of special settlers and virgin lands, who, unlike special settlers, arrived on the virgin land within the framework of the state program, received material and financial support from the state. Analyzing the policy of the Soviet state in securing special settlers in virgin areas in order to use their labor in agricultural production, the authors note the activation of social and political work among the deportees by local authorities. According to the authors, changes in the legal status of ethnic special settlers and their gradual rehabilitation were carried out in the context of solving state tasks to involve special settlers in labor processes on virgin land. After studying interethnic contacts in the virgin lands, the relationship between virgin lands and special settlers, the authors came to the conclusion that the policy of the Soviet state in relation to both complicated the processes of socialization of special settlers and determined the features of the formation of virgin identity in Kazakhstan.