Letter to Grigori Sokolnikov, March 11, 1927

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National Aspects of Politics in Kazakhstan

To Comrade Sokolnikov:

Grigory Yakovlevich:

I am sending you some notes which are the result of my discussion with two Kazakh Communists. I do not know if you are familiar with relations in Kazakhstan. At any rate you can draw certain conclusions by analogy with Turkestan.

[copy not signed]

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In a meeting to discuss matters in their area, the Kazakh comrades put forward the following considerations:

1. The borderlands are lagging behind. Their rate of development should be increased so that they come closer to the level of development in Moscow, not fall more and more behind Moscow. Here we have, then, the general problem of the rate of development refracted in a special way.

2. Capital investments in the backward parts of the Soviet Union give no promise of bearing fruit very quickly. Hence the passive, and sometimes even active, opposition of the central bureaus to such investments.

3. Kazakhstan’s participation in the directing agencies of the Russian Republic “has no tangible effect at all.” Apparently there is a tendency favoring separation and adoption of the statutes of an independent republic.

4. There are complaints against the resettlement policy of the central authorities: The Kazakh masses were attracted to Soviet power by the revolution on the land; “encroachment” on Kazakh lands causes immediate alarm. “We are not against the resettlement policy, but first of all, the land needs of the native population must be satisfied.”

5. “When we raise the question of Kazakhstan’s interests in regard to land and other matters, the answer we get is, ‘What are you trying to do, get revenge for the tsarist policies?’ They have little confidence that we, as Communists, are capable of approaching such questions from the viewpoint of the general interests of the state.”

6. The point of view that prevails in the government offices is that of old-time specialists, who still go by the traditions of the past when deciding all economic and cultural questions in the borderlands.

7. A layer of national Communists has arisen, but the leaders sent from the center give them no opportunity for advancement. “They think we haven’t grown up yet.”

8. Between the European and Kazakh Communists there is a wall. They live totally apart. They do not even play chess together,

9. The European Communists carry out the general line of the center. Among them there are no disputes or clashes on grounds of principle; the explanation given for this is their “indifference.”

10. Among the nationals, on the other hand, things are bubbling. There are various groupings among them. The existence of these different groupings is supported and even cultivated by the leaders sent from the center. For what purpose? “First, to strengthen their own domination; and second, to use these internal differences to divert attention from the problems connected with the policies of the center.”

11. Among the Kazakh Communists there are three groupings: one around Goloshchekin — people who are always and in all things obedient to orders from above; another — a “left” grouping, which also supports Goloshchekin but, as I understood it, remains somewhat independent of him; and a third — a “right” grouping, to which my visitors belonged. Moreover, members of the “left” grouping sometimes join the “right.”

12. What are the differences? “They reproach us for supposedly being opponents of the poor peasants and protectors of the beys, but we are ready to carry out any intelligent measures against the beys, if the leadership would propose these clearly and precisely.”

13. “Goloshchekin stated in one speech: ‘A small-scale October must pass through Kazakhstan.’ What does that mean? He did not explain; he did not propose any concrete measures. We do not see any differences of principle, or even practical disagreements, concerning internal policies in Kazakhstan. All this is artificially encouraged in order to mask the question of relations with the Russian Republic.”

14. The second comrade said: “The center of gravity in this question consists in the different attitude of the Goloshchekin group toward the aul (Kazakh village) on the one hand and toward the Russian village on the other. Goloshchekin’s opinion is that the Russian kulak has been weakened and put down sufficiently but that the beys have hardly been touched. For that reason a new October must pass through the auls. In other words, Goloshchekin preaches civil peace in the Russian village and civil war in the aul."

15. “We are suffocated by bureaucratism, which assumes forms that are all the more repulsive because of the wall between the European and the Kazakh Communists. Fear, hypocrisy, and informing play a big role.”

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In this account of the situation there is much that is unclear. The reference to the Russian village and the aul is of course especially important. What is going on here? It seems that the “right” grouping is being accused of a pro-kulak deviation. Is that true? Couldn’t it be that some administrators, denying the existence of a pro-kulak deviation in general, discover one all the more easily in the backward regions, thus patching up their “left” reputation and at the same time making their job of administration easier for themselves?

Vladimir Ilyich said that the Russian Communists in the borderlands should function as helpers. Some of these helpers won’t let those they are “helping” utter even a peep.

In general it seems that because of the low level of social differentiation in the milieu itself, the ideological groupings among the Communists must inevitably be fluid and unstable in character. This makes it easier than ever to label someone a member of a “right” or “left” faction. However, the possibility is by no means excluded that in the process of fighting against the bureaucratism of the center, elements of national-bourgeois ideology may emerge locally.

It would be good to send young and capable nationals of the more backward populations abroad for a closer acquaintance with the class struggle. [With experience only] in our country, they almost immediately develop a governmental-administrative frame of mind.