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January-March 2013 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume V., Issue 1. _____________________________________________________________________________________ There is a certain amount of medical truth to above mentioned assertions, but the emphasis on the overriding significance of economic conditions reflects a peculiarity of Soviet medicine that served the political purpose of buttressing the regime’s economic agenda in Kazakhstan and across the USSR, and of asserting the superiority of Socialism over Capitalism. 44 The Soviet government stood as the saviour of the non-Russian peoples from Czarist capitalist exploitation. Both at the center and in the periphery, numerous authors blamed the Czarist system and wealthy native clan leaders for carrying out a policy of neglect designed to keep the Kazakhs and other minorities ignorant, uncultured, and physically weak for the sake of colonial domination. 45 Because of these limitations, Kazakhs were “ignorant of doctors prior to the Revolution”, while the nomadic encampments and villages on the eve of World War II, had developed an enormous network of public health institutions. 46 Not only the facilities were created in a big way but the medical care that was available after the Revolution was free.” 47 Probably more so than health propaganda, positive experiences with biomedicine played an important role in cultivating reliance on Soviet medical workers. When officials opened a clinic or hospital, the local population did not immediately flock to medical professionals for assistance. Rather, medical workers had to build trust gradually within the community by demonstrating the effectiveness of biomedicine and of their own skills. A 1936 newspaper article states that a hospital maternity ward in Aktyubinsk helped only six Kazakh women deliver their babies in 1933, while most Kazakhs ‘ran to Shamans for help.’ Within two years hospital workers had eroded much of the community’s distrust and assisted two hundred women per annum. 48 Even though the number of hospital beds expanded from 3,767 in 1928 to 16,290 in 1941 yet most were concentrated in Slavic urban and industrial areas, and thus were beyond the reach of the region’s indigenous population, which was often served by itinerant medical teams that passed through nomadic and semi-nomadic encampments for a few days or weeks at a time. Nevertheless in agricultural areas, the state established temporary clinical facilities to serve collective farmers during harvesting and sowing seasons. Among other duties, these young, temporary medical cadres bore responsibility for transmitting health awareness to Kazakhstan’s villages. 49 The effective biomedical work and propaganda won the support of the Kazakhs for growing familiarity of biomedical practices to take advantage of clinical facilities. Periodic visits from medical personnel traveling through rural Kazakh areas had awakened the local population’s interest in scientific medicine, which won the faith of this population for the doctor (Picture 5). Furthermore the dramatic economic and socio-political changes, right from the First Five-Year Plan in 1928 to the Union’s entry into World War II in 1941, forged a ‘New Soviet Man’, through interventionist cultural policies, 44 Soviet Communism: A new Civilization, pp. 696-697. 45 Paula A. Michaels, Journal of the History of Medicine, p. 318. 46 Paula A. Michaels, The Russian Review, Vol. 59, p. 171. 47 Centrally published pamphlets aimed at the general public emphasized how many hospital beds, doctors, hospitals, and midwives served Kazakhstan, testifying the party’s devotion to ordinary, working class men and women; Paula A. Michaels, The Russian Review, Vol. 59, p.175. 48 Paula A. Michaels, The Russian Review, Vol. 59, p. 175. 49 Paula A. Michaels, The Russian Review, Vol. 59, pp. 318-322. _____________________________________________________________________________________ © Copyright Mikes International 2001-2013 66
January-March 2013 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume V., Issue 1. _____________________________________________________________________________________ collectivization campaign, industrial and educational developments and the States efforts 50 to undermine traditional healers and supplant them with biomedical workers was that allowed Kazakhs to take increasing advantage of clinical facilities where in sanitation education work also played an important role in this shift. Picture 5. Local pediatric clinic, Almaty, Kazakhstan Improvements in Health After the Revolution, and until World War II, health and hygiene conditions of Kazakh people indicate that the State had accomplished its objective of lowering rates of infectious diseases. On the occasion of the 25 th anniversary of the October Revolution in 1942, numerous public health officials asserted that the Revolution had washed away all the evils of the Tsarist past. 51 In subsequent decades, dramatic improvements in the field of health were undoubted. By 1960-61, there were 1620 general hospitals in Kazakhstan with 77,000 hospital beds, 560 polyclinics, 704 health posts, 34 medical and 50 After 1930, the Soviet government began forcing the nomadic Kazakhs to settle on collective and state farms, and the Soviets encouraged large numbers of Russians and other Slavs to settle in the region. During this period Kazakhstan endured repeated famines. At least 1.5 million Kazakhs and 80 percent of the republic’s livestock died. Thousands more Kazakhs tried to escape to China, Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey; however, most of them starved in the attempt; Toregeldy Sharmanov, “History of Kazakhstan”; c.f. Kazakhstan Demographic and Health Survey 1999, Kazakhstan, 2000, p.2. 51 S. A. Chesnokov, Kazakh Commissar for Public Health claimed that the “The Great October Socialist Revolution transformed the face of old Russia. Colonial exploitation of Kazakhstan, with its darkness, ignorance, and cultural backwardness has disappeared forever.”His deputy, Tleugabylov, enthused that, “casting off the chains of their damnable past, a friendly family of Kazakhs including many others marched hand in hand with the great Russian people along a vast, bright path [to the future].” c.f. Paula A. Michaels, The Russian Review, Vol. 59, p.173. _____________________________________________________________________________________ © Copyright Mikes International 2001-2013 67
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