THE SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY AND THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY

THE QUESTION OF KAZAKHSTAN’S HISTORY 45
Along with him, K. Satbaev was another of the Kazakh intellectuals
also accused. He wrote letters to Stalin, to CP Central Committee
Secretary G. Malenkov, and to Kazakhstan CP Central Committee
Secretary J. Shaiakhmetov, insisting that he was libeled. X. Abzhanov,
who works on Kazakh intellectuals’ life, published new documents
about K. Satbaev. 57
One example is the letter written by K. Satbaev, then president of
the Academy of Sciences in the Kazakh SSR. In the letter, we see that
the Bolsheviks wrote frequently during his life about movements that
“Did not fit with Soviet Society”, and subsequently used against him
during his prosecution. Included in that process was the rumor that
in 1927 rumor he published about Edige, that he filled the Academy
of Sciences with foreign people, that he propagandized for the nationalist
“Alash Orda” in 1917, and other such accusations. Regarding
the accusations about Alash, K. Satbaev explains:
This accusation is based on the point that my name appears in the
“Saryarka” newspaper’s November 9, 1917, issue, within the list of ‘The
people who were sent by Alash Orda in 1917, in order to propagandize
for the Alash Orda Party among the people’. I did not see this issue
before the autumn of 1951, and in the autumn of 1917 I was in the
hospital due to tuberculosis. Later I came back to my village for treatment.
At that time, I was 18 years old and I did not know anything
about politics. I have no idea why and how my name was written
in an Alash Orda newspaper. In my opinion, Alash Orda might have
written my name in the newspaper because they tried to gain the
few Kazakh intelligentsia and students, and I was a student too. Or
perhaps it is related to my uncle’s son Abikei, who was a member of
Alash Orda. I never propagandized for Alash Orda, and if I would have
such actions it would be easy to figure out from that era’s archives,
on contrary I wanted this issue to be researched on a detailed way. 58
He repeated those opinions in his other letters also.
As it can be understood from Prof. K. Satbaev’s letters, the accusations
against him about being related to the Alash party proves
the Bolshevik intention to exterminate Kazakh intellectuals. As it is
certain from historical sources, his uncle’s son Abikei Satbaev, worked
in the Eastern part of the Alash Orda Party.
As he also stated, along with those accusations, the Propaganda
Department’s Chief of the Central Committee of the Kazakhstan Com-
57 Nazarbayev, G. - Abzhanov. H., Qazaqstan: Tarih pen Tagdır, Almatı: “Kitap baspası”, JŞS,
2003.
58 Ibid.