The colonial character of Soviet statehood in Kazakhstan: the system of governance

Abstract

Apologists for the USSR often point to the fact that local ethnic elites, justifying the non-imperial character of the Soviet system of government, dominated the republics, including Kazakhstan. "Local leaders who, by agreement with Moscow-Center, received a fairly high degree of autonomy in dealing with internal affairs, while remaining, of course, fully loyal to basic Soviet principles," writes S. Abashin in an article with the telling title "Soviet = Colonial?". (For and Against)". [1, с.34]. E. Rudyk, Professor of the Department of Digital Economy at Dubna State University, speaking at the Round Table of the magazine "Alternatives" stated that the USSR cannot be called an empire on the grounds that Russians as "the people forming the state, cementing the country" did not have any privileges, on the contrary, representatives of non-Russian ethnic groups had privileges in the national republics [2].

Let us see how real the power of local political elites was and how the practice of "center-periphery" relations in Kazakhstan differs from similar practices in other colonial empires. The core of the political system during the entire existence of the Soviet Union was the Bolshevik Party (since 1918, the Russian Communist Party). - Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), since 1925. - All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), since 1952 - the Communist Party of the Soviet Union). Accordingly, the heads of the regional party organization performed the role of regional political leader, duplicating and replacing the constitutional authorities in the form of Soviets. From the very establishment of Kazakhstan as an autonomous unit, mainly appointees from the Center headed the party organization.