Editing Kazakhstan (section)

=== Kazakh SSR ===
{{Main|Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic}}
[[File:Stanitsa Sofiiskaya.jpg|thumb|Stanitsa Sofiiskaya, [[Talgar]], 1920s]]
[[File:Young Pioneers in Kazakh SSR.jpg|thumb|[[Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union|Young Pioneers]] at a Young Pioneer camp in the Kazakh SSR]]

Following the [[October Revolution|collapse of central government]] in [[Saint Petersburg|Petrograd]] in November 1917, the Kazakhs (then in Russia officially referred to as "Kirghiz") experienced a brief period of autonomy (the [[Alash Autonomy]]) before eventually succumbing to the [[Bolsheviks]]' rule. On 26 August 1920, the [[Kirghiz Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic (1920–25)|Kirghiz Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic]] within the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]] (RSFSR) was established. The Kirghiz ASSR included the territory of present-day Kazakhstan, but its administrative centre was the mainly Russian-populated town of [[Orenburg]]. In June 1925, the Kirghiz ASSR was renamed the [[Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic|Kazak ASSR]] and its administrative centre was transferred to the town of [[Kyzylorda]], and in April 1927 to [[Almaty|Alma-Ata]].

Soviet repression of the traditional elite, along with forced [[collectivisation]] in the late 1920s and 1930s, brought [[famine]] and high fatalities, leading to unrest (see also: [[Famine in Kazakhstan of 1932–33]]).<ref>{{cite journal |url= http://zhe.stanford.edu/spring05/Kazakhstan2.pdf|url-status= dead|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060903203830/http://zhe.stanford.edu/spring05/Kazakhstan2.pdf|archive-date= 3 September 2006|title= The Kazakh Catastrophe and Stalin's Order of Priorities, 1929–1933: Evidence from the Soviet Secret Archives|author= Simon Ertz|date= 2005|journal= Stanford's Student Journal of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies|volume= 1|pages= 1–12|access-date= 1 June 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author= Pianciola, Niccolò |url= http://monderusse.revues.org/2623?file=1 |title= Famine in the Steppe. The collectivization of agriculture and the Kazak herdsmen, 1928–1934 |journal= Cahiers du monde russe |year= 2004 |volume= 45 |pages= 137–192 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20151023090501/http://monderusse.revues.org/2623?file=1 |archive-date= 23 October 2015 |df= dmy-all }}</ref> During the 1930s, some members of the Kazakh intelligentsia were executed – as part of the [[Political repression in the Soviet Union|policies of political reprisals]] pursued by the Soviet government in Moscow.{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}

On 5 December 1936, the [[Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic]] (whose territory by then corresponded to that of modern Kazakhstan) was detached from the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]] (RSFSR) and made the [[Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic]], a full [[Republics of the Soviet Union|union republic]] of the USSR, one of eleven such republics at the time, along with the [[Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic]].

The republic was one of the destinations for exiled and convicted persons, as well as for mass resettlements, or deportations affected by the central USSR authorities during the 1930s and 1940s, such as approximately 400,000 [[Volga Germans]] deported from the [[Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic]] in September–October 1941, and then later the [[Greeks in Kazakhstan|Greeks]] and [[Deportation of the Crimean Tatars|Crimean Tatars]]. Deportees and prisoners were interned in some of the biggest [[Gulag|Soviet labour camps]] (the Gulag), including [[Akmol|ALZhIR]] camp outside Astana, which was reserved for the wives of men considered "enemies of the people".<ref>[http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2007/01/01/2003342918 Children of the gulag live with amnesia]{{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303223853/http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2007/01/01/2003342918 |date=3 March 2016 }}, ''Taipei Times'', 1 January 2007</ref> Many moved due to the policy of [[population transfer in the Soviet Union]] and others were forced into [[involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union]].

[[File:International conference on Primary Health Care - Conferencia Internacional sobre Atención Primaria de Salud - Almaty -1978.jpg|thumb|The International Conference on Primary Health Care in 1978, known as the [[Alma Ata Declaration|Alma-Ata Declaration]]]]

The [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Soviet-German War]] (1941–1945) led to an increase in industrialisation and [[mineral extraction]] in support of the war effort. At the time of [[Joseph Stalin]]'s death in 1953, however, Kazakhstan still had an overwhelmingly agricultural economy. In 1953, Soviet leader [[Nikita Khrushchev]] initiated the [[Virgin Lands Campaign]] designed to turn the traditional pasturelands of Kazakhstan into a major grain-producing region for the Soviet Union. The Virgin Lands policy brought mixed results. However, along with later modernisations under Soviet leader [[Leonid Brezhnev]] (in power 1964–1982), it accelerated the development of the agricultural sector, which remains the source of livelihood for a large percentage of Kazakhstan's population. Because of the decades of privation, war and resettlement, by 1959 the [[Kazakhs]] had become a minority, making up 30 percent of the population. Ethnic [[Russians]] accounted for 43 percent.<ref>Flynn, Moya (1994). ''[{{GBurl|id=YLeAxHLmgR8C|p=15}} Migrant Resettlement in the Russian Federation: Reconstructing 'Homes' and 'Homelands']'' Anthem Press. p. 15. {{ISBN|1-84331-117-8}}</ref>

In 1947, the USSR, as part of its [[Soviet atomic bomb project|atomic bomb project]], founded an [[Semipalatinsk Test Site|atomic bomb test site]] near the north-eastern town of [[Semey|Semipalatinsk]], where the [[RDS-1|first Soviet nuclear bomb]] test was conducted in 1949. Hundreds of nuclear tests were conducted until 1989 with adverse consequences for the nation's environment and population.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/kazakhstans-painful-nuclear-past-looms-large-over-its-energy-future/275795/|title=Kazakhstan's Painful Nuclear Past Looms Large Over Its Energy Future|last=Keenan|first=Jillian|newspaper=The Atlantic|language=en-US|access-date=27 January 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202233241/https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/05/kazakhstans-painful-nuclear-past-looms-large-over-its-energy-future/275795/|archive-date=2 February 2017}}</ref> The [[Anti-nuclear movement in Kazakhstan]] became a major political force in the late 1980s.

In April 1961, [[Baikonur]] became the springboard of [[Vostok 1]], a spacecraft with Soviet cosmonaut [[Yuri Gagarin]] being the first human to enter space.

In December 1986, mass demonstrations by young ethnic Kazakhs, later called the [[Jeltoqsan]] riot, took place in Almaty to protest the replacement of the [[General Secretary|First Secretary]] of the [[Communist Party of Kazakhstan|Communist Party]] of the Kazakh SSR [[Dinmukhamed Konayev]] with [[Gennady Kolbin]] from the [[Russian SFSR]]. Governmental troops suppressed the unrest, several people were killed, and many demonstrators were jailed.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Putz|first=Catherine|title=1986: Kazakhstan's Other Independence Anniversary|url=https://thediplomat.com/2016/12/1986-kazakhstans-other-independence-anniversary/|access-date=2021-01-05|website=thediplomat.com|language=en-US|archive-date=28 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328214923/https://thediplomat.com/2016/12/1986-kazakhstans-other-independence-anniversary/|url-status=live}}</ref> In the waning days of Soviet rule, discontent continued to grow and found expression under Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]]'s policy of ''[[glasnost]]'' ("openness").

{{anchor|Independence}}