Introduction of the passport system in Kazakhstan in 1932–1940: historiography, sources and campaign algorithm

Abstract

The study of the policy and practice in the field of introduction of the passport system and migration control for the population is in demand in terms of assessing the experience of implementing a large national project and the causes of discriminatory and repressive policies. The article provides a comprehensive assessment of foreign and Kazakh historiography on the history of passporting in the USSR in the period 1932–1940. The heuristic possibilities of different types of sources, including records of the police, executive authorities, statistics and mass media for studying the process of passporting are shown. Based on the sources identified in Russian and Kazakh archives, the algorithm and stages of introduction of the passport system in Kazakhstan are specified. It is established that the republic was included in the passporting project in the status of a nonregime territory since the fall of 1933, the issuance of passports lasted until the spring of 1935. The status of a regime territory for the city of Alma-Ata and the alienation zone of the Turkestan-Siberian Railway was issued in the late 1930s only. The completion of the process of passport exchanges, which had begun in 1936, refers to the same period. An analysis of the policy and practice in the field of passporting showed that the Soviet passport system performed repressive functions, such as forced evictions from cities, restrictions on
rights on passport backgrounds, etc. A conclusion was made that introduction of the passport system in Kazakhstan delayed due to the famine that struck the republic from 1931 to 1934 and the large-scale migration of the population that followed