The Newspaper “Free step” — Historical Source of the Workers' Movement

Abstract

This article examines the labor movement in Kazakhstan, based on an analysis of historical sources found in the State Archives of the Pavlodar Region. The periodical “Free Step” newspaper was analyzed, along with its digitized issues, including issue number 5 from 1917 and issues 2 and 29 from 1918. The periodical press attracts researchers with an abundance of factual material, thanks to which one can glean a large amount of information about the events of that period and study the political and social mood of the population. The authors studied collection 699, a collection of personal origin — the collection of Kuzma Semenovich Tyurin,
namely file 307, “Extracts from the newspaper Svobodnaya Steppe for 1917 made by K.S. Tyurin in the Pavlodar State Archives,” which provides information on the economic situation of the region’s workers, on the first attempts at protest — street riots and civil unrest. Through a historiographical analysis, the authors compare the extent to which the labor movement has been studied in the works of researchers from different periods. The relevance of this research is determined by contemporary phenomena, where workers continue to play a vital role in the country’s economic development. The authors of the article come to the conclusion
that the study of socio-political movements (late 19th century – early 20th century) based on new unpublished historical sources makes it possible to understand the characteristics of the labor movement in the region. An analysis of historical documents shows that the workers’ movement in Kazakhstan was political and economic in nature, thus influencing the overall situation of radical changes in society.