To the discourse on historical assessments of the Russian-imperial and Soviet experience of modernization in Kazakhstan

Abstract

The article makes arguments that seem to be able to justify the failure of the Russian-imperial and Soviet models of modernization in Kazakhstan. As for the first experience, of course, it is not understood here in the sense and quality of the deliberately given and purposeful desire of tsarism to fulfill its supposedly «messianic-civilizing role». By it is meant a certain by-product or involuntarily associated «product» mediated by imperial colonial policy. In connection with the Soviet experience, it is concluded that it was based (if we bear in mind the socio-cultural aspect, which essentially determines the quality of modernization) on the foundations of an
agrarian-traditional society, albeit in his deeply transformed, i.e. modified by «socialist» introductions, form. And therefore, in many respects had quasi-modernization results. It should be noted right away that the article considers the purely social and economic aspects of «modernization», while its cultural and educational projections are omitted here, because they require special consideration.