Views of national leaders on the policy of delimiting nation states in Central Asia

Abstract

The article examines the views of the Kazakh intelligentsia in connection with the policy of the national-state demarcation of Central Asia, pursued by the Soviet government in the 20s of the last century. During the political campaign of demarcation, perspectives of M. Shokai, who opposed to the Soviet policy, were indicated, along with Bolshevik national intellectuals’ viewpoints. Soviet government totally controlled the process of demarcation of the national borders; it opposed to the unification of the fraternal nations of Central Asia and created a separate republic for each nation. However, some Bolsheviks were against this political campaign of demarcation. For instance, S. Kozhanov, who opposed to the government’s unilateral decision, supported the idea of creating “federal state formation” in this region and T. Ryskulov favored the idea of preserving Turkestan ASSR. Their perspectives were also reviewed in this article. The Soviet authorities did not support the views of national intellectuals who were in favor of including Tashkent city, which was the political and economic center of Central Asia, to the territory of the Kazakh ASSR. The policy of
demarcation was decided unilaterally by the Soviets, without considering the views of the Kazakh intelligentsia. The USSR authorities quickly abolished the Turkestan ASSR by dividing it into nation states and completed entirely this division campaign in 1924.