The further the stage of Stalin's repressions moves away, the more closely one looks at the written evidence of that cruel time. In particular, the memos of the commissioners were deposited in the archives.

A curious fact: in the summer months of 1930, the rector of the Kazakh State University (now KazNPU named after him) was seconded to the North Kazakhstan region. Abaya) Sanjar Jafarovich Asfendiarov. As a communist (he joined the party in 1919), a member of the KazTSIk and a candidate for the Kazkraikom, he obeyed the order and left for his destination.

He had to work in Beynetkorsky (now Akkayinsky) district in the northernmost region of the republic. His biographers hardly mention this, whereas a professional doctor, an experienced organizer of higher education, a publicist and author of books, Asfendiyarov turned out to be an eyewitness and a participant in the campaign for the so-called "settling" of Kazakhs. For the progress of reporting and details of its organization, see // Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Almaty). F. 141. Op. 17. d. 769, etc.

Being an executive person, Asfendiyarov compiled a report note and sent it to Kyzyl-Orda. The paper got lost in the office and was revealed by us this year as a source on the history of one of the saddest stages passed by the Kazakh people, when the traditional foundations bequeathed by great-grandfathers were crumbling: to wander according to a cycle adapted to the climatic and hydrological conditions of the region. Instead, Kazakh families were forced to "settle down", and under the threat of punishments, confiscation of property, mainly consisting of livestock.

So, S. Asfendiarov reported in writing about what he saw in Kazkraikom, at the same time briefly describing his subsequent actions. The original of his handwritten note is kept in the former party archive. // AP RK. F. 141. Op. 1. d. 3318.

It is impossible to read this letter without a shudder. The inhabitants of the region had to, following the peremptory instructions of local "activists", move to waterless places where it was not possible to graze and water cattle, loans were not allocated in a timely manner. The principles of summer and winter animal husbandry were also violated.

All these "measures" not only questioned the success of the "settling", which was, in fact, violent, but also threatened impoverishment and mass famine. Which happened inevitably, in 1933-1934.

We will cite the letter in full, as the testimony of an eyewitness and a person with an analytical mindset. Asfendiarov, a Kazakh, a native of Tashkent, a Genghisid, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy, a participant in the First World War, as mentioned above, a doctor, at one time director of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow, rector of KazGU, states the facts with bitterness and bewilderment:

"The Regional Committee of the CPSU (b).

On the progress of work on the settlement of the Kazakh population of the Petropavlovsk district.

Upon receipt of the telegram of the Regional Committee (the Regional Commission for Settling. – auth.) I was summoned from the district and arrived in Petropavlovsk on July 6. The state of work on subsidence paints a picture, quite correctly given in the telegram of the Regional Committee and the SNK, namely: the state of affairs is such that it threatens to completely disrupt the planned work plan. This state of work is explained by the following reasons:

1) The issue of subsidence has not been sufficiently worked out by either regional or district organizations. Carefully looking through the "operational" plans of the regional and district committees, you can see on many pages the departments described at length: land management, repair business, field breeding, animal husbandry, etc. with a number of figures. One thing is missing: practical, concrete instructions on how to start work, what to focus on, how to link and outline the sum of measures by which it would be possible to master the movement of the masses in settling, to organize them.

2) As a result of what has been said, the whole work turned out to be completely inconsistent, incoherent. The agitation campaign was carried out by the districts at the end of April and May, was not accompanied and was not consolidated by practical measures.

Land management and hydraulic engineering surveys are only now being deployed, it became known about the loan to settling farms and its size, the procedure for issuing it only at the beginning of July. Since the work is carried out through a large number of organizations: okrZU, kolkhoz union, kolkhozstroy, kazlesprom, okrzhivsoyuz, consumer cooperation, agricultural bank, okrono, etc., it was extremely difficult to link the work of these numerous institutions and the management of the settling business did not have a sufficiently flexible and combat organization.

3) Issues of land management and hydrotechnical surveys have caused and still cause special difficulties. The land management plan was exclusively focused on identification (according to the NKZEMA plan, up to 1,500 000 hectares were to be allocated). Therefore, land management parties were exclusively engaged in this matter, and the calculation of the OKRZ was that with a decrease in the norm and the withdrawal of surpluses, the Kazakh population would be forced to move to settlement itself. The result was the following: a huge part of the letovki (dzhailau) were designed by the OKRZ, as a fund, for state farms, and the population should be relocated from this territory. What will be the ratio of land in settled places is unknown, and the population risks being left without hayfields. I personally found out this phenomenon, working before my recall in the villages of Beynetkorsky district. Further, the okrZU designed the settled points according to the data of the continuous land management of the past and 1928; this gives too small a unit (in the size of a large part of one or several households) of a maximum of 60-80 farms. For a large number of farms, it is not known whether there is enough water; in addition, additional settlement in many places causes inconveniences and defects: due to the remoteness, etc. In addition, the negative effect of continuous land management lies in the fact that estates were indicated to the population, often broken up, and now it is necessary to revise these points anew. Hydraulic engineering surveys are an even greater brake. There are few drilling machines; water conditions in many areas are very unfavorable, surveys are late, and without them it is risky to start construction at the designated points.

4) Extreme confusion and confusion with the harvesting of timber. Soyuzles forbade giving out the forest without its outfits, meanwhile, there are no outfits for settling. Therefore, logging was extremely slow and so far the forest was brought only to one housing and economic center Sholak-Doschan /Beynetkorsky district/. The rest of the forest is partially on the way, and most of it has not been taken due to misunderstandings with Kazlesprom. I had to take responsibility for the issue of the outfit, without the sanction of the Union. We need to settle this issue.

5) The issue of loans. Recently, the final amount of the loan for the farm was found out: 240 p. - poor and 120 p. - middle (...)".

If you comment on the realities of those years, then, judging by the letter, Beynetkorsky district was planned as the best, in which 100 percent subsidence was planned. For this purpose, additional measures were carried out with the invitation of specialists-surveyors and hydrologists, to determine the places of occurrence of aquifers.

"Troikas were created for the most crucial areas and assigned land and hydraulic engineering parties with their transfer to these areas to work exclusively in them," Asfendiarov continues. - These districts are: Enbekshildersky, Kyzyl-Askersky and Beynetkorsky. In the Oktyabrsky district, we are starting the construction of a housing and economic center - Bastau, in Tonkereisk - a housing and economic center in Zharkyn."

Zharkyn is the name of the settlement, it still exists. Asfendiyarov planned to visit all the districts of the region listed by him in the letter, hoping to somehow ease the situation of the Aulchans. Unfortunately, it was easy to do it on paper and in the quiet of the offices. Life showed different results, the consequences of ill-conceived "campaigns" for ordinary Kazakhs turned out to be deplorable, and by the mid-1930s the system began to fail altogether, and then the search for the culprits of "excesses", "enemies" began.

Throughout the Union, signs of a "counterrevolutionary Trotskyist gang" were explained at party meetings, political days, lectures, loud readings, and activists. The campaign to "expose" gained momentum after the mysterious murder of S.M. Kirov. This cup did not bypass the cities of Akmolinsk, Karaganda and Petropavlovsk, which were part of the region. The tragedy soon unfolded: circulars from the Central Committee demanded to discover and expose the "counter-revolutionary" elements. This attack did not bypass the northern region either.

On September 10, 1936, the secretary of the North Kazakhstan Regional Committee of the CPSU (b) Ammosov from Petropavlovsk reported to Alma-Ata: "The Regional Committee sent a closed letter on all party organizations, compiled on the basis of the lessons of the trial and the mistakes of the City Party Organization of Petropavlovsk, mobilizing the party organization to expose Trotskyist-Zinovievist encroachments, strengthening Bolshevik vigilance and raising all party work". (AP RK. F. 141. Op. 17a. d. 7. L. 39)

The period of identification of persons who "did not correspond" to communist views in Northern Kazakhstan fell in the autumn of 1936. The party's directives were brought to every regional and district committee. They were carried out with diligence, the regional committee even compiled a list of so-called Trotskyists. Twenty surnames. Basically, they were representatives of the intelligentsia who arrived in Kazakhstan a year earlier from the central cities of the Union.

This can be judged by a letter from the leadership of the region, under the heading "Top secret" in Kazkraikom addressed to the head of the ORPO T. Asrieva:

"... At your request, we inform you that in 1935, according to the vouchers of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), 20 former Trotskyists-Zinovievites arrived in our region (old borders) from Leningrad and Moscow, the latter were distributed by districts. Among other "Trotskyists" was mentioned, for example, Yakov Semenikov - he worked as the chairman of the District Plan of the Beynetkorsky district, was excluded from the ranks of the CPSU (b) when checking party documents, is in the Beynetkorsky district."

In fact, the fate of most of the list of "twenty Trotskyists in the North Kazakhstan Region" turned out to be connected with Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. As a result, some of them were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment in camps, some were sent further, and the rest received capital punishment… Curiously, out of the total number of 43 "Trotskyists" identified in the republic, in 1936, the "North Kazakhstan" twenty made up almost half.

Once included in the lists of the OGPU/The NKVD Soviet citizen could practically not justify himself. Even if the party "purge" was just dismissal, then a few years later (in the USSR in 1937, as a rule), he was detained again and was no longer released. This is how the repressive flywheel worked....

Rector of the only state university in the republic, a respected scientist, author of a textbook on the history of Kazakhstan, Asfendiarov, like all party members, had to obey the decision of the party leadership and indirectly participate in the "settling" campaign, in his heart understanding the hopelessness of the Aulchans and protesting, if possible, against the anti-human fracture of the economy.

...History lessons teach the observance of the moral norms of the hostel, respect for natural resources and meaningful handling of the traditions of farming on earth.

With his letter, truthfully, without victorious relations and the usual fraud at that time, S. Asfendiarov outlined his personal opinion, honestly expressing all the pain of bullying a simple villager. This document characterizes him as a courageous and truthful person, first of all. It was not by chance that he shared the fate of the repressed, being arrested in Moscow, transferred to Almaty and shot on February 25, 1938.

Studying the documents, it is important to find real names and testimonies, deeds and notes in which an elementary protest was expressed, albeit not always clearly expressed, but an alternative to "directives". It's worth a lot when a person remains able to voice sound judgments and opinions. This means that he has not lost his dignity and can stand up for the weaker ones. Such was Sanjar Asfendiyarov…