Attempts to Start the Process of Political Rehabilitation and Restoration of Repressed Citizens’ Rights in Kazakhstan during the Era of the Khrushchev “Thaw”

Abstract

The article deals with the attempts of the beginning of the rehabilitation and restoration processes of the violated constitutional rights of citizens in the Kazakh SSR, which began with N. Khrushchev’s report at the XX Congress of the CPSU. After Stalin’s death, the USSR leadership understood that the atmosphere of the “great terror” resulted in a high level of the hidden social tensions over the whole of Soviet society, and its exacerbation may lead to unpredictable consequences. Based on archival materials, the article provides examples of the former party, Soviet and Komsomol workers of Kazakhstan who returned from camps and exile and presented the live evidence of the tragedy that befell them. This evidence filled out the picture of mass repression in Kazakhstan in 1937–1938 with some details and directly called out the actors of the “Stalinist terror” process, which has been mainly impersonal. The article talks about the role of those persons who supplied the ideological support of the repression of the 1930s in Kazakhstan and sanctioned lawlessness. Many of them held important positions in the Communist party government of Kazakhstan, Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR and other fields of the press, education and culture after 1956. Knowing about the people returning from the camps and exile, they attempted to set obstacles in the way of the anti-Stalinist course in social and political life of the Republic. Speaking about the attempts of the victims of Stalinist tyranny to restore their constitutional rights, the article does not avoided the role of the Kazakh SSR KGB, in whose hands the iniquity 1930s-1950s lay. The restoration and strengthening of the rule of law, the return of state security authorities to the legal field has become one of the main objectives of Soviet leadership in the era of Khrushchev’s “thaw”.