Bermet Kerim kyzy History of Kazakhstan Assignment 2

Alash Orda movement and the changes in the steppe it brought. Kazakh national intellectuals began active movements on the Kazakh steppe during the first decades of the twentieth century. This intelligentsia had formed a new movement of national intellectuals named Alash. Members of the Alash strove to bring Kazakh steppe to autonomy from Russian governing bodies. They have proposed the program of the party and stated their vision of autonomous state in different aspects such as questions of religion, taxation, land, education etc. Program proposed by Alash representatives proposes changes on the way of life of the steppe that were unprecedented traditionally. However, in their proposals the party does not deny the way of life of the steppe that has existed before. Therefore, there arises an ambiguous question about the purpose of such actions and how it could be evaluated. There is strong evidence that the actions undertaken by the party were modernist, though contained elements of preserving the way of life common to the population. This paper aims to identify what were the pure motives of the party through analysis of the set of primary documents about Alash Orda and information regarding the land question, judicial system, education and taxation. Alash party pays strong attention to the land question in their program, as well as during the meetings with official representatives of power. Their main aim in this question was return of the lands on which Russian peasants did not settle yet, or such called unused lands, and stoppage of the land seizure. In their claims they gave preference to the local population, which should be allotted with land first1. In their program they declare that the form of land ownership would not change and tribal (rodovoy) type of possession will return. Nor individual family could own the land; also the land could not be sold or bought. This evidence shows them as people fighting for the old way of life and arguing for the type of administration that would be much like the way they have accustomed2. However, even though part of their claims could be interpreted differently, in all documents reader can see something common, particularly, in Protocol Soveshaniy, representatives of national elite claim that land management system would be changed and principle of smeshannoe zemstvo, elective management body, could be applied3. The same principle they describe in their program, where land ownership is described as the land possessed by the government and is administrated by zemstvo4. Thus, on the question of the land administration Alash party proposed innovative for the steppe solutions, which, however, contained some elements of the way of life with which people are familiar. The next issue discussed by the Alash in the set of primary documents is the question of the judicial system. Alash members claim that laws should be unique and equal for all people despite their age, sex and nationality. Judges should be selected from the local population. The main reason for that, as stated by the party members, was the concern about Kazakh people who were suffering from judges unfamiliar with the traditions and language of the local population. As the judges Alash party sees the
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Alash Orda, 90 Alash Orda, 91 3 Alash Orda, 141 4 Alash Orda, 91

people who were performing similar duties traditionally on the steppe, i.e. national judges, biis (Court of each nation should be in accordance with its common practice5). From this evidence it could be argued that Alash party was more a traditionalist party which wanted to renew the previous foundations which were authoritative among local population. However, the main system and laws according to which this system has to be performed were proposed to be modernist. Despite the traditional part remaining as component of the judicial system, legal foundations and the core claims of the party, such as equality were innovative and unprecedented for the steppe. This makes the representatives of Kazakh national intelligentsia modernizers of the steppe laws and people who strived to bring positive changes on to the Kazakh territory. Besides changes in land and judicial questions, Alash Orda autonomy proposed new ways of taxation, specifically proportional distribution depending on the income, also modernized educational system by implementing new schoolbooks and methods. In their program that stated that the taxation system that would be implemented should be done in accordance with the income of the people. This is a progressive system for those times, because it regarded the interests of poor people, who were now supposed to pay less. In the questions of education they also proposed changes, such as public education available for all people6, new universally accepted standards for books (common rules of writing), creation of the general educational program7. In addition, they also considered the women question8. For the steppe laws where position of women in the society was undermined that was a progressive idea. However, despite all the evidence that characterizes them as modernizers, evidence for their reference to the habitual way of life could be also found. For example, regarding the taxation system, even though they propose new system, they also keep the pokibitochnyi sbor, or fixed tax from each family, of colonial times9. The Alash Orda was an autonomous state that emerged on the territory of Kazakhstan at the beginning of the twentieth century comprised of the national intellectual elite. These elite fought for the new state with the modernized way of arranging different spheres of the steppe life. However evidence suggests that the Alash Orda members could not disregard the common way of life on the steppe. But there arises a reasonable question of the motives which made them to take into account familiar, habitual way of life. The reason, possibly, is simple. They understood that for people on the steppe common foundations could not be changed promptly. Therefore, they had to leave traditional ways of judging, land use to some extent as it was historically. It seems like they were changing the core foundations of the steppe life, however they try to preserve the semblance of the old way of life to which people are accustomed. The semblance of the stability should hide the drastic changes in the steppe life which would accompany the establishment of a new autonomous state on the territory of Kazakhstan.

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Alash Orda, 89 Alash Orda, 90 7 Alash Orda, 57 8 Alash Orda, 60 9 Alash Orda, 92

Reference List Martynenko, N., 1992. Alash Orda. Sbornik documentov. Almaty: Aikap