Alash

Alash 

a counterrevolutionary bourgeois-nationalist organization in Kazakhstan which existed from 1917 to 1920. It expressed the class interests of rich landowners, feudal lords, and the emerging Kazakh bourgeoisie.

Alash, which was formed in 1905 by members of the Kadet Party, took shape politically at the first “All-Kirghiz” congress in Orenburg, held July 21–26 (Aug. 3–8), 1917. Its program, ideologically based on Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism, called for the bourgeois autonomy of Kazakhstan and defended the patriarchal and feudal order’s slow adaptation to the conditions of bourgeois society. In its struggle against the revolutionary workers’ movement, Alash joined forces with the Russian bourgeoisie and the foreign imperialists.

At the second “All-Kirghiz” counterrevolutionary congress, Dec. 5–13 (18–26), 1917, in Orenburg, the autonomous “government” of Alash-Orda was formed, headed by A. Bukeikhanov; it decided to create an armed force. Alash formed branches in the Ural’sk, Turgai, and Semipalatinsk regions and established close ties with the counterrevolutionary “Kokand autonomy” and the Bashkir nationalists. By deceit and demagoguery, Alash-Orda managed to gain some followers among Kazakh workers in 1917–18. Alash-Orda detachments joined the White Guard armies under Dutov, Kolchak, Annenkov, and others. The Communist Party successfully solved the problem of politically isolating Alsh: in the course of the Civil War the Alash-Orda detachments were smashed, and its “government” was liquidated in March 1920 by the Kirghiz (Kazakh) Revolutionary Committee.

REFERENCE

Istoriia Kazakhskoi SSR. Alma-Ata, 1967.

T. ELEULOV