Zhanbosinova Albina S.,
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Department of History of Kazakhstan, S. Amanzholov East-Kazakhstan State University, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Republic of Kazakhstan, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Boris Chirkov and Lev Zalin: on the Biography of the NKVD Leaders of the Kazakh SSR
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2019-1-7
The article is devoted to the problem of political repression in Kazakhstan during the years of the NKVD mass operations in 1937–1938. The history of political repression consists of two parts: the former includes the perpetrators of terror, the latter - its victims. While the history of terror’s victims is represented by a significant set of research publications, the history of its perpetrators, with regards to the personal history of the NKVD staff, has not been studies adequately. When writing the article, the author relied on the biographical documents of the NKVD officers and the archival and investigative files of the repressed. For the first time, informative materials are introduced into the scientific circulation, revealing the pages of the biographies of the NKVD leaders of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, who in 1938–1940 turned out to be under investigation for alleged violation of socialist legality. The author tried to uncover the procedural algorithm of the investigative measures, to bring the facts of violations committed by the investigators of the NKVD. The content of the cited documents testifies to the fabrication of investigative cases by the KGB, the falsification of the materials of the investigation, as well as the use of physical violence and moral and psychological humiliation against the arrested. All the operational and investigative activities of the NKVD were subject to the orders of 1937–1938, instructions and circular documents, where targets for mass operations were prescribed, including regional statistics. The latter gave the investigative process the character of socialist competition, an analogue of the Stakhanov movement. The study shows the Great Terror in the interweaving of life trajectories of punitive bodies’ employees and victims of terror.
Publishing: 26/02/2019
How to cite: Zhanbosinova A.S. Boris Chirkov and Lev Zalin: on the Biography of the NKVD Leaders of the Kazakh SSR // Historical Courier, 2019, # 1 (3). Article 7. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2019/ISTKURIER-2019-1-07.pdf
Links: Issue 1 2019
Keywords: Boris Chirkov; Lev Zalin; political repression; East Kazakhstan; the NKVD; physical violence; falsification