Alash Orda
알라시 오르다
The Kazakh autonomy of Alash, founded by the Second All-Kazakh Congress in Orenburg in December 1917, and its provisional People’s Council, or government. Chaired by Alikhan Bukeikhanov, with its capital at Semipalatinsk, it sought national autonomy within the Russian republic and for most of the Civil War sided with the White governments. After coming to terms with Soviet power in 1919, it was abolished by the Revolutionary Committee for the Kirghiz Territory on 5 March 1920.
In depth
Kazakh intellectuals, Bukeikhanov among them, had worked with the Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) since 1905, but after the February Revolution Bukeikhanov broke with the Kadets when they would not support Kazakh autonomy. In April 1917 a Kazakh congress convened in Orenburg by Bukeikhanov, Akhmet Baitursynov and others demanded that lands confiscated by the old regime be returned to the native population and the new settlers expelled, that local schools be handed over to natives, and that the conscription of 1916 be ended. According to the Russian-language source, the First All-Kazakh Congress in July founded the Alash party. “Alash” names the union of the three Kazakh jüz and is used as a synonym for Kazakh. After the October Revolution the Second Congress, held on 5–13 December 1917 O.S. (18–26 December N.S.), created the autonomy of Alash and elected a 25-member People’s Council, the Alash Orda, with ten seats reserved for non-Kazakhs. At Bukeikhanov’s urging the formal proclamation of autonomy was postponed while the situation was studied, and the capital, Semipalatinsk, was renamed Alash-kala. In early 1918 the leaders had to hide in the steppe from the Red Army.
After the revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion put most of the steppe in anti-Bolshevik hands, the Alash Orda declared all Soviet decrees on its territory void on 11 June 1918 and allied itself with Alexander Dutov in Orenburg, the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) in Samara and the government in Omsk. In June a Kazakh cavalry detachment entered Semipalatinsk. Komuch formally recognised the Alash autonomy in early September, but on 4 November the Ufa Directory abolished all autonomies, and Alexander Kolchak, who seized power soon afterwards, was firmly opposed to national autonomy. Cold-shouldered by the Whites, the leaders began talks with the Soviet government in the spring of 1919; Baitursynov’s supporters in Turgay recognised Soviet power first, Baitursynov urged the other leaders to break with the Whites, and the western branch recognised Soviet power on 10 December 1919. The Alash Orda was abolished in March 1920, and in August the Kirghiz (Kazakh) Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic was founded. The compromise with the Bolsheviks was later discarded, and the label “Alash Orda nationalist” became grounds for the repression of the Kazakh intelligentsia; Bukeikhanov was shot in 1937.