Karakol Communist Khojahon Shorukov

In those years, the ideological processing of the public and the escalation of mass psychosis in the republic were fueled by "exposé" articles in the central printed organ of the party — "Pravda".

Many, very many, had their fates broken and lives shortened by these articles. Here is a list of articles from the newspaper "Pravda" for the second half of 1937, after each of which a wave of repressions followed: on August 31, Kyrgyz correspondent of "Pravda" V. Ovcharov wrote "Bourgeois Nationalists"; on September 13 — "The Rotten Politics of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kyrgyzstan"; on September 20, via telegram from special correspondent V. Khodakov — "District Party Organizations Criticized by the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Kyrgyzstan" and a number of others. But time possesses an invaluable quality: it blows away the chaff of slander in the winds of history and restores from oblivion the faces of those who gave their lives for freedom and service to the people. The passage of time only magnifies and brings their images closer. Among such historical figures is the name of Khojakhan Shorukov — one of the first organizers of the Komsomol in the Prissykul region and a party leader. Unfortunately, many pages of his life and biography remain unknown. However, the available information allows us to recreate the image of one of the honest and devoted communists who actively participated in the struggle for the consolidation of Soviet power in Kyrgyzstan.

Khojakhan Umurzakovich Shorukov was born in May 1903 in the Karakol district in the family of a poor peasant. Contrary to his parents' wishes, on the advice of his older brother, he enrolled in a Kyrgyz old-method school in another village and, as he writes in his biography, "from the age of 10, during the spring and summer, he worked for local landlords, helped plow, and was a shepherd, while in winter he studied in a native school."

After his parents migrated to China in 1916, he was left alone and was forced to serve the Karakol district chief Ivanov for a piece of bread.

In early 1917, the district chief fled to Moscow and took the boy with him, later handing him over to another official in Tashkent.

Here, in July 1918, Khojakhan Shorukov accidentally met comrade Torchinskaya, who had arrived from Moscow for party work. At her request, he was accepted into the Turkestan Cheka as a courier and later as a translator. It was here that Shorukov joined the ranks of the RCP(b) (in 1919).

In the same year, he entered the Tashkent Party-Soviet School, where he participated in the work of the 1st Turkestan Regional Congress of the Komsomol as a delegate from the Przhevalsk district, as well as in the work of the 2nd Congress of the RCSM in Tashkent.

After graduating from the party school, Khojakhan Shorukov worked in the Komsomol organization of the Tashkent district.

To be continued...

First Secretary of the Kyrgyz Oblast Committee of the VKP(b) - Belotsky Moris Lvovich