The Peaceful Selfless Labor of Kyrgyzstanis in the Pre-War Years
Multinational Workforce of Industrial Workers and Engineering and Technical Intelligentsia on the Eve of War
In the process of creating the material and technical base of socialism, multinational cadres of industrial workers and engineering and technical intelligentsia were formed and grew. On the eve of the war, 165.3 thousand workers and employees were engaged in industry, transportation, and construction, in MTS and state farms of Kyrgyzstan, including 36,078 industrial workers compared to 1,445 in 1913. The share of workers of the indigenous nationality significantly increased. In 1939, they made up 20% of the mining industry, 15% in metallurgy, 13% in textiles, 14.6% in leather, 17.7% in food, and 12.3% in printing.
The incorporation of small individual peasant farms into public production based on Lenin's cooperative plan transformed our agriculture into a large, multi-sector mechanized socialist economy. By 1940, 98.7% of peasant farms were collectivized, and the process of settling nomadic herders was completed. The republic had 1,732 collective farms (which united 184,359 peasant households with a population of 868,408), 36 state farms, and 65 MTS.
In the spring of 1941, there were 5,182 tractors, 1,050 grain harvesters, many other agricultural machines, and 2,607 trucks working in agriculture. A large army of managerial, organizational, and mechanization personnel emerged — chairpersons of collective farms, foremen, farm managers, link leaders, accounting workers, tractor drivers, harvesters, and mechanics. In the pre-war year, there were 11,300 mechanizers in the collective and state farms of the republic, including 10,000 tractor drivers, harvesters, and 1,300 drivers.
The socialist reconstruction of the village put an end to the century-old extensiveness of agriculture and ensured its higher commodity production. In 1940, the gross harvest (barn yield) in all categories of farms in the Kyrgyz SSR amounted to: grain — 5,885 thousand centners compared to 4,358 thousand centners in 1913, raw cotton 950 thousand centners compared to 283 thousand, sugar beets (introduced during the first five-year plan) — 6,284 thousand centners, potatoes — 1,053 thousand compared to 188 thousand centners.
As is known, before the revolution, there were no schools in the Kyrgyz language, and no newspapers or books were published in it. The literacy rate of the indigenous population was 0.6%, and these were mainly representatives of the bai-manap elite.
During the course of socialist construction, the spiritual life of the Kyrgyz people underwent a fundamental transformation, and their culture flourished — national in form, socialist in content, and international in character.
A clear indicator of the successes in the cultural revolution is the rise of public education. In the 1940/41 academic year, there were 1,645 general education schools in the republic, covering 329 thousand students, which is 47 times more than in 1914. The literacy rate of the adult population exceeded 70% in 1939.
In an incredibly short time, cadres of a new, truly popular intelligentsia emerged from workers and peasants. On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, 532 engineers, 956 agronomists, more than 190 veterinarians, 12,830 teachers, 357 writers and journalists, and 296 artists were employed in the national economy and culture of the republic.
In 1924 (on the seventh anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution), the first issue of the newspaper "Erkin Too" ("Free Mountains," later "Soviet Kyrgyzstan") was published in the Kyrgyz language. In 1926, the Kyrgyz State Publishing House was established. In 1940, 69 newspapers and magazines were published in the republic, and 350 book titles were released, including 174 in the Kyrgyz language, with a total print run of 1,283 thousand copies.
One of the greatest achievements of Soviet power was the liberation of women, integrating them into all spheres of economic, socio-political, and spiritual life of the country. By 1940, the share of women employed in industry in Kyrgyzstan was 37.2% of the total number of workers and employees, and in agriculture, it was 46% of able-bodied collective farmers participating in public production. Among the deputies of the first convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR elected in Kyrgyzstan, there were 7 women, including labor leaders sugar beet grower S. Kainazarova and Sh. Tezekbaeva, dairy worker F. A. Strelnikova, and calf feeder K. Alymkulova. In 1938, 64 patriots were elected as deputies to the Supreme Soviet of the Kyrgyz SSR, and 4,139 women were elected to local councils.
The successes in the development of the national economy and culture of Kyrgyzstan were accompanied by a fundamental improvement in the material well-being of the working people. Wages for workers and employees increased, poverty in the village disappeared, the income of collective farmers grew, the retail trade network expanded, housing construction increased, and cities, ails, and villages were improved.
In the process of socialist construction, the Communist Party and its Leninist Central Committee had to conduct a decisive struggle "against attempts by counter-revolutionaries to use the legacy of past national enmity, bourgeois nationalism, and great-power chauvinism for their own purposes, and against the resistance of national deviationists within the party."
As a result of deep qualitative transformations, the actual inequality of previously backward peoples, including the Kyrgyz, and their economic and territorial disunity were eliminated. In 15 years of its development, the Kyrgyz people made a historical transition from a patriarchal-feudal system to socialism, created their national Soviet statehood, and consolidated into a socialist nation. These successes became possible thanks to the comprehensive assistance provided to them in economic, political, and cultural development by more developed peoples, primarily the Russian people.
The example of Soviet Kyrgyzstan brilliantly confirmed V. I. Lenin's foresight that "with the help of the proletariat of advanced countries, backward countries can transition to the Soviet system and through certain stages of development — to communism, bypassing the capitalist stage of development." The historical experience of socialist development, bypassing capitalism, accumulated by the Kyrgyz people together with other fraternal peoples of Soviet East, has universal historical significance. It serves as a model for many peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America who have thrown off the yoke of colonialism and have begun to build a new life.
The peaceful selfless labor of Soviet people in the pre-war years took place against the backdrop of a sharp intensification of the international situation and the growing threat of imperialist aggression. In March 1938, Hitler's troops occupied Austria, and a year later, as a result of the treacherous Munich policy of the ruling circles of England and France, aimed at directing fascist aggression eastward against the USSR, Czechoslovakia was dismembered. In April 1939, Italian troops captured Albania.
In the Far East, after the occupation of the northeastern provinces of China and the establishment of a strategic frontier for further aggression, Japanese militarists invaded Soviet territory near Lake Hassan in 1938 and in 1939 — the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic near the Khalkhin-Gol River.
In this complex international situation, the XVIII Congress of the VKP(b) took place in March 1939. Approving the foreign policy of the Soviet state, the congress defined its main tasks: to continue the policy of peace and strengthening business ties with all countries, to exercise caution and not allow provocateurs to drag our country into military conflicts, and to strengthen the combat power of the Soviet Armed Forces and international ties with the working people of the world.
Industrial Progress in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan on the Eve of the Great Patriotic War
