31.05.2022

Secretary of State of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Erlan Karin, spoke about the results of the work of the State Commission for the Full Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression in an interview with MIA Kazinform.

- Erlan Tynymbaevich, The State Commission for the Full Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression began its work in November 2020. The corresponding Decree of the President of the country was adopted. What potential has its work gained over this period, and what resources have been involved?

- The State Commission is a large-scale scientific project. Since the beginning of its implementation, a new stage has been opened for the study of our history of the period of the 20-50s of the XX century, a detailed restoration of the chronicle of tragic events and the preservation of the historical memory of the people of Kazakhstan who suffered during the years of totalitarianism.

For this purpose, systematic and multifaceted work has been built on the basis of the State Commission.

Firstly, significant academic and expert potential has been consolidated around the study of issues of repression.

Various scientists and even individual teams previously actively studied this issue, but these efforts were scattered. Therefore, under the auspices of the State Commission, all the main representatives of the scientific and expert community involved in studying the history of repression were united.

Today, 316 scientific experts are actively working in the working groups of the State Commission, 261 of whom are authorized to work in closed archives. In addition, in each region, the work of local commissions is organized according to a single format, which brings together a total of more than 500 people.

Secondly, a clear methodology for organizing search and research work has been built.

The process of studying the history of repression requires a scrupulous and comprehensive approach. Each material, each case is not just a folder with data that can be taken from the archive and shown to the public. This is the history of an individual or group of individuals, which requires scientific study to form an objective assessment based solely on facts.

At the initial stage of the work of the State Commission, most of the documents and materials on the repressed were in various archives of the country and were not systematized. Moreover, many documents remained classified, and access to them was limited.

Therefore, the State Commission has developed unique methodological approaches for the rapid search of historical documents in various archival funds and the organization of their qualitative comparative analysis.

Scientists from the working groups of the State Commission, based on a special methodology, were trained to work with closed funds both in the center and locally. Thus, a corps of researchers has been formed who are able to effectively work with specific funds simultaneously throughout the country.

Thirdly, various government bodies and departments were oriented towards assistance in fulfilling the tasks of the State Commission.

They provide significant assistance and help to our scientists in research and analytical work. Scientists have been granted access to previously inaccessible and classified materials and funds. Special offices have been created in departmental and state archives, and archival personnel have undergone special training to provide advisory support to representatives of the State Commission.

All organizational and administrative issues were resolved to make it possible to simultaneously study, search, and compare materials in archives in all regions of the country.

- What results have been achieved to date in the activities of the State Commission?

- The State Commission was called upon not just to obtain some factual material. It was important to build systemic mechanisms for research activities and launch legislative processes on its basis.

Today, the results of the State Commission’s activities are expressed both in actual data and in specifically structured business processes. In particular, thanks to an effective system of searching and analyzing archival materials, a large layer of historical documents was identified and systematized in chronological order.

This work has been carried out in more than 60 state and departmental archives in all regions of the country. Using a wide representation of attracted scientific experts, the State Commission provides prompt search, classification of documents, and their formation into a single knowledge base.

In addition, the decisions of the State Commission contributed to the development and effective coordination of interdepartmental work on declassifying documents related to political repression. The resources of the General Prosecutor's Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the National Security Committee were targeted at these processes.

Over the past period, the General Prosecutor's Office has declassified more than 2.4 million materials, the National Security Committee - more than 1.5 thousand archival files and documents, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs - more than 5.3 thousand documents.

As part of the activities of the State Commission, the Prosecutor's Office identified new data and, through prosecutorial supervision, more than 250 thousand citizens were rehabilitated. These are mainly people from among the exiles and special settlers.

This became possible thanks to the potential of the Presidential Decree of 2020, which created the necessary conditions so that prosecutors could rehabilitate victims without the fact of special application. Whereas the current law “On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Mass Political Repression” provided for a turnout character. This means that the victim himself or his relatives had to contact the authorized authorities.

In order to create favorable opportunities for further study and research of declassified materials, a Center for the Study of Archival Materials was created. On its basis, the main layer of archival materials on the history of repressions from all archives of the country is systematically concentrated and systematized.

The Center's employees carry out scientific processing, restoration, and digitization of incoming declassified documents from departments. Each departmental archive prepares and submits its materials to the Center according to a special schedule. At the moment, the Center has received about 50 thousand such materials, and this work continues systematically.

Thus, a single state fund for storing all historical material relating to the era of repression in the 20th and 50s of the 20th century is being formed. This will greatly facilitate the further work of scientists and research groups with materials on this topic.

The State Commission has also organized journalistic activities.

In order to scientifically document the results of research work, under the auspices of the State Commission, a series of publications of scientific collections based on historical materials have been launched. At the moment, two such collections have already been published, containing information about organizational and administrative documents that served as the basis for repression. This series of publications will continue throughout the year and will constitute the academic fund of the activities of the State Commission.

Another form of work in this area was the creation of a special portal on which the State Commission database is posted and updated.

This resource combines and scientifically systematizes previously scattered, unclassified materials and data on rehabilitated Kazakhstanis, but is not publicly presented.

Thus, a publicly accessible data source with the necessary information about the repressed is being formed, which will be regularly updated. All these measures are designed to restore the honorable names of repressed Kazakhstanis and give sufficient grounds to descendants that their ancestors were not enemies of the people.

- What priorities do you see in the activities of the State Commission for the coming period, and how will further work on rehabilitation be structured?

- I want to emphasize that the main task of the State Commission was not the one-time rehabilitation of all victims who were subjected to repression in the 20th and 50s of the 20th century. This is the function of the courts and the Prosecutor's Office.

The State Commission is called upon to create the necessary legal, organizational, scientific, and analytical basis for carrying out systematic work on rehabilitation.

Based on the conclusions and developments of the State Commission, the relevant bodies and authorities will organize their work, rehabilitating new categories of Kazakhstanis who were not previously subject to the relevant laws.

At the moment, the work of the State Commission is entering the home stretch. The main tasks of searching and creating databases for preparing opinions and improving legislation have actually been formed. Then the work of the State Commission is planned to be completed. According to the current schedule, this should happen before the end of this year.

- After the official termination of the work of the State Commission, will the processes launched as a result of its activities continue?

- The State Commission was initiated as a platform designed to systematize research processes and prepare the necessary potential to restart rehabilitation processes.

At the same time, the entire methodological infrastructure created on the basis of the decisions of the State Commission will, to some extent, be preserved and continue to operate. Now the main administrative and methodological body of the State Commission is its Project Office. It will be organizationally transformed and will begin to carry out methodological and consulting activities on the basis of one of the analytical institutes.

The open digital database of those repressed will continue to be replenished, as will a series of publications of scientific collections. In addition, support will continue for scientists and researchers for their research in the field of repression under the approved targeted funding program until 2023.

Source: Interview with the Secretary of State on the results of the work of the State Commission for the Full Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression