PRO MEMORIA FOR THOSE WHO LEFT IRRETRIEVABLY: BIRMUKHAMED AIBASOV

Abstract

Among the greatest catastrophes of an anthropogenic character in the 20th century alongside with the world wars, a “worthy” place is occupied by large-scale repressive actions of the Soviet State against its people. Therefore, recollecting the names of those innocently shot or who died in the camps and special settlements of the GULAG according to the judgments of “specified conventions of the NKVD”, “triplets of the OGPU” and other extrajudicial bodies does not lose its relevance (actuality) at present. One of the true, faithful patriots of the Kazakhnative land, whose name is undeservedly forgotten is Birmuhamed Aibasov. He belongs to the galaxy of talented, energetic individuals who had a deep inner desire for active transformative activities, high self-sacrifice for achieving the goal -improving the life of their people. Side by side with Magzhan Zhumabayev, Mirjakyp Dulatov, Saken Seyfullin and other distinguished representatives of Kazakh intelligentsia with whom for many years B. Aibasov was bound by ties of friendship and joint social activities; he had shared the fate of many “enemies of people”, whose only “fault” was high benevolence and courage, inability to stay scared and quiet watching lawlessness and arbitrariness going on around. Being a supporter of democratic reforms in Kazakhstan in the pre-revolutionary period, B. Aibasov was one of the most successful managers-agrarians in Soviet times. Tragic events of the early 1930s, connected with hunger and high mortality of the aul population in the Kazakh steppe, inspired the students of the Moscow Agrarian Institute of Red Professors, including B. Aibasov, to write a letter to I. Stalin in 1933 “On the Activity of the Kazakhstan Party Organization” known as “Letters of six”. It describes the scale of human catastrophe -mass deaths of Kazakhs, being a consequence of collectivization and subsidence of nomadic and semi-nomadic farms, expropriation and death of socialized livestock, inaction and indifference of local officials and the ignorance of terrible facts by the official authorities. This highly moral, civil act did not remain without consequences. In 1938, by the decision of the visiting session of the Military Collegiums of the Supreme Court of the USSR, B. Aibasov was shot.