The Silent Steppe by Mukhamet Shayakhmetov

The author details how his childhood was turned upside down with the beginning of collectivization.

If only the authorities had put a temporary halt to this and helped the victims of the famine instead! But no, our peoples’ Government had to live up to the slogans it had invented to speed up the industrialisation process.' All public capital, State gold reserves and other revenue went on buying foreign equipment for major construction projects. The author points out,' Not until much later did it come home to me that in 1931-34, when millions of people were dying of starvation in Kazakhstan and other parts of the USSR, the Soviet Government was still pursuing its policy to industrialise the country with reckless and ruthless intransigence. In Kazakhstan, it was accompanied by the eradication of the way of life of local nomads who were accustomed to living freely and not staying in one place for long. The famine in Kazakhstan mainly caused by forced collectivization bears a strong resemblance to the famine in Ukraine, which is known as the Holodomor.

The latter also exacerbated the depth of the tragedy.

Mukhamet Shayakhmetov articulates that those policies, regardless of how they had been initially meant, were carried out without required preparational work and with many transgressions committed by local officers. Among those who were put into jail, deported, and eventually died was the father of our author. Many people designated as 'kulaks' were put into jail or deported. The USSR embarked on the road of turning all farmers in the country into hired workers totally dependent on the State. The famine claimed the lives of more than one million people in his homeland. The situation was aggravated by the bad harvest in Kazakhstan in the early 1930-s, according to the author. Those policies led to a catastrophic decline in agricultural production. Owning a horse may be regarded as a crime. The regime under Stalin declared a fight against the class of presumably well-off farmers who were labeled kulaks. This term refers to Soviet policies aimed at disbanding individual farms and turning them into collective farms owned by the State. His childhood coincided with collectivization. The author recalls his childhood and youth in Soviet Kazakhstan and highlights the entirety of that heartbreaking experience. The final chapter details the journey home that Mukhamet Shayakhmetov undertook after he had been discharged from the army due to his medical condition (the author was severely wounded near Stalingrad). It ends during WWII in which the author participated as a soldier in the Red Army. The account begins with the events in the late 1920-s and early 1930-s during the time of collectivization in the Soviet Union. The book is divided into three parts: Class Enemy, Famine, and War.

The Silent Steppe by Mukhamet Shayakhmetov