World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseThe Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was established in 1920 as an autonomous republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic with the capital situated in Orenburg (now in Russia). The capital was moved to Kyzylorda in 1925 and then Alma-Ata (now Almaty) in 1929. In 1936, the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic was formed as one of the republics of the Soviet Union; with a land area of 2,717,300 square kilometers, Kazakhstan was the second largest of the Soviet Union. The 1930s saw several famines in Kazakhstan, which were blamed on Joseph Stalin's collectivization efforts. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, many Soviet industries were relocated from areas west of the Ural Mountains to the eastern side, and Kazakhstan became the host to many of them. Large groups of Crimean Tatars, Germans, and Polish were relocated to Kazakhstan during this time as well, many of whom forcibly. After the war, Kazakhstan remained under Soviet control until the formation of the independent Republic of Kazakhstan in Dec 1991.