Soviet politician
Turar Ryskulov
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Born
| (
1894-12-26
)
26 December 1894
[1]
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Died
| 10 February 1938
(1938-02-10)
(aged 43)
[1]
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Nationality
| Kazakh
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Citizenship
| USSR
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Occupation
| politician
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Turar Ryskululy Ryskulov
(
Kazakh
:
Т?рар Рыс??л?лы Рыс??лов
,
T?rar Rysq?l?ly Rysq?lov
; Russian: Турар Рыскулович Рыскулов; 26 December 1894 ? 10 February 1938) was a
Soviet
politician, the chairman of the Central Electoral Committee of the
Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
.
[2]
Ryskulov was born on 26 December 1894 in East-Talgar volost of Semirechensk Province (now
Talgar District
of
Almaty Region
), in the family of a nomadic herder. He took part in the
Central Asian revolt of 1916
and then in the
Russian Revolution
in
Turkestan
and
Kyrgyzstan
. After the Red Army had taken
Tashkent
in 1920, he was appointed Chairman of the Central Executive Committee (ie 'President') of the
Turkestan soviet
republic, which then included all of Russian-ruled Central Asia. Ryskulov proposed that Turkmenistan should be an independent republic ruled by a Turkic Communist Party, separate from the All-Russian Communist Party. This proposal was overruled by
Lenin
, who summon Ryskulov to Moscow in May 1920 and persuaded him to abandon the idea.
[3]
In 1921-22, Ryskulov was appointed Deputy People's Commissar for Nationalities, under
Joseph Stalin
, who was People's Commissar. In June 1923, Stalin accused him of 'pan-Turkism' and of having been a supporter of
Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev
, the leader of the Tatar communists, who was under arrest. Ryskulov retorted by pointing out that Stalin had himself praised Sultan-Galiev as a devoted communist, before the political situation changed.
[4]
In 1922, he returned to Tashkent and was Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Turkestan republic until 1924, when the region was divided into four republics ?
Kyrgyzstan
,
Tajikistan
,
Turkmenistan
and
Uzbekistan
.
In 1924, Ryskulov was transferred to the staff of
Comintern
and was posted in
Ulaanbaatar
as chief soviet adviser to the Mongolian People's Party, in which capacity he assisted in the creation of
Mongolian People's Republic
. In 1926-37, he was deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian republic.
Arrest and death
[
edit
]
Ryskulov was arrested during the
Great Purge
, on 21 May 1937. He was tried and sentenced to death on 8 February 1938, and was executed two days later.
[5]
Legacy
[
edit
]
Ryskulov was '
rehabilitated
' on 8 December 1956, meaning that the criminal case against him was invalidated, though soviet sources continued to accuse him of 'political errors'.
Today he is considered a national hero and honored with a large statue at the entrance of Kazakhstan Economic University in Almaty, which was renamed the Turar Ryskulov University. The
Turar Ryskulov District
and the city of Imeni Turara Ryskulova in Kazakhstan are named after him, and there are streets named after him in all of Kazazhstan's major cities.
References
[
edit
]