FORMATION OF THE PASSPORT SYSTEM IN ALMATY IN THE 1930`s

Abstract

The history of the Soviet passport is not so straightforward, but it is equally interesting from an interdisciplinary perspective, due to the multi-valued functionality of the document. The passport system and the Soviet passport, introduced in 1932, legitimized the official dossier and limited the rights of Soviet citizens by a 100-kilometer border line, dividing them into groups of trustworthy and unreliable. Passportization and the passport regime determined the tacit marking of Soviet society by introducing mass registration and control over the movement of the population. Previously, the above-mentioned function of the passport in the former Tsarist Russia was recognized by the Bolsheviks as anti-democratic, the passport was abolished by the new Soviet government because it limited the rights and freedoms of the population.

The formation of a single passport system in the Kazakh ASSR / SSR was logical due to the fact that the republic was an integral part of the Soviet state and played an important role in the implementation of large-scale industrial programs. The economic transformation of the Kazakh village, coupled with a humanitarian catastrophe, as well as a combination of internal and external migrations of the population, determined specific differences in the formation of a single passport space.  The significance of the proposed author's topic, such as the formation of a passport system in the capital of the republic in the city of Alma-Ata, is undoubted, on the one hand, as the formation of new historical knowledge on a problem that had not previously received a detailed study, which is confirmed by the analysis of Kazakhstani historiography, and on the other hand, the introduction into scientific circulation of new archival documentary sources that can arouse interest among professional researchers at the junction of interdisciplinary connections, actualize issues of the social history of passportization.

The purpose of the presented scientific article is to show, using the identified archival materials, how the process of formation of the passport system in the capital of the Kazakh Autonomy, the city of Alma-Ata, was carried out and to identify its features that influenced the social mobility and adaptation practices of the local population.

As a result of the author's research, unique materials were introduced into scientific circulation, revealing the formation of the passport system in Alma-Ata, the algorithm for the formation of the passport space was described, the strategic priorities of the city government were identified, aimed at passportization primarily of industrial enterprises and cleaning the city from unreliable, socially harmful elements.

The authors believe that the passport system and the passport regime introduced in Alma-Ata played the role of a toolkit of social engineering, designing a new Soviet society, adapting it to the new rules of community life and tying it to the place of permanent residence, limiting mobility.