SOME ASPECTS OF DISSENT AMONG THE YOUTH OF KARAGANDA IN 1940-1945

Abstract. Introduction. This article examines the activities of a group of young people whose childhood coincided with the period following the formation of the Soviet political system after the establishment of the USSR. Some young people, having experienced numerous social upheavals during their school years and shaping their worldview while attending higher education institutions, formed alternative perspectives. Their activities are analyzed in the context of changes in the socio-political life of Soviet society during 1940–1945. This study is based on official source documents and the archival collections of the Special State Archive of the National Security Committee Department for Almaty City, the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Archive of the Karaganda Regional Department of the Committee on Legal Statistics and Special Records of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the State Archive of the Karaganda Region, and the Archive of the M.O. Auezov Institute of Literature and Art, reflecting the characteristics of “dissent” among some of the youth of Karaganda regarding the policies of the Soviet Union in 1940–1945. The article aims to examine the history of certain Soviet youth in Karaganda during the first half of the 1940s, whose opposition to the policy being motivated them to form underground organizations. The objectives of this publication are to provide a brief historiographical overview of the issue; to analyze the gender, age, and ethnic composition of youth organizations with alternative views; and to identify connections between the underground activities of some young people in Karaganda and similar processes in other regions of the Kazakh SSR. The results of the study show that the socio-political changes in 1940–1945 had different impacts on the development of the worldview of Soviet youth in Central Kazakhstan. Implications. Dissent among young people during the period under consideration can be broadly divided into two phases: before the war and after the war. Within these two periods, the underground youth organizations “Soyuz”, “Razlagateli” and “ESEP” (“Elin suygen erler partiyasy” – Party of Heroes Who Love the Motherland) were identified by the NKVD through its agent networks in Karaganda. Conclusion. Although the majority of young people supported the Soviet government's policy, a group of young people with alternative views joined together in underground organizations, reflecting the general trends of dissent within the region’s strict system of political control and surveillance.