Батыс тарихнамасындағы Қазақстандағы ұжымдастыру мәселесі: теориялық-әдіснамалық тәсілдер мен олардың қолданылу мүмкіндігін салыстырмалы талдау

Abstract

The article analyzes the specific features of the interpretation of the problem of collectivization in Kazakhstan in Western historiography. The main object of the study is not the reconstruction of the concrete historical course of collectivization itself, but the theoretical and methodological approaches, interpretive models, and research perspectives that have developed in Western scholarly literature on this issue. In this context, the article examines the content of the totalitarian, revisionist, and post-revisionist approaches aimed at explaining Soviet agrarian policy, their main differences, and the extent to which these approaches can be applied to materials related to Kazakhstan. The study shows that interpretations of collectivization in Western historiography have not been uniform or linear. Different research traditions explain this problem through the nature of the Soviet state, the relationship between state power and society, the character and limits of violence, the role of social agency, regional specificity, and the logic of imperial governance. In the article, these approaches are considered not as fixed historical conclusions, but as different methodological tools that make it possible to understand the problem of collectivization from several analytical perspectives. Western studies devoted to Kazakhstan make it possible to expand the historiography of collectivization beyond general Soviet models and to examine it in connection with regional specificity, the nomadic and semi- nomadic economy, sedentarization, the transformation of traditional social structures, and questions of imperial governance. Through these works, collectivization in Kazakhstan appears in Western historiography not merely as a local example of Soviet agrarian policy, but as an important regional direction that helps clarify the broader mechanisms and consequences of Soviet modernization. Drawing on historiographical analysis and a comparative approach, the article systematizes the concepts of Western authors in terms of their theoretical foundations, source base, and research emphases. This approach makes it possible to identify the advantages and limitations of each historiographical direction in explaining the problem of collectivization in Kazakhstan. At the same time, the study emphasizes that changes in the historiography of collectivization were connected not only with the emergence of new sources, but also with broader methodological searches in the study and interpretation of Soviet history. The scholarly significance of the article is determined by a systematic comparison of the main directions of Western historiography in the context of Kazakhstan and by an assessment of their methodological potential. In addition, the study aims to reveal how interpretations related to Kazakhstan have changed over time in Western scholarship: from early all-Union explanations to contemporary regional, imperial, and interdisciplinary analyses. These historiographical changes demonstrate that the problem of collectivization in Kazakhstan is gradually becoming established in Western scholarship as an independent, complex, and analytically significant object of study. As a result, the study substantiates that, within the framework of Western historiography, the interpretation of the problem of collectivization in Kazakhstan cannot rely on only one theoretical model. The most productive position is a comprehensive historiographical analysis that considers the possibilities of the totalitarian, revisionist, and post revisionist approaches in their interrelation and uses them as complementary tools for understanding the complexity of the issue.