Dınmūhammed Ahmetūly Qonaev (; – 22 August 1993) was a Soviet Communist politician,Vronskaya, Jeanne (24 August 1993) "Obituary: Dinmukhamed Kunayev". The Independent London, Gazette Section, p. 18. who served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR.
Early life
Origins His grandfather was Zhumabai (kaz. Jumabai) (–1912). His father, Minliakhmed (Akhmed) Zhumabaievich (kaz. Meŋlıahmed Jumabaiūly) (1886–1976), was literate, worked in agricultural and trade organizations of the Alma-Ata oblast and could write well in both Russian and Kazakh. His mother, Zaure Baiyrovna Kunayeva (née Shynbolatova (Chimbulatova)) (kaz. Zaure Baiypqyzy Qonaeva) (1888–1973), was born in a poor family in the Shelek aul, Almaty oblast. They lived together for 70 years. There are claims that Kunayevmight possibly come from the oiyq branch of the Ysty tribe, Senior juz. In his "From Stalin to Gorbachev" book, he mentioned that his "ancestors come from the Baidıbek, jigit of the Senior juz". According to the official biography, he is ethnically Kazakh and his ancestors were hunters, that lived on the coasts of Ili River and Kürtı rivers of the Balkhash District in the aul Bakanas. Kunayev, the son of a Kazakh clerk, was born at Verny, now Almaty, and grew up in a middle-income family.
Rise to power
After finishing the Almaty No.14th secondary school in 1930, he studied in the Institute of Non-Ferrous and Fine Metallurgy in Moscow in 1936, which enabled him to become a machine operator. By 1939 he had become engineer-in-chief of the Pribalkhashatroi mine, and joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), a condition of the position.
Kunayev was deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Kazakh SSR from April 1942 to 1946. In this post, during the years of World War II, he conducted significant work on the deployment and commissioning of enterprises and factories evacuated to Kazakhstan from the front-line areas of the USSR, as well as mobilising and training the republic's human reserves and soldiers for the Red Army. From 1946 to 1952, he was deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR. In 1952, he was elected President of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR, which under his leadership conducted scientific research with the aim of developing and improving industry and agriculture, and the more efficient use of Kazakhstan's natural resources. He served in this post until 1955, when he became Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR.
Kunayev's rise in Communist Party ranks had been closely tied to that of Leonid Brezhnev's. In February 1954, Khrushchev appointed Panteleymon Ponomarenko as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, and Leonid Brezhnev as the second secretary.Dornberg, John (1991) Brezhnev: the Masks of Power, London: Andre Deutsch, , p. 133. Soon, Kunayev and Brezhnev developed a close friendship which lasted until the death of Brezhnev.
Brezhnev soon became the first secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan in 1955 and a member of CPSU Politburo in 1956. When Brezhnev left Kazakhstan in 1956, Ivan Iakovlev became the First Secretary of the Kazakh Communist Party (and was succeeded by Nikolai Belyaev). On 19 January 1960, Kunayev was elected 1st Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan. He was the first Kazakh to hold the post.
First stint in charge: 1960-1962 One of Kunayev's first actions as leader of the Kazakh SSR was a visit to the United States in January 1960, as part of a delegation led by Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, Dmitry Polyansky. Over the course of a month, the delegation visited 23 American cities in 10 states, including New York and Washington. During the trip, Kunayev met with the leadership of the United Nations, including the Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld as well as with senior American statesmen including US Secretary of State Christian Herter, Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court Earl Warren, and several state governors. At the end of the visit, the Soviet delegation including Kunayev were received at the White House by the US president, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
In March 1960, the leader of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev visited the Kazakh SSR, and together with Kunayev, they toured the republic for 13 days. Based on the decisions and conversations between Kunayev and Khrushchev during the latter's stay in Kazakhstan, large-scale work was launched to develop the republic: The Sokolovsko-Sarybaisky plant was put into operation. The first blast furnace was launched at the Karaganda Metallurgical Plant. The first unit of the Bukhtarma State District Power Plant was put into operation. The first coke battery at Karmet was put into operation and the first Kazakh coke was produced. The construction of a highway connecting three capitals of the union republics, namely the Alma-Ata-Frunze-Tashkent highway, was completed. Hundreds of other major facilities and projects throughout Kazakhstan changed the face of the country.
As First Secretary, Kunayev was an ardent supporter of the Virgin Lands campaign, which opened millions of hectares of lands in central Kazakhstan to agricultural development and caused a large influx of Russian immigrants into Kazakhstan. However, in 1962 he was dismissed from his position as he disagreed with Khrushchev's plans to transfer some lands in Southern Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan. Ismail Yusupov, a supporter of the plan, replaced Kunayev. Another source of disagreements between Kunayev and Khrushchev had been the creation of a new administrative entity, the "Virgin Lands Territory", which incorporated the Kazakh regions of Kokchetav, Pavlodar, Kustanai, North Kazakhstan and Tselinograd into a new region with dual subordination to Alma-Ata and Moscow.
First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan After his dismissal as First Secretary, he was Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR until 1964, when he became first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan again in 1964 when Khrushchev was ousted and replaced by Brezhnev.Kunayev, Dinmukhammed (1992) O Moem Vremeni, Almaty: Dauir. He kept his position for twenty-two more years. Kunayev was appointed as an alternate member of the Politburo in 1967, and became a full member in 1971.Drexel, John (1991) "Kunayev, Dinmukhamed Akhmedovich (1912– )" The Facts on File Encyclopedia of the Twentieth Century Facts on File, New York,
Economic development Kunayev's return to the position of First Secretary of the Kazakh SSR coincided with the start of major economic reforms in the USSR, known as the Kosygin reforms. That year, over 450 thousand people throughout Kazakhstan received apartments, and the average salary increased by 28% compared to 1958.
Under Kunayev, Kazakhstan became one of the three largest economies of the USSR, along with Russia and Ukraine, the traditional industrial centers of the country since Tsarist times. As Russian political scientist Andrei Grozin notes, “Conventionally speaking, before Kunayev, Kazakhstan in economic terms was a desert.” Some of the major economic successes of Kunayev's Kazakhstan include: From the material of the Information and Analytical Center of Moscow State University: " According to statistics, during the years of D.A. Kunayev's activity, the republic's productive potential grew by more than 700%. The volume of industry grew 9 times, agriculture - 6 times, capital construction - 8 times. About 1,000 enterprises and workshops were commissioned throughout the republic; such a volume of construction work throughout the country has not been seen either before or after in Kazakhstan. Of the currently operating largest oil refineries in Kazakhstan, two were built under Kunayev: in the cities of Pavlodar (1978) and Chimkent (1985). Coal production grew from 28 million to 132 million tons between 1955 and 1986. The production of electricity increased by 6 times between 1955 and 1986 (from 14.5 million to 85 million kilowatt-hours). During the period 1954–1984, 600 million tons of grain were produced in Kazakhstan, with the average annual sale of grain increasing ninefold.
Furthermore, many significant objects were built in Kazakhstan, including the Medeu sports complex, the National Library building, the House of Political Education, new buildings of KazGU (unofficially called KazGUgrad), the Central Republican Museum, the Kaztelecenter building, the Koktobe TV tower, the House of Friendship, the Glory Monument in the Park of 28 Panfilov Guardsmen, the Kazakhstan, Otyrar, Alma-Ata, Alatau hotels, the Alatau and Kazakhstan sanatoriums, the Samal, Aksai, Almagul, Ainabulak microdistricts and many other cultural and residential facilities.
Culture and science Throughout his time in office, Dinmukhamed Kunayev, paid special attention to important Kazakh cultural figures. He personally initiated many of them to nominate prestigious All-Union prizes and awards. Among them: Gabit Musrepov, Serke Kozhamkulov, Ilyas Yesenberlin, Bibigul Tulegenova, Olzhas Suleimenov, Nurgisa Tlendiev, Roza Rymbaeva and many others. He believed that their successes glorified the Kazakh culture and nation far beyond the borders of the republic.
In addition to this, Kunayev defended and supported cultural figures whose works fell under the censorship machine of the USSR. Thus, it was largely thanks to Kunayev that the works of Olzhas Suleimenov's "AZiYA" and Ilyas Yesenberlin's "Nomads" were published. In those years, books were published in Alma-Ata that were often refused to be published in Moscow and other parts of the USSR, for example, the works of Nikolai Raevsky "If Portraits Speak", "Portraits Have Spoken", Yuri Dombrovsky's book "Torch" and others. To a large extent, this was possible because Kunayev himself was not a supporter of bans on self-expression of writers and theatergoers.
As an Academian and former President of the Kazakh Academy of Science, Kunayev often relied on the position of the scientific community in solving state-important problems. By 1985, the Kazakh Academy of Sciences had become a major scientific center of the USSR, employing over 40 thousand personnel, among them 864 doctors of science, 650 academicians, corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences and professors. During the time of Yuri Andropov as General Secretary, at the personal request of Kunayev, foreign currency funds were allocated for the purchase of modern equipment from Western countries intended for industrial enterprises and scientific institutions of the Kazakh SSR.
Soviet Kazakhstan was recognised in the world of science due to frequent major international events in Kazakhstan with the participation of leading scientists from both the USSR and abroad. Among such events, one can especially note the international conference of the World Health Organization, which was held in Alma-Ata in 1978. It became historical in the world health system, since it adopted a declaration called the "Great Charter of World Health" by the UN.
Strengthening sovereignty One of the main measures of Kunayev as First Secretary was the issue of strengthening the territorial integrity of the republic. Thus, less than a month after he took office, on December 1, 1964, the West Kazakhstan Territory and South Kazakhstan Territory were abolished. A year later, in 1965, the Virgin Lands Territory which Khrushchev had created several years earlier was abolished. The leadership of the republic understood that the Virgin Lands created under Khrushchev was another territory that they intended to separate from Kazakhstan.