Perlmutter, Sylvan Charles2024-06-072024-06-072024-05-05Perlmutter, S. (2024). Youth and Godlessness in Soviet Kazakhstan, 1921-1933. Nazarbayev University School of Sciences and Humanitieshttp://nur.nu.edu.kz/handle/123456789/7781This thesis examines the changing relationship between the Komsomol and religion, both Islam and Christianity, in early Soviet Kazakhstan. It demonstrates that the marginalization of Kazakh youth in the Komsomol during the New Economic Policy (1921-1928) (NEP) was connected to their limited ability or willingness to participate in campaigns of cultural transformation, but that the reintroduction of mass political violence during collectivization allowed a cohort of Kazakh youth to achieve parity with Russians on the anti-religious front. In conditions of limited resources, poor communications, and low literacy, the legitimization of decentralized violence acted as the great equalizer. While there already exists abundant anglophone literature on the role of Russian youth in overturning the NEP consensus, the role of Kazakh and Central Asian youth is still to be thoroughly investigated. My thesis is an attempt to address this gap in the social history of Kazakhstan.enAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesYouthReligionEthnicitySoviet UnionType of access: RestrictedMaster's thesis