Dzhangildin, Alibi Togzhanovich

Born 1884 in the aul (village) of Koidagul, Turgai District, now Kustanai Oblast; died Aug. 14, 1953, in Alma-Ata. Soviet state and party figure. Became a member of the Communist Party in 1915. The son of a farm laborer.

In 1903, Dzhangil’din graduated from Orenburg Divinity School. From 1903 to 1905 he attended Kazan Teachers Seminary, from which he was expelled for involvement in a student demonstration. In 1906 he entered Moscow Divinity Academy, where he continued his study of illegal political literature. From 1910 to 1913 he traveled about Europe, the Near East, and Asia, earning his living as a photographer. In 1913 he worked in the Crimea and then in Petrograd. He was one of the leaders (along with Amangel’dy Imanov) of the Middle Asian Uprising of 1916 against tsarism and the local feudal lords. After the February Revolution of 1917 he established connections with the Central Committee of the RSDLP(Bolshevik) and the Petrograd Soviet and worked in Turgai Oblast as an agent of the Petrograd soviet.

After the October Revolution, Dzhangil’din was appointed by the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR in December 1917 to be temporary commissar of Turgai Oblast, where he took part in routing the band of Ataman Dutov. In March 1918 he was one of the organizers and the chairman of the First Turgai Oblast Congress of Soviets, as well as chairman of the oblast executive committee. In May 1918 he was named extraordinary and military commissar of the Kirghiz Steppe Krai and directed the formation of Red Army Kazakh detachments. From August to November 1918, he headed a detachment that got arms, ammunition, and medicines through from Astrakhan to the Aktiubinsk front, which was cut off from Central Russia. In 1919 he was vice-chairman of the Kirghiz (Kazakh) Krai Revolutionary Committee and took charge of convening the First Kazakhstan Constituent Congress of Soviets. From 1920 to 1925 he was a member of the Presidium of the Kazakh Central Executive Committee, and from 1925 to 1937 he was its vice-chairman. Simultaneously, from 1921 to 1929 he was people’s commissar of social security of the Kazakh ASSR. From 1937 to 1942 he was vice-chairman of the Presidium of the Kazakh SSR Supreme Soviet, returning to that position in 1951. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Kazakhstan Communist Party. Dzhangil’din was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner.