It became a full Soviet Republic, the Kazakh SSR, only in 1936. At that point Orenburg, the original capital, was reincorporated into Russia, and the new capital was named as Kyzylorda, moving to Alma-Ata in 1929 with the arrival of the TurkSib Railway to that city. The Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was established in 1920, its name changing to the Kazakh ASSR in 1925, when the Kyrgyz and Kazakhs were officially differentiated. Its leadership, including Bokeikhanov, was almost all to perish in the Stalinist repression of the 1930s. But through the campaigns of the Bolsheviks' Southern Army Group under Mikhail Frunze, the tide turned during 1919, and with the White forces on the point of defeat, the Alash negotiated terms with the Bolsheviks. This loosely allied with White forces under former polar explorer Alexander Kolchak during the Civil War that followed, and by summer 1918 the war had turned against the Bolsheviks, who retained power only in a few cities in the region, though these included Almaty. An Alash Autonomous Government was established under Alikhan Bokeikhanov, basing itself in Semipalatinsk. Kazakh nationalists of the Alash Orda movement, named after a legendary founder of the Kazakh people, sensed their opportunity, and declared their independence at the All Kyrgyz Congress' in December 1917 in Orenburg. The Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 took place then against a backdrop of considerable discontent in Kazakhstan against Tsarist colonial rule.
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