The article analyzes the activities of the newspaper "Kazak", the editors of which managed to turn a legally operating press organ into a platform for expressing the opinion of the Kazakh national intelligentsia, the ideas of the "Alash" movement, which was especially evident on the eve of the February Revolution of 1917 in the Russian Empire. Archival documents from the office of the Orenburg Governor are introduced into scientific circulation, revealing police supervision of Akhmet Baitursynov as a newspaper editor (when intelligence information was sent to the gendarmerie and formed in special cases), showing how the tsarist administration tried to interfere with the activities of the Kazak newspaper. Separately stands out the role of A. Baitursynov as a well-known, brilliant publicist in assessing political events, in covering the crisis of the tsarist autocracy. The article highlights the conclusions and forecasts of Akhmet Baitursynov for the ever-increasing deterioration in relations between the autocratic power of Russia and the people, including numerous political groups of national outskirts. The chairman of the printed organ on the pages of his publication notes a tangible increase in the conflict in the Council of Ministers between the conservative wing and the liberal-minded opposition, as well as the excitement and anxiety that gripped power circles against the backdrop of upcoming revolutionary events. These publications became the reason for the strengthening of gendarmerie control over Baitursynov and the Kazak newspaper, which confirms the correctness of the Kazakh figure in his views on the current political situation in early 1917.