The article examines the process of migration and its impact on the change in the demographic situation in Kazakhstan in the 30s-40s. of the first half of the twentieth century. This period went down in history as the time of "forced collectivization", "forced industrialization", massive political repression and deportation of entire peoples. Kazakhstan has become the territory where these processes manifested themselves most acutely and tragically. As a result of the Great Famine, millions of Kazakhs died and left their homeland, which almost led to the death of the entire ethnic group. There has been a radical change in the ethnic structure of the population of the republic, expressed in a significant decrease in the number and proportion of Kazakhs, an increase in the number and proportion of Russian and Slavic ethnic groups, the formation of a multi-ethnic composition at the expense of the deported peoples.