The article deals with the demographic processes in Kazakhstan in the 20th-60s in the 20th century. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the consequences of the starvation of the 1920s and 1930s and the consequences of the Great Patriotic War, which caused a disastrous decline in the population and a sharp deterioration in the main demographic indicators, namely, fertility and mortality, which led to depopulation of the population. The demographic history of this period is divided into two phases: the first (20-40s in the 20th century) is designated as a crisis period and the second phase (50-80s in the 20th century) is the period of demographic recovery, largely compensating for the losses of the 1920s-1940s.
The article examines the events that determined the negative outcomes of the first stage - the demographic consequences of the starvation of 1921-1922, the starvation of 1931-1933, losses during the Great Patriotic War. To a large extent, the problem (primarily the demographic consequences of the starvations of the 1920s and 1930s), is presented by the example of the Kazakh ethnic group, because due to the active migratory movements, the loss of non-Kazakh population in the territory of the Republic is difficult to identify.