Roberto J. Carmack's well-researched and well-written book focuses on Kazakhstan's integration into the Soviet Union during World War II. The book argues, however, that existing “ethnic and social inequalities” during the late imperial era became more prominent during the Soviet era (2). The main strength of the book appears early. Carmack suggests aptly that in contrast to the successful independence movements in the European colonies of Africa and Asia, WWII resulted in strengthening Soviet dominance in Central Asia. Although this is not a novel argument about the fate of the Central Asian nationalities, the conclusion about the role of WWII in solidifying Soviet identities is particularly convincing. The book skillfully weaves the relationship of the military and economic opportunities for Kazakh citizens with the ideological indoctrination, deportations, and other forced mass movements, initiated by the Soviet state.

This book offers readers, especially those who are students of WWII or the Soviet Union, a new opportunity to see this calamitous era from a new lens, other than military history. Carmack relies on Kazakhstan's all available party-state archives such as the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan and others in Moscow, along with various local archives. His book is enhanced by the incorporation of this material into the narrative.

Carmack begins with an incident in October 1941 when a Russian babushka was surprised to see a dark-skinned Asian soldiers in Red Army uniforms, and wondered if they were nashi (ours). Soviet military leaders wanted to civilize Kazakhs and other non-Slavic men by military inscription, initiating their subordination to Russian soldiers. So, Carmack argues, from the outset, there existed an unequal relationship among the soldiers. The difference between the imperial and Soviet military leaders was that the latter recruited Kazakh and other Muslim soldiers. The policy of active recruitment became widespread because military service was one of the most visible and honorable ways to show loyalty to the Soviet state. The prejudice against the Kazakhs and other non-Slavic soldiers was not difficult to observe, as in one example from the Semei Province in 1941 when all the Central Asian conscripts were consigned to serve as laborers and construction workers in penal colonies. Thus, the treatment of non-Slavic soldiers did not improve during the Soviet era.

The memoirs of Kazakh war veterans show the complexity of Central Asian participation in the war. Carmack found that most veterans referred to their service with quite a bit of “patriotic exaggeration,” although there were some like Satybaldy Totanov, who reported that his entire family died during asharshylyq (the great famine from 1930–33) (23). The unfair and biased treatment of Kazakhs and other Central Asians took many forms, documented in Carmack's sources. Some faced menial jobs on the front while others bribed authorities to be exempt from deployment; some were punished because they failed to report for duty while they were herding livestock in faraway pastures; some trained to fly combat missions but never deployed along with their Russian comrades; some were rushed to the front without proper combat training in front of Slavic soldiers. One commander, Ol΄sahnskii, ordered Cossacks to shoot any Caucasians or Central Asians who retreated; Muslim soldiers were humiliated by being told that they did not perform as well as Christian Armenian and Georgian units; some male soldiers were shamed by being told that they were not as stoic as two women fighters: machine gunner Manshuk Mametova and sniper Aliia Moldaghulova. Finally, and possibly more horrific, some commanders mobilized pregnant women, mentally ill persons, and young children (69).

Kazakhs and other Central Asians were not the only victims of discriminatory and cruel treatment by commanders of the Red Army. Deported nationalities such as ethnic Volga Germans and many others from the Caucasus were subjected to “an increasingly brutal labor regime that imitated the worst aspects of the Gulag” (125). In some cases, entire nations such as the Karachays and Chechen-Ingush were deported to Central Asia and Siberia as accused Nazi collaborators in 1943. Similarly, Meshketian Turks of Georgia were deported to remove a potential fifth column, supported by Ankara (136–37). Carmack concludes that Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Uzbeks saw themselves as true Soviet patriots in contrast to those who were deported from the western Soviet Union to their homelands. He argues that one of the most important consequences of the deportations was the creation of insider-versus-outsider rhetoric (153). At the end of the war, while some patriotic Kazakh veterans were rewarded, many were put under intense surveillance and others purged. Carmack's book examines the brutal policies of the Soviet state toward the Kazakh populations and others in Central Asia, which surprisingly resulted in the celebration of the Soviet victory at the end of the “Great Patriotic War.” This thoroughly researched book is an essential read for students of the Soviet Union, Soviet nationalities, and WWII.