ces were able to control the railway to Tashkent.
An All-Kazakhstan Conference of Soviet Workers was held in the city on March 13, 1920. This was the first of a series of regional organizing conferences held by the Bolsheviks that ultimately led to the creation of the Kirgiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic - the entity that would ultimately develop into the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan.
Modern history
In 1932, Aktobe was named capital city of Aktobe Province. The city developed extensively during World War II as a result of the evacuation and reconstruction of factories from the Ukraine and from Moscow, including a worker's cooperative, a ferroalloy factory, and an X-ray factory. Chromium likewise began to be mined and processed in the province. In the 1960s, an extensive expansion of the city was undertaken by Soviet authorities, resulting in the construction of the city "Center" and sports stadium.
Since Kazakhstani independence in 1991 the city's society and economy have dramatically changed. Older heavy industries have declined and been replaced in importance with the energy sector. The city has continued to expand with new construction and with many Kazakh immigrants moving to the city from the surrounding countryside.
On May 17, 2011 Aktobe was the site of one of Kazakhstan's first terrorist attacks, when a suicide bomber blew him up in the headquarters of the local national security services. Some analysts have seen this as a scene of increasing instability in the oil-rich, but socially unequal, region
