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Politics and Nationalism in Kazakhstan
Sevgi Zubeyde ERTAN |
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With the breakup of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan has become one of the more important new-created nations. Kazakhstan has a sizable nuclear arsenal and an abundance of oil, minerals, and other natural resources. Moreover, Kazakhstan has perhaps the closest ties to Moscow that any of the other Central Asian republics. This is due in part to the way Kazakhstan was incorporated into the Soviet Union: north Kazakhstan is part of the Siberian/Ural economic block and much of the infrastructure is linked directly to Moscow. Such solid economic ties cannot be rerouted overnight. More significant, however, is that Russians comprise about the same percentage of the population as Kazakhs, with the Russians at 38% and the Kazakhs at 40% [1]. In a sense, Kazakhstan is a link between Russia and Central Asia. Increasingly, however, this has been a link that has come under considerable stress. With independence, many Kazakhs with to re-establish a distinctly Islamic, Kazakh state with close ties to the larger Turkic community. The Russians, however, want Kazakhstan to remain tied to Russia. Such contradictory national forces threaten not only the stability of Kazakhstan, but also that of Russia and Central Asia. Ethnic strife in Kazakhstan could further devalue the ruble and wreak havoc on an already fragile Russian economy. This paper attempts to explore the nationalities crises in Kazakhstan both during Gorbachev's leadership of the USSR, and during Nursultan Nazarbayev's presidency of Kazakhstan. Ultimately, it will try to answer the question of whether Nazarbayev will be able to forge an economically, politically, and socially stable Kazakhstan.
The 1986 Alma-Ata Riots. When Gorbachev came to power in March 1985, he focused first on the economic and political problems of the Soviet Union. He began a policy of perestroika and glasnost to rid the communist policy of conservatives, who he felt would resist opening up the economic markets. In formulating his policy, however, Gorbachev drastically underestimated the ethnic tensions in the country. All over the Soviet Union, glasnost permitted the reevaluation of the country's past. For the indiginous people of the Soviet republics, however, this meant the revival of long suppressed nationalism. yet, Gorbachev in 1986 had no formal policy on nationalities other than that under Brezhnev: suppress ethnic nationalism and replace it with Marxist principles of internationalism. The 1986 ehtnic riots in Alma-Ata, kazakhstan, however, were the first clear indications that the old nationalities policy needed to be revised. Since 1964, the first secretary of the the Kazakh Communist Party (CPKZ) had been an ethnic Kazakh named Dinmukhammed Kunayev. Although most of the leadeing positions in the CPKZ were held by Russians, Kunayev established a substantial power base by appointing members from his own Kazakh tribe (Great Ordu) to bureaucratic positions. Under Brezhnev, nothing was done about the rampant corruption and nepotism because Kunayev himself was a Brezhnev loyalist, who pampered Brezhnev in every possible way. When Gorbachev came to power, however, this kind of corruption was no longer tolerated, and Kunayev was ejected from his position in the Communist party. In December 1986, Kunayev was replaced by an ethnic Chuvash from Russia named Gennady Kolbin. The appointment of a non-Kazakh, however, sparked outrage in many Kazakh youth, who then took to the streets fo Alma-Ata, looting stores, vandalizing cars, and attacking non-Kazakh looking people. The violent outburst spread to twelve other cities almost instantly. The rioting lasted for two days, and by the end of the turmoil 30 policemen and 200 civilians were dead. The violence in Alma-Ata caught the Moscow leadership and Russia by surprise. Kazakhstan had always been portrayed as the epitome of thenic harmony in the Soviet Union. The ethnic rioting in Alma-Ata, however, showed that nothing could have been further from the truth. Underground organizations had been struggling for Kazakh independence even during the Tsarist times. The Soviet repressions had successfullly kept them underground, but with glasnost and perestroika, it did not take long for the repressed nationalism to resonate in Kazakh society: the Kazakhs remembered the Soviet's atrocities all too well. The Kazakhs had always identified themselves first with their tribe, then with their religion, and finally as being part of a larger Turkic community. Indeed, when the Bolsheviks first came to power, Central Asia was incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Turkestan SSR. Although the Kazakhs lost many of their people fighting during the Civil War between 1917 and 1921, the most devastating blow to the Kazakh identity and freedom came under Stalin's nationalities policy. In 1924, Turkestan was partitioned into five republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. This partitioning caused much confusion because now a Turk of mixed tribal descent had to choose between categorizations that were not even recognized by the Central Asians themselves. Tribes that had been living with each other for centuries were divided. The net effect of this policy was to deprive Central Asia's Turks of a common homeland, language and destiny. But Stalin did not stop with just stamping out pan-Turkism, he then proceded to attack Islam. Mosques were destroyed or shut down and the Arabic and native tongues banned in favor of the Russian Cyrillic. Stalin's economic programs further destroyed Kazakh culture. Under collectivization, the Kazakh's nomadic way of life was destroyed not only because they were forced into farming, but because much of the livestock was killed to prevent it from falling into the Soviet's hands. Thousands of Kazakhs were deported to Siberia and an estimated million died in famines. During Stalin's regime, over one third of the Kazakh population was eliminated. Stalin's policies were continued by Kruschev and Brezhnew. Kruschev eliminated whatever few mosques remained, banned Islamic weddings and funerals, and held massive veil burning ceremonies. The Virgin Lands Scheme not only destroyed the Kazakh grasslands that had been used for grazing, but also led to the migration of many Russians and Ukrainians to Kazakhstan. In Kazakhstan, the Russians were treated as a privaleged class. To the Russians, the Kazakhs were a backward, barbaric folk who needed the Russians to "civilize them." Under Brezhnev, the Kazakh's national identity continued to be brutally repressed. The nuclear testing further hampered the growth of the Kazakh population. The combined effect of the Soviet policy was only to fuel Kazakh resentment of the "Russian chauvanism." The Kazakhs, however, managed to maintani some kind of a Islamic fatih and national hopes privately, despite the Soviet repression. Because most of the resentment was repressed, however, it was easy for the Soviets to portray Kazakhstan as a model of ethnic harmony. The suprise generated in the Russians by the Alma-Ata riots is evident from the people's response to the riots. "How could this have happened?" writes a Russian from Moscow, "without a logical account, its all just incomprehensible." The "logical account" primarily believed by Russians, was the official explanation issued by CPKZ secretary Gennady Kolbin. Kolbin placed the entire blame on the poor performance of Kunayev's regime. First citing the extensive corruption and nepotism, Kolbin asserted that the Kunayev regime, in the name of favoritism, had supported anti-Soviet propaganda. In universities, Kolbin accused Kunayev of idealizing the Kazakh's pre-Bolshevik history and deliberately instilling nationalistic (as opposed to international) spirit. Kolbin believed that the riots were instigated by Kunayev's chronies, who roused the feelings of impressionable youth and manipulated them for their own benefit. Moreover, Kolbin described the youth in the riots as being alcoholics and hooligans, who had no proper socialist upbringing or work ethic. In the end, rather than presenting the riots as a reaction against Russian dominance, Kolbin ascribed them to a loss of privalege that occured due to the removal of Kunayev: "Is it any wonder that [Kunayev's ouster] was perceived by some young people as a blow to their naional pride and vanity, as a personal tragedy and as the dashing of their hopes?" A somewhat different account was offered by Kazakh leadership in September 1990, however. In the revised assessment of the Alma-Ata riots, the basic facts of events was not disputed, but some of the police methods used to contain the riots were deemed excessively brutal. More important, however, was that the Kazakh account objected to the terming of demonstrators as alcoholics and drug-addicts, but instead called them "a politically and socially aware group of young members of the indiginous population." Nevertheless, Kolbin's explanation was accepted by Moscow. Because it ascribed all blame to the errors of Kunayev, Moscow saw no need to take any action on the Soviet level. Kolbin, however, ordered the Kazakh communist party to begin an active campaign against nationalism (both Russian and Kazakh) and favoritism. The Alma-Ata riots also made Kazakhstan's party leaders no longer comfortable touting any national group, for fear of being accused of a "Kunayev-style" leadership. Hence, the CPKZ did not endorse either special rights for the titular nationality nor discrimination. Kolbin's "solutions" however did not solve the problem because it never had the correct diagnosis. No Kazakh believed the official account of the "hooligan's actions" and this lead to an increased sense of victimization by Moscow (and hence, the Russians). Although the riots made Moscow more aware of ethnic conflicts, no action was taken yet to revise the official nationalities policy. It would take yet another violent episode before that would happen. The 1989 Novy Uzen Riots. Novy Uzen is a town in the Guryev province of Kazakhstan. About 40% of its population are people of Caucasian origin (e.g. Azeris, Armenians, Lezgians, etc). The conflicts that occured were described by Izvestia on June 21: "On the evening of June 16, a fight broke out on a dance floor between groups of indiginous and Caucasian nationalities. Local police officers managed to break up the skirmish. That night however, a group of young people armed with sticks, iron rods, and stones tried to break into the building of the city's internal affairs department. The attackers fled after warning shots were fired into the air." The following morning a rally was held, in which Kazakhs voiced their complaints to the town officials. The Kazakhs chief complaint was the preferential treatment given to Caucasians in the town. Housing, for example, was given to newcommers first, leaving long-term residents languishing on waiting lists for years. Moreover, many Kazakh youth were angry at the unemployment problems and at the high prices for basic necessities. These criticisms spurred a brawl between various national groups, numbering about 300 each. After the police broke up the clash, the violence then turned into looting stores and setting cars on fire. The police eventually contained the riots, but the town remained very tense, so for the next few days all Caucasians were removed from the city limits for their own protection. Then on June 20, some demonstrators gave town officials a list of specific demands: first, to relase all those detained in connection with the rioting, second, to hold Novy Uzen internal affairs accountable for social economic problems, and third, to expel all Caucasians from the town. The town officials agreed to try to resolve some of the socioeconomic problems, but refused to deport Caucasians, because that was against the constitution. Although the Novy Uzen riots were not as widespread or as devastating as the Alma-Ata riots, they spurred long needed debates in Moscow on how to revamp the Soviet Union's nationalities policy. This resulted in the CPSU's drafting of a new party platform on nationalities on August 17, 1989. In the new policy, the CPSU reaffirmed support for the Leninist principle of "self-determination" and acknowledged the distortion of previous party policy since Stalin: The impetus that the proletarian Revolution gave to nationalities policy has not faded over the course of our history. However, the deformation of social development that began soon after the death of V. I. Lenin has had a disatrous effect on relations between nationalities as well...Under the pretext of protecting the interests of the state as a whole, the independence of the republics was restricted, ... , and the sovereignty of the republics became in large part merely pro forma. The mass repressions, especially the relocation of entire people from the places were they had traditionally lived to other republics and regions, were a serious factor making for the excacerbation of nationalities problems....Many Party and state officials of the republics and representatives of the national intelligentsia were unjustly accused of nationalism and persecuted....[Furthermore], in a number of regions, the demographic, economic, and social processes that have taken place in recent decades have substantially changed the ratio between the indigenous population and the population that has settled in these areas as a result of migration, something that has given rise to apprehensions about the preservation of national distinctness. The CPSU then went on to declare that of foremost importance was the "harmonization" of national relations and the preservation of every nationality's culture and language. The old repressive policies were overturned in favor of tolerance and support for every citizen's right to express their cultural identity. However, behavior that was considered separatist, imflammatory, or antisocial was not condoned. The new nationalist policy enabled the new CPKZ secretary, Nursultan Nazarbayev (who replaced Kolbin June 22, 1989) to finally objectively tackle the ethnic problems in Kazakhstan. Nazarbayev's policies: pre-independence. Nazarbayev understood that Kazakhstan had to become more explicitly the homeland of the Kazakhs. But at the same time, Nazarbayev could not let this alienate the large Russian population in Kazakhstan. Therefore, Nazarbayev strove to implement pro-Kazakh policies that included compromises or concessions to the Russians. In the year before Kazakhstan's independence, two key issues tested the soundness of that approach: one, the status of the Kazakh and Russian languages, and two, whether Kazakhstan should declare its sovereignty. Initially Nazarbayev sponsored adn passed legislation on the language issue that he thought would further the Kazakh identity, but not make a sudden impact on the Russians. The bill passed made Kazakh the official state language for the Republic, but established an incremental timetable for enactment depending on the local population distributions. Regions that were over 70% Kazakh had to shift from Russian to Kazakh immediately after the law took effect on July 1, 1990. However, areas with less than 50% Kazakhs, had until the end of 1994 to make the switch. Moreover, Kazakh became the mandatory administrative language and by 1992 fluency in Kazakh became a high school graduation requirement. The Russian population disliked the bill because they felt that "language [could] become a political instrument used to select personell, to weed out people belonging to a non-titular nation from administrative and governmental structures. To gain leverage for modification of the bill, the Russian legislators gave their support to Kazakh sovereignty in exchange for the extension of the dates for conversion in predominantly Russian areas. Nazarbayev compromised, and the dates were extended six years. Despite the compromise however, teh issue of Kazakh sovereignty was still hotly debated. Deciding the issue required both Kazakhs and Russians to re-evaluate their history. The Kazakhs were not shy about openly decrying the wrongs suffered under Stalin and for the most part to deny that "Kazakhstan ever became part of the Russian state voluntarily and peacefully." They present "Russia's policy in the region as agressively expansionist and the consequences of the annexation as exclusively negative. Russia is portrayed as a 'blood thirsty northern predator' that took away the Kazakh's statehood, plundered the people's national wealth and took away their best land." The Russians however argue that the Kazakhs voluntarily ceded to the Russian Tsar in 1731. They point to the higher levels of education and ties to the Western economic system as proof of how the Russians helped the Kazakhs escape backwardness. Most Russians felt that Kazakhstan should remain part of Russia because "the history and culture of the Kazakhs is inseparably linked with the history and culture of [the Russian people]." The Russians also use this argument to justify Russia's territorial claim on Eastern Kazakhstan. Nevertheless, such an open discussion of history, language, and culture were the first healthy signs of coming to terms with the pre-glastnost Soviet legacy. On December 17,1991, Kazakhstan declared its independence, with everyone having had a chance to participate in the debate. Present Policies and Politics. After independence, Nazarbayev maintained an authoritarian style of leadership. Although parliamentary structures did exist, these were very weak. Part of the reason for Nazarbayev's depoliticizatoin of society is because of his belief that sound economic reform depends on internal social and political stability. Learning from Gorbachev's experiences, Nazarbayev, chose to reform economically first, and the use the sound economic base to foster a healthy political and social life. He did not want Kazakhstan to disintegrate into ethnic bickering. Nevertheless, Kazakhstan did have political parties and public movements that opposed Nazarbayev's centrist policies. The three main groups are the Alash, Azat, and Unity parties. The Alash party supports the establishment of an Islamic state, whereas the Azat party "favors the territorial integrity of the republic, the development of the indigenous people's traditions and the study of their native language." The third party, Unity, is composed mainly of Russians who object to the current government's language policy and who support equality among the various nationalities. Although there are no elections, Nazarbayev includes these groups in the political arena by calling a roundtable meeting to discuss current policy issues with them. This has meant that none of the groups have become millitant or tried to gather public support against the regime. With such policies, Nazarbayev has also garnered the support of the Kazakhs and Russians alike, because both groups know that they can civilly voice their opinions and that Nazarbayev will be listening. In this way, Nazarbayev has built considerable stability. This same stability has also enabled Nazarbayev to make ethnic related economic decisions without provoking such mass riots as those in Alma-Ata in 1986. For example, when Nazarbayev began to loose faith in the economic viability of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), he took a two-pronged approach to the issue: first, he sent a proposal to the CIS countries to strengthen the Commonwealth and form a more firm confederacy; and second, he approached the other Central Asian republics to form a Central Asian economic union. The Central Asian market would have common customs regulations, a common tax system, a common defense space, and mutually agreed upon prices. Moreover, the Central Asian countries would give each other priority in delivering scarce raw materials. This approach to the economic ties of Kazakhstan satisfied both Russian and Kazakh desires. The Russians were reassured that Nazarbayev was interested in maintaining some links to Moscow, and the Central Asian market was lauded by Kazakhs for its Pan-Turkic overtones. Of course, there will always be extremists who will disagree with such policy, but divisive, antisocial nationalism on either the Russian or Kazakh side is not tolerated. For example, when a Russian journalist published false and inflamatory ethnic statements, Nazarbayev prohibited him from publishing. Although Westerners may call this infringement of free speech, such measures may be necessary to hold the peace until the complete transition to democracy and a free market is completed. Much of the present ethnic stability in Kazakhstan has been due to Nazarbayev's smart, strong leadership. But Nazarbayev cannot stay in office forever - and ultimately Kazakhstan's internal stability will depend on whether Nazarbayev can establish stable political and economic structures before his departure. References. Books: [1] Bremmer, Ian and Taras, Ray. "Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States." Cambridge University Press, New York, 1993. [2] Rashid, Ahmed. "The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationalism?" Zed Books, New Jersey, 1994. Magazines: [3] Edwards, Michael. "A Broken Empire: Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine." National Geographic, March 1993, pp 22-37. [4] Lief, Louise. "Fire, Fury, and Nationalism" US News and World Report, 6 July 1992, pp 44-47. [5] Pope, Victoria. "Back to the Future in Central Asia." US News and World Report, 8 March 1993, pp 42-43. [6] Stewart Powell, Jeff Trimble, Maureen Santini, and Robert Manning. "Can Moscow control resistive minorities?" US News and World Report, 2 February 1987, pp 40-43. [7] Douglas Stanglin and Victoria Pope. "Desperate Trips and the end of Empire." US News and World Report, 11 April 1994, pp 40-42. Current Digest of the Soviet Press (CDSP):
[8] Vol. 39, No. 1: "The Riots in Alma-Ata: What Caused Them?"
[9] Vol. 39, No. 2: "More Repurcussions of Alma-Ata Riots"
[10] Vol. 39, No. 5: "Probing the Roots of Kazakhstan's Troubles"
[11] Vol. 39, No. 7: "Kazakh press Scored for Nationalistic Bent"
[12] Vol. 39, No. 28: "Kazakh Party Ordered to Fight Nationalism"
[13] Vol. 40, No. 23: "Domestic Affairs: Communist Party"
[14] Vol. 41, No. 25: "Ethnic Rioting Errupts in Kazakhstan"
[15] Vol. 41, No. 26: "Gorbachev warns agains ethnic violence"
[16] Vol. 41, No. 33: "Party's Draft Platform on Nationalities"
[17] Vol. 43, No. 16: "Kazakhstan: Nazarbayev Tries Pragmatism"
[18] Vol. 45, No. 1: "Central Asia - 5 State Commonwealth"
[19] Vol. 45, No. 16: "Nationalities"
[20] Vol. 45, No. 22: "Kazakhstan: Russians Dig in as Kazakhs Seek Dominance"
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