Lessons from Kazakhstan

Benjamin Jarvis

Widespread protests and unrest last week crippled the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan, prompting a violent backlash from the country’s kleptocratic elite. Sparked by sharp fuel price rises, particularly in the oil-rich western region of Mangystau, protesters took to the streets in various cities all across the world’s 9th-largest country. Almaty, the country’s largest city, saw some of the worst violence, and countrywide fatality estimates number over 200. Neoliberal “order” seems to have been restored, after president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev received military support from the Russia-backed Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

What prompted this massive display of resistance and subsequent crackdown? What lessons can activists elsewhere learn from this past week’s events? To be sure, there is still much we do not know about the situation, not least owing to the since-lifted nationwide internet blackout at the height of the unrest. Nevertheless, there is much to be gleaned from studying the Kazakh economic and political conditions which produced this anger and turbulence.

A Nearly Perfect Crime

No overview of present-day Kazakhstan could begin elsewhere than the figure of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the longtime former president, the self-styled “Elbasy” or “Leader of the Nation.” A one-time steel worker, Nazarbayev rose through graft and intrigue during the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era of decay in the USSR to become Prime Minister and later President of the Kazakh SSR. Following a pattern that would become depressingly common in the former Soviet Union, Nazarbayev was elected unopposed as the first post-independence President of Kazakhstan, at which point he began enriching himself and his cronies with renewed vigor and confidence, at the expense of the Kazakh people.

A vast and sparsely populated country (ninth-largest by land in the world, only 64th by population), Kazakhstan has long remained underdeveloped. The republic underwent substantial infrastructural and agricultural advances during the Second World War and later Nikita Kruschev’s Virgin Lands Campaign. Nevertheless, even considerable Soviet investment struggled at the time when confronted with Kazakhstan’s huge size and severe weather patterns; moreover, little has been done since then to repair, much less expand, crumbling Soviet-era infrastructure, particularly in remote regions. Stretches of road covering areas larger than France are routinely mired in mud and ice. The country’s tiny group of billionaires are free from such worldly concerns, zipping around Central Asia on helicopters and private aircraft.

Underinvestment in basic necessities is no accident, but a deliberate strategy on the part of Nazarbayev and his crony and successor, Tokayev. The Nazarbayev clan has amassed unimaginable wealth through insider dealing, privatization of formerly public assets, and the exploitation of Kazakh workers, particularly those in the oil and minerals industries. Dinara Kulivbaeva, the first president’s daughter, is reportedly worth nearly $3 billion alone.

No despot can outrun the hands of time, however, as Nazarbayev seemingly realized in 2019, when he abruptly resigned, handing over the reins to Tokayev. Like many kleptocrats before him, the octogenarian Nazarbayev no doubt sought a way to enjoy his golden years free from investigation over his many crimes while in office. His plan has apparently backfired. While Tokayev kept the personality cult of Nazarbayev alive, he could not reverse the tide of inequality that his predecessor unleashed (not that he had any desire to do so). Pandemic and economic crisis exposed the fault lines at the heart of Kazakh society and this, possibly coupled with dissent within the ruling administration, caused the recent convulsions across the country.

No Signs of a “Color Revolution”

While Tokayev continues to blame much of the unrest on “bandits” and “terrorists,” even he has conceded that the demonstrations began with legitimate grievances over inequality. Indeed, he has gone further, paying lip service to the need for “a qualitative renewal of social and labor policies.” There are even indications that he will specifically target the Nazarbayev family and other Kazakh billionaires, mandating that they pay into a “People of Kazakhstan Fund.” As of now, this is all talk, and if history is any indication, it will stay precisely that. 

Nonetheless, it is quite telling that the current president had to pivot so quickly from blaming unspecified foreign actors to making at least some overtures toward reform. Leftists in the United States should always be wary of trusting the authenticity of seemingly spontaneous uprisings in foreign countries. Such “color revolutions” are often aided and funded by Western NGOs and intelligence services. There are a number of signs that such is not the case with the recent events in Kazakhstan.

First, and most importantly, Kazakhstan has had a consistently friendly attitude toward Western investment. Institutional corruption and immense natural resources have made the country an ideal landing spot for companies like Exxon Mobil and Dupont. In total, US firms have sunk over $45 billion into Kazakhstan since 2005. Washington therefore has little reason to seek out regime change. Even last week’s disruption would have been worrisome to the US bourgeoisie.

To be sure, Kazakhstan is well and truly in Russia’s sphere of influence, particularly in terms of security issues (being a member of the aforementioned CSTO). This can only be expected, however, given the geographic, cultural, and linguistic ties between the countries. Even the most delusional hawks in DC could hardly hope to have the kind of pull in Kazakhstan that it’s closest neighbor and one-time confederate does. Successfully creating a US puppet state out of one of Russia’s closest regional allies would be an extremely unlikely scenario.

Finally, Washington’s gains would be minimal even if some even-more-friendly regime were inserted. Troop withdrawal from Afghanistan has left the US without any pressing need for Central Asian security partners, having closed its last base in the region in 2014. A military partner situated between China and Russia would certainly be welcome in Washington, but US officials must know that a more realistic strategy is to leverage financial pressure for regional influence. That, as mentioned above, remains perfectly feasible under Tokayev. Indeed, one of his first acts after the unrest was to reach an agreement with the US regarding bank transparency, in a move apparently aimed at tackling untaxed offshore wealth.

Systemic Crises, not a National Crisis

No, indeed, the causes of the recent unrest in Kazakhstan should be well-known to any working class person alive during the Covid-19 pandemic. Crumbling infrastructure, lack of healthcare, poverty, hopelessness—the international working class continues to feel the brunt of all of these ills everywhere. Kazakhstan is noteworthy only in that its unique material conditions exposed the rot of neoliberal capitalism more rapidly than has occurred elsewhere (though unrest has become a common feature of pandemic capitalism, to be sure).

Vast distances between the ruling elite in the east of the country and the oil-rich reserves of the far west have sharpened economic distinctions between mineral/oil workers and the country’s bourgeoisie. As mentioned above, geography and weather patterns have worsened the effects of infrastructural decay on the working class. Corruption and low population have left Kazakh workers with little hope of economic advancement, given that advanced positions are few and often require bribes to obtain. Petrocapitalist resource extraction has devastated the country’s already rugged ecology. These conditions set the stage for an explosion, and the Covid-19 pandemic lit the fuse.

In Kazakhstan, neoliberalism has its ghost of the future—a canary in the coalmine of economic and social collapse. While a patchwork solution, enforced at the end of a barrel, managed to stem the tide for the time being, future convulsions will come. The groundwork for future calamity can be seen in two key Kazakh industries: mining/drilling for oil and minerals, and Bitcoin “mining.” Raw resource extraction and unregulated digital speculation: the twin pillars of the late capitalist economy. When further protests rock this unsteady foundation, they will increase in their intensity and length. As Rosa Luxemburg wrote:

The various undercurrents of the social process of the revolution cross one another, check one another, and increase the internal contradictions of the revolution, but in the end accelerate and thereby render still more violent its eruptions

There seems little question that such violent eruptions are on the horizon, not just in Kazakhstan, but across the globe. Neither can there be any doubt that the international proletariat will suffer immense hardship in the years to come. What fruit will the suffering and striving of the working class bear? That is the only uncertainty of the coming era. Its answer will only be found in how well and how quickly the working class organizes itself. 

Everywhere and immediately, workers must move into action, preparing the groundwork for the tremendous upheaval which every day seems closer and closer. Where material conditions are not yet ripe for revolution, such as in the imperial core, workers must agitate, educate, and organize, keeping alive the flame of Marxist liberation for future generations. When openings present themselves, workers must bravely challenge bourgeois rule, knowing that even a small victory may set the stage for future triumphs.

Worldwide emancipation for the international proletariat—from Kazakhstan to Kenya, and everywhere else a worker toils!