Kazakhstan: One year after executions

By Correspondent from Kazakhstan

Police patrols every 50 meters, steel fences and rapid response vehicles in squares: this is what downtown Almaty looks like on the anniversary of the bloody crackdown on the January popular uprising.

Remember those events(1):

On January 1, 2022, Kazakh authorities announced an increase in the prices of gasoline, which is massively used by motorists.

On January 2, a serious uprising broke out in Zhanaozen, a city of oil workers in the west of the country. A city that was reminiscent of police shootings of workers in 2011.

From January 3-5, protests engulfed the entire country. The most massive action took place in the country’s largest city – Almaty. Economic demands were replaced by political ones and protesters began to seize and destroy administrative buildings.

On January 6, 2022, the country’s president, Kossym-Jomart Tokayev, asked the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) countries to assist Kazakhstan’s security forces in suppressing the protests. Russia sent the largest contingent, 2 brigades and 1 division.

On January 7, after the start of street clashes with protesters, an order was announced. At the same time, the fighting continued for several more days, shots rang out, the bodies of dead protesters lay on the streets.

Today, Kazakh society has no comprehensive assessment of the events that have taken place. State propaganda gives a confusing conspiracy theory about “20,000 terrorists from abroad” and about an attempt by former President Nazarbayev’s close associates to seize power. Informal official circles support the version of the poor rural population, organized with money from criminal structures.

But the facts, the accounts of the direct participants, tell another story: people came out to defend their interests. Of course, the most unprotected segments of the population, whose standard of living depends directly on the slightest increase in prices, took part in the protest. Of course, there were provocations by criminal structures that, according to witnesses, tried to prevent the politicization of the protest, pressuring the activists to reduce everything to looting and robbery. But these provocations were not massive.

There was a massive demand for the resignation of the government, lower prices and the expulsion of the power structures close to the Nazarbayev family.

Summing up, we can say the following: the protesters achieved the resignation of the government and the freezing of gasoline prices. At the same time, a large number of people were killed, injured and arrested. Tokayev strengthened his position by removing from the structures of power all the people with whom he was dissatisfied or who were too close to the former president.

From these protests, leftists in the post-Soviet sectors should learn the following lessons:

– Without a structure that can organize the masses, the protest is not able to identify clear demands or tactics. Without organization, power structures quickly divide and suppress centers of protest.

– Authoritarian regimes actively support each other in case of threat of revolution, forgetting about disagreements, preventing the emergence of freedom focal points.

– Leftist groups should prepare for the strategy and tactics of possible protests, based on available resources, to respond quickly and effectively to popular uprisings.

1- https://lis-isl.org/en/2022/01/20/solidaridad-con-el-pueblo-kazajo/