Bhavna Dave. Kazakhstan: Ethnicity, Language and Power

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to bring in their clients, or khvosty. As a top-down personnel policy, it was

conceived as an antidote to the growth of ‘nationalism’ and was not designed to

promote a horizontal exchange of cadres between republics. Non-Russians,

particularly Muslims, lacked the opportunities to serve in other republics or at the

centre in Moscow. It was this element of Soviet personnel policy that further

institutionalized the claims of the titular nationality over their republic at one

level and hampered the establishment of horizontal ties between republics at

another level. By encouraging an ‘intra-republican’ movement of cadres, Moscow

had sought to deter the leaders at the local or regional level from building their

personal networks and power base which could undermine the centre’s ability to

exert control over the republic.

As the practices of inter- and intra-republican exchange of cadres came to an

end, Kunaev’s personal bond with Brezhnev allowed him considerable control

over the Kazakh CP apparatus. As a southerner, Kunaev facilitated the disbursement

of vital administrative and government position among his fellow clan and zhuz

members, facilitating preferential mobility to positions within the capital Almaty.

Certainly, geographical and other contingent factors had enhanced the visibility

and influence of southern Kazakhs during the Soviet period. The fortuitous

location of the capital Almaty in the Kazakh-dominated south and the territory of

the Elder Horde had already created propitious conditions for Southern Kazakhs

to gain access to major positions in the party and administrative structure in the

capital. Furthermore, even in practical terms, it was easier for a southerner to

obtain higher education or employment, and consequently a residence permit

(propiska) in Almaty, than for a Kazakh from more distant regions. In addition,

the relative proximity of their native town to the capital allowed many southerners

to maintain close connections with the aul and extended family and clan

networks. The five Kazakh-dominated oblasts in the South (South Kazakhstan,

Almaty, Qyzylorda, Zhambul and Taldyqorgan, territories affiliated with the

Elder Horde) constituted the major support base of Kunaev. Kazakhs from western

and north-eastern regions, who had dominated the party and administrative

structure in the republic in the first few decades of the Soviet rule, found

themselves steadily under-represented. James Critchlow notes that ‘the long

tenure of the Central Asian first secretaries enabled them to put their personal

stamp on the republican machinery as in a fiefdom, appointing their followers to

senior posts at republican, oblast (province) and raion (district) levels.’

Brezhnev’s personal support also allowed Kunaev to safeguard his

‘internationalist’ image and protect himself, his clients and allies from surveillance

by party ideologues in Moscow. When Mikhail Suslov, the Ideology Secretary of

the Kazakh CP accused the well-known Kazakh poet Olzhas Suleimenov of

fanning pro-Turkic sentiments and offending the ‘friendship of peoples’ in his

literary treatise Az i Ia, Kunaev despatched a copy of the book to Brezhnev, urging

him to read the work and judge if it contained any ‘nationalism’. Brezhnev asserted

that it was a brilliant literary work that contained not a trace of ‘nationalism’.

In the end, whether the work in question smacked of ‘nationalism’ or not was not

nearly as significant as the fact that Brezhnev’s resolute rejection of the charges

86 Ethnic entitlements and compliance

of ‘nationalism’ levied by party ideologues in Moscow went on record, affirming

the Kazakh national elite’s loyalty to the internationalist socialist goals.

Reconfiguration of patronage networks after Kunaev

Brezhnev’s death in 1981 threatened the ‘patrimonial era’ of native first

secretaries in Central Asia.

Perturbed by their weakening hold over the republi-

can party cadres and the falling share of Russians and other nationalities in the

party and the komsomol membership,

both Yurii Andropov and Gorbachev were

anxious to reinvigorate Moscow’s control over the Central Asian republics. They

began replacing the Brezhnev clients and loyalists with figures who they deemed

neutral and also capable of breaking the deeply entrenched clan and personal

networks in the republic party apparatuses. By 1986, virtually all long-reigning

party heads of all Central Asian republics and Azerbaijan, who had enjoyed

considerable privileges and protection under Brezhnev, had either died or been

eased out of office by Moscow. Zhabar Rasulov of Tajikistan, in power since

1961, died in 1982 and Sharaf Rashidov of Uzbekistan, who had held office

since 1959, died in 1983 in unexplained circumstances.

Soon after assuming

the office of the General Secretary of the CP of the Soviet Union in March 1985

following the death of Konstantin Chernenko, a Brezhnev loyalist, Gorbachev

forced the two other ageing Brezhnev clients, Turdakun Usubaliev (1961–85)

of Kyrgyzstan and Mukhamednazar Gapurov (1969–85) of Turkmenistan into

retirement.

Ousting Kunaev, the last and the most influential among the Brezhnev allies in

the region, was a more complicated task. Andropov, himself the ex-head of the

State Security Service (KGB), promoted Zakesh Kamalidenov, a former head

of Kazakhstan’s KGB and representative of the Younger Horde to the position of

Secretary of the Central Committee of CP of Kazakhstan to prepare him for

the leadership position. This move was also intended to weaken the position of the

Elder Horde which controlled the levers of patronage within the party.

Clan-balancing is seen as a customary practice among nomads, a way of

ensuring stability and avoiding conflicts. Clans began acquiring a new political

salience during the Soviet era, when the acquisition of scarce resources in the

shortage-plagued Soviet socialist economy came to pivot to a large extent on

kinship in acquisition of resources, while at the same time citizens were forced to

conceal their clan and genealogical identification, thus rendering these ties

illicit.

Clan or kinship loyalties were fluid and provisional even under the

nomadic system, as Chapter 2 has shown. By viewing clan and regional ties as

essential cultural traits of Kazakhs, constituting a natural axis of solidarity,

Moscow engineered the behind-the-scene schemes to ‘balance’ the various

regional contenders and networks while publicly admonishing ‘clanism’ and

‘zhuzism’ (klanovshchina and zhuzovshchina) within the republic party appara-

tus. In the absence of other formal and transparent criteria for appointing the top

leaders in the republic, these affiliations assumed a new salience in forming

alliances and extracting support.

Ethnic entitlements and compliance 87

Criticisms of Kazakhstan’s poor economic performance, its growing nepotism,

clan rivalries and zhuz distinctions began proliferating in the press in Moscow,

suggesting that Kunaev’s departure from the scene was only a matter of time.

Although Kunaev had managed to cling on to office for another year, Moscow

undertook a restructuring of the Kazakh CP apparatus. Several first secretaries of the

oblast party committees (obkom) were forced to retire and six key ministers were

replaced. Gorbachev dismissed several prominent figures in the Kazakh party appa-

ratus and republic administration: Prominent among these was Kunaev’s half-brother

who had served as the president of the Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan.

Gorbachev then turned to the thorny task of finding an appropriate successor

to Kunaev, who would be loyal to the new leadership in Moscow rather than to the

old Brezhnev–Kunaev network. The new leader would also have to be acceptable

to the republic party apparatus without destabilizing the balance of power between

the three hordes. Gorbachev’s obvious preference was for a non-southerner. Since

no suitable candidate could be identified among the northerners or the Middle

Horde, the most numerous group, Gorbachev promoted two rival contenders,

Zakesh Kamalidenov, an Andropov protégé, and Salamat Mukashev, then the

Chairman of Presidium of Supreme Soviet of Kazakh SSR, both from the

Younger Horde.

However, none of the two candidates could muster significant

support within the Kazakh CP at the time.

Picking a neutral but acceptable

figure of Slavic nationality from within the republic party apparatus also proved

to be equally challenging because prominent local Slav members were also seen

as enmeshed in the regional patronage networks and did not have a ‘neutral’

image.

As Martha Brill Olcott has noted, political coalitions during the Kunaev

period ‘appear to be based on loyalties for or against Kunaev or one of his

potential successors, and there are both Russians and Kazakhs in each of the

major cliques in the Kazakh party.’

In the end, appointing an outsider as an

interim leader until a suitable Kazakh leader could be prepared was deemed as the

best course of action. This explains the decision to appoint Kolbin, a Russian who

was then the first secretary of Ulianovsk obkom in RSFSR, to succeed Kunaev.

Kolbin’s greatest asset from Moscow’s standpoint was that he was an outsider

who could be relied upon to execute its commands. His main responsibilities were

to restore Moscow’s direct control over the Kazakh party apparatus, curtail the

influence of ‘clan–tribal networks’, and to check the rampant ‘corruption and

bribery’ within the Kazakh-dominated party apparatus.

Moscow’s battle against

the purported ills of corruption, nepotism and tribalism permeating the Kazakh CP

apparatus led to the replacement of several Kazakh officials with Russians, who

were presumed to be above clan–tribal politics and corruption.

Western analysts

of Central Asia at that time note that throughout the glasnost phase, the republican

press in Kazakhstan remained ‘among the most uninformative in Central Asia’.

The rise of Nazarbaev and the failure of Kazakh nationalism

It is impossible to obtain a full and accurate account of the role of Nazarbaev and

other leading members of the Kazakh communist elite during the late 1980s.

88 Ethnic entitlements and compliance

Nazarbaev was the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the republic under Kunaev

(second in the party chain of command after the first secretary) and retained this

position under Kolbin. Not only did Nazarbaev and other Kazakh communist

leaders publicly condemn the December 1986 protests, they also participated in

the crackdown on the protestors. While it is difficult to determine who gave the

order to deploy force against the protestors, it is clear that the central and the

republic party leadership acted in collusion in ousting Kunaev. Nazarbaev,

Kamalidenov and Mukashev, the three key figures within the Kunaev adminis-

tration who had been embroiled in a Moscow-orchestrated power struggle, made

public statements on the following day fully supporting Kolbin’s appointment and

remained in charge of their respective offices.

Nazarbaev unleashed an attack

on the Kazakh Academy of Sciences, which had been headed by Kunaev’s

half-brother before the latter’s dismissal earlier.

Kazakhstan’s leading political analyst Nurbulat Masanov points to Nazarbaev’s

careful manipulation of clans and personal networks as most critical in shaping

his rise to power in the 1980s.

He also notes that Kunaev did not have a

preferred protégé, although he had promoted the rise of both Nazarbaev and

S. Aukhadiev within the Elder Horde. Nazarbaev had distanced himself from

Kunaev during the 1986 protests for his own political survival and to secure

Gorbachev’s patronage. It is believed that Nazarbaev and Kunaev reached an

informal or implicit accord after the appointment of Kolbin. This allowed

Nazarbaev, who hailed from a less distinguished clan of shaprashty than the more

prestigious ysti clan of Kunaev, to attain the latter’s support and strengthen his

position vis-à-vis rival contenders from the other two zhuz.

Having proved his loyalty to the new patrons in Moscow during December

1986, Nazarbaev maintained a direct control over the Ministry of Interior in his

capacity as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and was poised to take over

the party leadership from Kolbin. This allowed him to push numerous rivals,

including Mukashev and Kamalidenov, into early retirements.

Kamalidenov’s

exit suggested that the responsibility for the use of force against protestors in

1986 lay with the republican KGB (which Kamalidenov then headed), thus

absolving Nazarbaev of any wrongdoing. Nazarbaev was rewarded for his loyalty

to Moscow with a Candidate membership of the Soviet Politburo, followed by full

Politburo membership in 1990. Kolbin’s interim rule practically restored the

pre-1986 status quo by re-establishing the authority of the Elder Horde.

A question worth pondering is why the Almaty protests did not achieve national

symbolism and recognition. Also interesting is why segments of the Kazakh

intelligentsia and ordinary citizens did not question the apparent collaboration of

their own national elites with Soviet rule. In considering these issues, it is

significant that the Nazarbaev regime avoided coding these events in ethnic

terms, describing them simply as the ‘1986 incidents’ (‘sobytia 1986-go goda’),

although qualifiers such as ‘tragic events’ were often added. Upon assuming

office in 1989, Nazarbaev initiated what then appeared to signify critical steps

towards enquiring into the arbitrary use of force and the persecution of the

victims of these events, promising the latter rehabilitation. These turned out to be

Ethnic entitlements and compliance 89

symbolic gestures as the aim was to affirm the legitimacy of the Kazakh ruling

authorities and continue a policy of ethnic and societal appeasement by controlling

the terms of the discourse. An initial resolution of the Central Committee of the

CPSU of July 1987 had called the protests ‘a manifestation of Kazakh

nationalism’.

However, in November 1989, the Kazakh Supreme Soviet under

Nazarbaev’s leadership rejected this characterization. The Presidium of the

Supreme Soviet passed a resolution on 24 September 1990 holding both the

central government and the leadership of the republic (an allusion to Kunaev)

accountable for the disturbances.

Nazarbaev appointed a commission headed by a noted Kazakh writer Mukhtar

Shakhanov to enquire into the causes and scale of the riots. The Shakhanov

Commission submitted a preliminary report to the Kazakh Supreme Soviet in

1990, which was also presented to the Helsinki Commission, and a truncated and

amended version was published in 1993.

The Shakhanov Commission operated

within pre-set limits, encountering considerable hostility and obstruction from the

Kazakhstani establishment. Its enquiry was ‘handicapped by continuing

secrecy.’

The Kazakhstani government sanctioned several other publications

pertaining to the event, which detail the ‘sufferings’ of the protesters and condemn

the ‘illegal’ use of force by Moscow but avoided the key questions such as who

organized the protests, what were the major demands of the protesters, who gave

the order to use force, and what was the extent of recriminations against the

protestors.

The movement Zheltoqsan (December), led by Kazakh youths to commemorate

the victims of the protests and secure release of those who had been wrongly

imprisoned was permitted to register as a social movement in May 1989 when

Nazarbaev was preparing to take over the party leadership from Kolbin. The

Kolbin administration had thwarted its efforts to get registration, but its official

recognition put its leaders under growing pressure to refrain from advancing any

explicit political or ethnic agenda and focus instead on commemorating the

victims of the 1986 protests within an ideologically delimited framework.

A memorial plaque erected in honour of the three ‘victims’ (zhertvy) of the

protests in the new Republican Square in Almaty in 1992 symbolizes an enforced

sense of closure for these events. The Nazarbaev leadership’s reluctance to

represent the events as an assertion of Kazakh national identity, perhaps a result

of pragmatic political considerations as Slavs then formed about half the population

of the republic, has been a source of much discontent among Kazakh national

activists, particularly those who were directly affected by the events. In 1993,

Kaldybai Abenov, journalist, film-maker and one of the founders of Zheltoqsan

complained about bureaucratic obstacles and pressures from top to ‘prevent him

from telling the truth’ asserting that top officials of the Ministry of Interior

Affairs (then under the control of Nazarbaev) as well as the KGB were implicated

in the indiscriminate shooting and torture of the Kazakh people.

Zheltoqsan, like several other environmental and social movements with a

diffused nationalist orientation in Kazakhstan at that time, turned into an

‘authorized’ social movement whose original aims and accomplishments were

90 Ethnic entitlements and compliance

appropriated by the communist-turned-nationalist elite under Nazarbaev. In several

other Soviet republics, reform-minded elements among the communists, together

with more liberal intelligentsia and dissidents formed a ‘democratic’ coalition to

organize mass action and protests against various aspects of communist rule.

Some of these successfully combined an ecological and anti-nuclear agenda with

ethno-national grievances, particularly in the Baltic republics and Ukraine, to

constitute a popular anti-communist platform with a nationalist appeal.

Certainly, during this period the anti-nuclear Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement

headed by the well-known Kazakh poet and communist Olzhas Suleimenov

offered a vital public platform for mobilizing discontent over the devastating

ecological effects of nuclear tests conducted upon Kazakhstan’s territories.

However, Suleimenov was a quintessential Soviet-style communist and

‘internationalist’, a close associate of Kunaev, and a firm supporter of Kazakhstan’s

union with Russia. Thus in contrast to their Ukrainian or Baltic counterparts,

Kazakhstan’s ‘eco-nationalist’ agenda failed to properly address either

ethnic Kazakh or republican-wide grievances and instead became entrapped in a

Soviet-style internationalist frame.

One of the limitations in Central Asia was the absence of a ‘liberal-dissident’

orientation and also of a consciously articulated national sentiment.

Nurlan

Amrekulov, a Kazakh scholar, explains this by pointing to the ‘paternalism’ and

‘subordination to state authority’ which he sees as essential traits of the Kazakh

intelligentsia. He attributes these to the absence of a proper urbanization and a

middle class among the former nomads.

Old communists, new nationalists

When Nazarbaev secured another seven-year term in office in December 2005 by

obtaining over 91 per cent of votes, few of the notable figures within the Kazakh

CP apparatus around 1990 were visible among the top elite circles. Nazarbaev and

other long-reigning Soviet-installed Central Asian leaders (Islam Karimov of

Uzbekistan and Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan) are commonly portrayed as

‘survivors’ of Soviet rule who have skilfully adapted to the new political climate.

Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to proclaim sovereignty when the

Soviet Union was disintegrating. And together with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan,

it is another Central Asian state that has not undergone any regime transition or

even leadership change following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Nazarbaev’s continuing stay in office following the collapse of the Soviet

Union in part explains why the ousted leader Kunaev did not say anything that

could be interpreted as ‘nationalist’, viewed as upsetting the country’s delicate

ethnic balance or implicate Nazarbaev or his allies of collaboration with Moscow

to the detriment of Kazakh national interests.

Kunaev has carefully refrained

from mentioning any names or factions in Kazakhstan that could be held responsible

for his removal from office in 1986 and remained a steadfast ‘internationalist’

until his death in 1993, unflinching in displaying his loyalty to the CP and to his

patron Brezhnev. Instead he simply pointed at the structure of collaboration

Ethnic entitlements and compliance 91

between Moscow and Kazakhstan and the habitual compliance of Kazakhs with

Soviet rule until the very end:

It is impossible not to see the imperial ambitions of [politicians] in Moscow,

and their conceited belief, we will appoint whoever we feel like, and your

task is to say ‘yes’. And we said ‘yes’. It was deeply ingrained in our

consciousness that only the centre can appoint the highest cadres.

The career biographies of numerous Central Asian elites exemplify their

compliance and active participation in propagating the cherished Soviet goals of

internationalism and the concept of homo sovieticus or sovetskii chelovek.

Nazarbaev’s own political resumé vividly illustrates the charting of a typical

Soviet career path from the ‘subaltern’ beginnings as the son of a shepherd whose

early childhood was spent in an all Kazakh environs of an aul in Almaty oblast

and professional training was obtained in a Russian-dominated environment. He

began his career as a metallurgist working amidst a multi-ethnic workforce in the

small mining town in Temirtau and worked his way up to become the party ladder

weathering the upheaval of post-Brezhnev period.

Another emblematic illustration of the communist-turned-nationalist pattern is

the career-path of the well-known Kazakh historian Manash Kozybaev

(1931–2003), who was the director of the Institute of History and Ethnology of

the Kazakh Academy of Sciences from 1988 until his death. Kozybaev achieved

academic prominence in 1964 when he published a history of the CP of

Kazakhstan during the Second World War. His numerous subsequent works

extolled the CP and the Soviet system. One of the fail-safe ways of attaining rapid

career mobility and securing membership of the Academy of Sciences in

Kazakhstan during the Brezhnev period was to specialize in topics pertaining to

the ‘internationalist’ role of the CP, the role of Kazakhs and other Soviet nations

in winning the ‘Great Patriotic War’.

When Kazakhstan became independent,

Kozybaev retained his position, as virtually all party and academic personnel of

the titular nationality did, provided they refrained from defying the authority of

the incumbent leadership. His research focus shifted to rewriting Kazakh history

by delving into the ancient and medieval period, finding antecedents of Kazakh

statehood, and glorifying the achievement of various Kazakh historical figures.

To an outsider, the ability to switch allegiance from one ideology and a political

system to its seemingly opposite might appear opportunistic, a glaring demon-

stration of lapsed personal integrity. Yet, such accommodations were routine and

pervasive. Several Kazakh academics who had written extensively on the love of

Kazakhs for Russian, their ‘second mother tongue’, and arguing that ‘bilingualism’

was more conducive to intellectual development, had turned into leading

advocates of Kazakh linguistic revival after Kazakhstan attained sovereignty

and advocated curtailing the sphere of Russian language use. The Institute of Ethnic

Relations of the Kazakh Academy of Sciences, which had published numerous

works attesting to ‘friendship of peoples’ and the ‘resolution’ of the national

92 Ethnic entitlements and compliance

question, reconstituted itself as the Centre for Conflictology under the same director.

The same academics who had formerly extolled the Soviet system for the cultural

and material advance of the Kazakhs began blaming it for cultivating ethnic

favouritism and fomenting conflict.

The communist-turned-nationalist phenomenon has been so common that few

see it as a source of concern or particularly anomalous. Most Kazakh academics

and ordinary people were too weary to respond to my enquiries into factors that

explain the transformation of former communists into national spokespersons and

kept a discrete silence.

But a few others challenged this contention. Aizhan,

a history teacher at the Kazakh State University explained that aqsaqal (elders)

such as Kozybaev (and a number of other academics with a similar career

trajectory) should be treated with respect, for it was not in the Kazakh tradition

to speak ill of or to judge one’s elders and ancestors. Layla, who was pursuing a

Candidate’s degree in Philology, objected to what she considered ‘negative’ and

‘erroneous’ assessment of outsiders [non-Kazakhs]. She reminded me that the

‘distinguished academics’ on whom Russians [and ‘outsiders such as I’] were

prone to pass value judgements were the ‘crème de la crème of the intelligentsia

and the pride of our nation’, who should be honoured and respected for having

endured very difficult circumstances in order to survive. In response to my

questions as to why there were no public acts of dissidence, protests or resistance

to the Soviet system, or support for the Kazakh national cause even during glasnost,

several of my informants habitually noted that ‘it was not allowed’, and that such

acts were ‘impossible’.

When I persisted with the question of why they had not

come forward to organize resistance or express their dissent, Zhanna, a physicist in

her early fifties, responded, ‘how could we afford such dissidence when we were

struggling to survive? When we had to preserve our genetic pool (genofond)? After

all, the Jews have a safe haven to go to but this is the only place we have.’

Zhanna’s plain ‘explanation’ reveals a number of underlying assumptions.

First, it suggests that collective ethnic obligations, such as the ‘preservation of

genetic pool’ and survival of a group, take precedence over narrower issues of

individual agency and responsibility. Second, it reflects an underlying perception

that dissidence (or a national struggle) could occur only in a relatively privileged

and safe setting in which an ‘exit’ option is available. She associated dissent and

dissidence implicitly with Soviet Jews or Germans, who were seen as possessing

a ‘safe’ homeland outside of the USSR and thus an exit route.

Let us revisit the issue of ‘coercion’ here. Notwithstanding the horrors of

Stalinism, the Soviet state was not built on coercion and terror alone. The Stalinist

order also provided unprecedented social mobility to the ordinary masses, the

various ‘oppressed’ social strata and members of the ‘backward’ nations through

the zealous promotion of education, employment, socialization and ideological

indoctrination, all necessary components in constructing a high modernist

socialist order. The new Sovietized generation of Kazakhs was not simply a

victim or target of a high modernist social transformation agenda, but also its

unwitting agent.

The children of the victims of these purges seized educational

Ethnic entitlements and compliance 93

and professional opportunities and participation in the construction of socialism

as the best means of overcoming their victimization.

Maira, a retired party official from Aqtobe, told me of her mixed feelings when

she received honours and party accolades in recognition of her work and an

invitation to join the party in 1957 at the age of 26. Several members of her

extended family were purged under Stalin, accused of collaborating with the ‘class

enemies’ (bai and ‘kulaks’).

How could I join the party that had been responsible for executing my father,

grandfather, uncle and for making my mother lose her mind? But I will never

forget the words of my [only surviving] uncle: ‘you have to live your life, live

with your times and circumstances. If opportunity knocks, do not keep your

doors closed. We have outlived our times, and our times were different.’

Once life had normalized under the Soviet system after the Stalinist terror and the

devastation of World War II, the structure of accommodation with the Soviet state

and compliance with its ideology became routine, forging a close, albeit fluid

nexus between self-preservation, careerism and mobility. Careerism, guarantees

of mobility and ideological compliance came to be seen as essential for self-

preservation. The ability to play by the rules of the game, subverting them

wherever possible, but never demonstrating an outright defiance, became critical

to survival and success. To be successful meant to be fully integrated within the

system.

Representation and legitimacy

How do we distinguish between the imperative to survive and the drive for success,

between a desire for self-preservation and interest-maximization within the

Soviet system? Survival and interest-maximization became closely entwined as

the purported agents of Soviet coercive policies and the beneficiaries of socialist

affirmative action both complied and collaborated with the Soviet system while

maintaining a subaltern posture.

The Kazakh historian Zhuldyzbek Abylkhozhin talks about a system of mutual,

ideological and material dependency between the party elites and the ‘lumpen’ or

subaltern beneficiaries of the new socialist order who dominated the party rank

and file as both strata were engaged in an endeavour to establish a mutually

beneficial socialist state. To quote, ‘it was the lumpen elements [half-literate,

lacking a larger social or ideological awareness], who made a career in

collectivization and transformed the party apparatus into a ladder for upward

mobility. Just as the apparat needed a certain type of cadres, that is, lumpens, the

latter also needed the apparat.’

Even though they enjoyed preferential access to education, employment,

membership of the party and overall mobility within their republic, the titular

communist elites saw themselves as lacking an agency and ability to change the

system or to shape their destinies. They habitually assumed a posture of subalternity

94 Ethnic entitlements and compliance

that denoted their powerlessness, marginality and lack of autonomy vis-à-vis

Moscow, Russians and other advanced groups within the republic. For security,

they sought protection in loyalty to a patron and in pursuing career entitlements

to compensate for their purported lack of power. A disengagement from ethnic or

political action and risk aversion formed the precondition for survival at every

level.

From this standpoint, Nazarbaev and other former communists within the

top echelons of power in post-Soviet Kazakhstan have opportunistically managed

to represent themselves as ‘survivors’ of the Soviet system and legitimate

custodians of their nations, despite their loyalty to Moscow until the collapse of

the Soviet state, a shadowy role in the December 1986 protests, and a lukewarm

appreciation of Kunaev’s legacy.

Were the Soviet-installed leaders seen as authoritative, if not authentic

representatives of their nation (natsiia)? James Critchlow saw the Central Asian

national elites as a ‘buffer between the masses and outright Russification’.

100

As Chapter 3 has shown, ‘Russification’ was not a simple top-down policy

imposed from the metropolitan centre: Kazakhs, especially the educated urban

elite, also yearned for integration into a ‘civilized’ community of nations. Although

the Kazakh communist elites lacked an organic connection with their ethnic

constituencies or a legitimate societal base, they had uncontested control over the

media and the state propaganda machinery, which made it easy for them to be

seen as serving the masses, and as fulfilling the party directives. Moreover, these

elites occupied a strategic position as intermediaries between the centre and their

ethno-national constituencies, which allowed them to exert control over local

distribution channels and serve as ‘purveyors of patronage’.

101

They were thus

favourably placed to symbolically represent their titular constituency vis-à-vis the

centre and position themselves as the ‘natural’ spokespersons or leaders of

their nation.

‘Kunaev elevated Kazakhs and Kazakhstan on the Soviet map, and Nazarbaev

made it visible on the world map,’ a Kazakh news commentator observed during

a discussion on the state television channel.

102

This reveals that their prolonged

incumbency in office, which conferred all the advantages of control over distribution

channels, the media and public opinion, has positioned these leaders to assume a

quasi-legitimate mantle as the spokespersons of their nation without having to

play an active mobilizational role. If in the Soviet era, titular elites were able to

manufacture legitimacy by assuming the posture of being subalterns and

representing themselves of a humble social or class ancestry, then in the post-

Soviet period these are achieved by projecting the image of having tactically

empowered themselves by collaborating with the Russian-dominated Soviet

‘empire’ in order to serve as custodians of national culture and interests.

Ethnic entitlements and compliance 95