January 21, 2022
Proletarians of all
countries, unite!
THE POWERFUL MASS STRUGGLES IN KAZAKHSTAN
”Imperialism’s economic relations constitute the core
of the entire international situation as it now exists. Throughout the
twentieth century, this new, highest and final stage of capitalism has fully
taken shape.”
Lenin, ”Report On The
International Situation And The Fundamental Tasks Of The Communist
International”
”… the contradiction among the various … imperialist
Powers … leads to the mutual weakening of the imperialists, to the weakening of
the position of capitalism in general, to the acceleration of the advent of the
proletarian revolution and to the practical necessity of this revolution.
[…]
… the development within imperialism of
catastrophic contradictions leading to inevitable wars, the growth of the
revolutionary movement in all countries of the world-all this leads, not only
to the possibility, but also to the necessity of the victory of the proletariat
in individual countries.”
Stalin, ”The
Foundations of Leninism”
On 1st of January, small protests over doubled gas prices started in
Zhanaozen, in the western region of Kazakhstan. Soon combatitative protests
flared all over the country, with the masses storming into administrative
buildings, banks and stores, even seizing an airport, expressing their anger
with the corrupt regime of Kazakhstan, poverty and inequality in the oppressed
nationi.
The reaction responded with bullets and the most gruesome repression, and as of
10th of January, according to Kazakhstani officials, 160 people have been
reported to have died in the protests, hundreds have been injured and 5000
people have been arrestedii.
Russian newspaper Izvestija reports that 17 members of the reactionary security
forces have been killediii.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has called the rebelling masses terrorists,
suggesting foreign influence. He said that the security forces will work hard
until ”every single militant is eliminated”, authorising the reactionary forces
to shoot without warningiv.
According to Russian news website Novaja Gazeta the origin of the protests
is in the gas-producing region of Zhanaozen, where the wages for the majority
stay low as the price of everyday products and fuel for cars and heating keep
rising. This region already saw violent repression of protests as the security
forces shot protesting oil workers in 2011v.
Kazakhstan is rich in natural resources, such as gas and minerals, and is the
biggest economy in Central Asia, and these riches are plundered mainly by
Russian imperialism. As the imperialist system keeps plummeting deeper into its
general crisis, increasingly expressing its further decomposition, the living
conditions of the masses keep becoming more and more dire both in the
imperialist countries and in the oppressed nations. So they take on the
streets, they rebel and fight fiercely against the heavily-armed reaction,
demanding affordable prices, better wages, they express their very justified
deep hatred against the ruling class that leads a comfortable life, selling the
country to imperialists and exploiting the people. They are not afraid of the
security forces, they are willing to defy the lethal force of the reactions’
guns with steel bars, rocks and molotov coctails. The masses raise their
demands, their revindications, and all of these demands will be truly
fullfilled by the conquest of power, and ultimately, the masses demand the
power. And the way to conquest and defend the power is through the people’s
war, led by a militarised, marxist-leninist-maoist, principally maoist,
communist party.
Already there is signs how the big bourgeoisie of Kazakhstan and the
imperialists will use this struggle of the masses in their collusion and
contention. Russian imperialism has marched its troops into the semi-colony
Kazakhstan, dependent mainly to Russian imperialism, in a ”peace keeping
mission”, as the country is part of CSTO (Collective Security Treaty
Organisation), which includes Russia and the semicolonies which are mainly
under its dependency such has Belarus, Kirgistan, Tajikistan and Georgiavi.
The weak regime of Tokayev is crying for its master to come help it out of the
trouble. This is the first time this organisation is sent on a such mission.
Russian military officials have stated that the troops will stay until ”order
is restored” in Kazakhstan, and Kazakhstan has also requested the troops to
take part in the ”anti-terrorism operation” directed against the peoplevii.
This is a direct military intervention, an attempt to prevent Kazakhstan from
escaping the clutches of Russian imperialism and to crush the rebellion of the
masses by brutal force. It is a direct military intervention for now limited as
a bathometer for future major interventions for the defense of its sphere of
influence, which it considers its own security zone in Central Asia. That a
direct action to solve as quickly as possible the problem in this former Asian
republic of the USSR, neighbor of others that can suffer the contagion and
destabilize, would aggravate the problem in its sphere of influence and lead to
a greater Russian intervention that can transform them into several “new
Afghanistans”.
Russian imperialism is facing the growing encirclement of U.S. imperialism
through Nato. What is happening in Kazakhstan is bringing unrest right to its
border, as it is also answering to NATO’s increasing military presence in
Ukraine. At the same time, RIA Novosti, Russian state-affiliated news agency,
is noting that even ”the peaceful neighbour of many years”, Finland, is
becoming even more welcoming for the Yankee-NATO, and Russian imperialism has
demanded NATO to stop its enlargening around the border of Russiaviii.
The military intervention of Russian imperialism therefore is an attempt to
bring stability by force to its semi-colony, to keep on exploiting, and to make
sure mainly Yankee imperialism, or other imperialists such as Chinese
social-imperialism cannot use the unrest to displace Russia as the main
imperialism oppressing the people of that country. In fact, on 10th January,
China ”offered help” to Kazakhstan, saying that they are ready to send troops
if Kazakhstan requests itix.
The ”western” imperialists, mainly the sole hegemonic superpower USA and
the so-called European Union, dominated by German imperialism have warned
Russia against military intervention of Russia in Kazakhstan. The Yankee
officials say that they are ”closely monitoring the situation” and looking out
for human rights violationsx –
as if ”human rights” mean anything to the hegemonous imperialist superpower
exploiting, murdering and torturing people all over the world, but they still
want to potray themselves as on the side of the masses to use this struggle
against Russian imperialism.
Kazakhstan was ruled for decades by Nursultan Nazarbayev until 2019, when
president Tokayev was ”handpicked” by him as his successor. Nazabayev still
remained a powerful figure. In Tokayev’s period, some reforms have been made to
make it easier to make new bourgeois parties (of the comprador faction of the
big bourgeoisie) and to organise demonstrationsxi.
Nazarbayev had started falling out of favour among the ruling class, which is a
small handful of people, tied together by loyalty and family ties to
Nazarbayev, and from ranks for the “new bourgeoisie” (bureaucratic faction of
the lackey big bourgeoisie) risen to power during social-imperialist Soviet
Union as well as ”new regional elite”. The bourgeois-democratic ”opposition”
forces (compradors) remain very weak as the political system of Kazakhstan is
deeply based on semi-feudal system of loyalities and family tiesxii.
”Human rights” activists and government critics have faced harassment,
prosecution and violence during many years. Most of the ”opposition” to the
president came from this tight-knit elite. However, during the protests
president Tokayev has dismissed the leader of the security council, Nazarbayev,
as well as the head of intelligence service, Nazarbayev’s ally Kärim Mäsimov.
Mäsimov has also been arrested for treasonxiii.
The landlord-bureaucratic state in Kazakhstan is sinking in a political crisis,
in which the contradictions among the big bourgeoisie are inflaming, and the
different sections of the big bourgeoisie are taking advantage of the unrest to
conspire against each other.
Corrupt Kazakhstani banker and big bourgeois politician living in exile, Mukhtar
Ablyazov, a representative of a different section of the big bourgeoisie in
Kazakhstan, has called the ”west” to intervenexiv.
This despicable leech, wanted for embezzlement and fraud in his home country,
is claiming himself as an ”opposition leader” and vowing to return to
Kazakhstan to answer the call of the masses, while begging the ”west” to ”tear
Kazakhstan away from Russia.” One bourgeois expert describes the current
situation among the ruling class as ”a fascinating dance” with politicians like
Erlan Karin, known as a ”young reformer” and ”post-soviet” leaders like
president Tokayev struggling over the future of the countryxv.
Among the ruling class the question is about which imperialist to serve and
which section (faction) of the big bourgeoisie rules.
Even these ”opposition leaders” who claim to support the demonstrations
have in their interest to sell the country to the imperialist that suits them
the best. The exploitation and injustice that the masses are protesting will
just go on, under new exploiters and new imperialist masters. The situation has
similarities to the situation in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014, and it is likely
that Yankee imperialism will try to use the situation to further enclose the
encirclement of Russian imperialism.
The situation in Kazakhstan shows the further deepening of the general
crisis of imperialism: the exploitation and oppression is weighing all the more
heavily on the backs of the masses, and they are not afraid to fight. They
desperately seek freedom, they demand the power for themselves. Without the
correct leadership of the communist party, the imperialists will use the
rebellion of the masses, suppress it with force or to pacify it with empty
promises of reforms. The rebellion cannot however be extinguished; the mass
murder the reaction is committing against the people will not extinguish it –
it will spark up again and again, and in this fiery class struggle the vanguard
of the proletariat will be forged sooner or later. It is sure that without the
communists taking up their task and reconstituting their parties, the masses
will be betrayed by reactionary leadership time and time again. The
explosiveness of the masses is seen all over the world, especially in the
oppressed nations, but also in the imperialist countries, signaling us that we
have entered a new period of revolutions – we see how the masses are ready to
fight, we see that they have nothing to lose but their shackles, they want the
old to burn to give space for the new. They are clamoring for leadership, they
are calling the communists in Kazakhstan and all over the world to reconstitute
their parties and to lead the people all the way to the ever-golden communism.
We emphasize the role of torch and guide of the current people’s wars and
those that are about to begin to show the way and push forward the development
of the subjective forces of the revolution in situations such as those in
Ukraine. This is how the world revolution develops, each people’s war is to
develop the revolution in each country in and at the service of the world
proletarian revolution. This is in Lenin’s military program of the proletarian
revolution, what corresponds is to apply it to the current conditions of the
world proletarian revolution. Moreover, Chairman Mao has explained this
relationship as follows:
“World War I shook the whole globe. The Russians made
the October Revolution and created the world’s first socialist state. Under the
leadership of Lenin and Stalin, the revolutionary energy of the great
proletariat and labouring people of Russia, hitherto latent and unseen by
foreigners, suddenly erupted like a volcano, and the Chinese and all mankind
began to see the Russians in a new light. Then, and only then, did the Chinese
enter an entirely new era in their thinking and their life. They found Marxism-Leninism,
the universally applicable truth, and the face of China began to change. It was
through the Russians that the Chinese found Marxism. Before the October
Revolution, the Chinese were not only ignorant of Lenin and Stalin, they did
not even know of Marx and Engels. The salvoes of the October Revolution brought
us Marxism-Leninism. The October Revolution helped progressives in China, as
throughout the world, to adopt the proletarian world outlook as the instrument
for studying a nation’s destiny and considering anew their own problems. Follow
the path of the Russians — that was their conclusion. In 1919, the May 4 th
Movement took place in China. In 1921 , the Communist Party of China was
founded.
(…) The vanguard of the Chinese proletariat learned
Marxism-Leninism after the October Revolution and founded the Communist Party
of China. It entered at once into political struggles and only now, after a
tortuous course of twenty-eight years, has it won basic victory.
(…) The Chinese revolution, led by the Communist Party
of China, has made tremendous advances both in theory and practice and has
radically changed the face of China”
Chairman Mao, ON THE
PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC DICTATORSHIP, In Commemoration of the Twenty-eighth
Anniversary of the Communist Party of China, 30 June 1949, Selected Works, Vol.
IV.
inovayagazeta.ru
4.1.2022: В Казахстане массовые протесты из-за повышения цены на газ охватили
всю страну. Главное
iialjazeera.com
9.1.2022: Kazakhstan: More than 160 killed, 5000 arrested during riots
iiiiz.ru 10.1.2022:
Число погубших в результате беспорядков в Казахстане силовиков возросло до 17
ivreuters.com
7.1.2022: Kazakh president gives shoot-to-kill order to quell protests
vnovayagazeta.ru
5.1.2022: Отмороженный холодильник
vitheguardian.com
7.1.2022: Putin taking a risk in Kazakhstan and may hope for reward
viiiz.ru 10.1.2022:
Токаев указал на окончанение миссии ОДКБ с завершением антитеррористической
операции
viiihttps://ria.ru/20220107/kazakhstan-1766842283.html
ixreuters.com
10.1.2022: China offers Kazakhstan security support, opposes ’external forces’
xhttps://euobserver.com/world/154023
xireuters.com
20.12.2019: Kazakhstan to liberalize rules on protests and political parties
xiiglobalsecurity.org:
Kazakhstan – politics
xiiireuters.com
8.1.2022: Kazakhstan detains former national security chief on suspicion of
treason
xivhttps://news.trust.org/item/20220107104749-evzo3
xvtageschau.de
5.1.2022: “Es wird eine Weile chaotisch bleiben”