The Story of Kazakhstan’s Independence

The day most relevant to reform efforts in Central Asia is December 16th, 1981. On that day, Kazakhstan officially became the last country to throw off the weight of Soviet control and strive toward independence. Though it took a full ten years to declare themselves an independent nation, Kazakhstan did eventually achieve what seemed impossible just two decades before -- true independence and self-rule.

The story of Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbeyev, is the story of a free and independent Kazakhstan. Beginning at the turn of the 21st century, Nazarbeyev and his political allies began looking into the country’s natural wealth of mineral, fossil fuel, and rare earth components. When told that major changes to his government were needed before any world power would do business with his country, Nazarbeyev wasted little time implementing reforms.

Though he is technically the Supreme Commander for the extent of his life, Nazarbeyev has himself been the source of sweeping reforms. Though the declarations splitting Kazakhstan from the Soviet Union were made in 1981, the story of post-independence Kazakhstan hinges entirely on Nazarbeyev’s desire to increase trade and diplomatic relations with the West, which have all occurred after the year 2005.

Early Influences of Kazakh Independence

Tensions left boiling across the Soviet landscape finally burst forth in the late 1970s -- reforms demanded from dozens of Soviet-occupied nations on both the political and economic levels led to the mass exodus of all but a few of Soviet Russia’s colonies.

Soviet government official Lavrentiy Beriya's decision to test a nuclear device within Kazakh borders in 1949 was still making waves in the early 1980s. The impact of that bomb on Kazakhstan’s ecology and agriculture were still being felt, and for the first time, Kazakhstani citizens expressed anger at the Soviet system as a whole.

Riots & The Beginning of the End of Soviet Rule

Several large and relatively peaceful demonstrations started in 1986, consisting mainly of young Kazakhs eager for true independence. A riot in the town of Almaty, originally a peaceful protest against changes in the Communist government, occurred when police were ordered to suppress the crowd.

Dozens of Kazakh citizens were killed while hundreds of peaceful demonstrators were sent to prison. Combined with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's personal policy known as glasnost – a call for increased clarity throughout the Soviet landscape – these riots and the declarations of independence that followed were the first acts of revolution on a national scale in Kazakhstan's history.

Final Independence Negotiations

Officially, Kazakhstan did not declare sovereignty until October of 1990. After a failed coup in August 1991 in Moscow, the Soviet Union itself dissolved, and Kazakhstan was fully independent as of December 16, 1991.

The ten years following that declaration saw almost no reforms to the Soviet-influenced economy or politics of former Soviet rule. President Nursultan Nazarbayev came to power in 1989 as the head of the local Communist Party, and was elected Kazakhstan's president (presumably for life) in 1991.

The development of a market economy, along with big changes to federal and human rights laws, is an indication that Kazakhstan is serious about becoming a democracy. Regardless of the motives behind independence and reform, Nazarbeyev is being credited with changing the political landscape of this once-obscure but now wealthy independent republic.

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