N° 21 février 2022 Since the beginning of January the situation in Kazakhstan has been marked by mass demonstrations which have taken on an insurrectional character.
These demonstrations were violently repressed. There are dozens of dead, hundreds of injured and thousands of arrests. At the request of the country's authorities, for the past few days and as part of the CSTO(1) defense agreement, Russian troops have been present in Kazakhstan and in particular on key sites. This situation does not come from nothing. For years worker protests, particularly in the oil sector, have been taking place and mobilizing thousands of workers. Thus in Zhanaozen, an important industrial center, the 2011 repression of demonstrations left 17 dead. At issue are the living conditions, low wages and a dictatorship which liquidated hundreds of trade union organizations and banned communist parties and those contesting the power of Nursultan Nazarbayev(2), the former president and his successor Kassym- Jomart Tokayev. What sparked things off at the start of the year was the doubling of the price of gas, which is essential to life since it is the main source of energy for the inhabitants of the country. Thus, on January 3, the entire region of Mangystau was on general strike, a strike that extended to the neighboring region of Atyrau. On January 4 the oil workers of the Tengizchevroil company (in which the participation of American companies reaches 75%) went on strike. This is where 40,000 workers were laid off last December and another round of layoffs is expected. They were then supported during the day by tankers from the Aktobe, West Kazakhstan and Kyzylorda regions. These strikes and popular demonstrations demand a higher standard of living and express their opposition to the plundering of the country's energy wealth by the monopolies led by a capitalist oligarchy which has bled the country dry and sells the coveted wealth of the country (gas, oil, uranium, metals...) to the highest bidder from Russia, to China via the USA. This situation is the result of the liquidation of the USSR, the social conquests of the workers and the re-establishment of capitalism under the leadership of a ferocious anti-social and anti-national dictatorship. Our party expresses its solidarity with the thousands of workers who, defying the police state regime and repressions, have taken to the streets to demand the improvement of their standard of living and to express their opposition to the plundering of the country's energy wealth by the monopolies.
We demand:
– The release of all demonstrators detained by the police, as well as the release of all political prisoners.
– The abolition of anti-union and anti-labor laws, which have outlawed hundreds of unions in order to allow the government to suppress the labor movement.
– The legalization of communist and democratic parties, which have been banned by the authorities of the country.
We also say to all those imperialists who would like to take control of Kazakhstan: hands off! the people of Kazakhstan, the workers, alone must decide the future of their country.
(1) The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) (Russian: Организация Договора о коллективной безопасности (ОДКБ)) is a political-military organization founded on October 7, 2002. It includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
(2) A politician close to Mr. Gorbachev who exercised important responsibilities in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Kazakhstan and who was President of Kazakhstan from 1991 to 2019.