Caspian Business Journal

Nazarbayev and the Making of Kazakhstan: By Jonathan Aitken

Jonathan Aitken’s slanted take on Nursultan Nazarbayev is far from a probing, nuanced analysis of the Kazakh leader’s rise and reign, but he does spin some funny stories.

A fiery and determined orator, the young Nursultan Nazarbayev was never afraid to speak out against the stultified communist bureaucracy within which he worked. In 1972, the future president became secretary of the party committee at the dilapidated Karaganda steel plant. Technical problems and construction failures meant dreadful conditions for workers, and a steady decline in output – difficulties which were glossed over by party members anxious to protect their cushy positions. Nazarbayev was less willing to turn a blind eye, and embarked on a two-man crusade with the help of the Pravda newspaper journalist Mikhail Poltaranin. Publishing under his own name and risking career suicide, he railed against the conditions at the factory. To Nazarbayev’s surprise, his blustering actually attracted sympathy from some key politburo figures in Moscow, who gave him everything he needed to make good on his promise to improve the lives of workers on the factory floor.

This inspirational vignette would not be out of place in a Hollywood movie. Neither, for that matter, would any of the anecdotes colorfully retold by former British Politician Jonathan Aitken in his biography “Nazarbayev and the Making of Kazakhstan” (Continuum; $35). Which is why it has to be approached with more than a little caution. Drawing on over 20 hours of face-to-face interviews with the leader and conversations with Nazarbayev enthusiasts, it can leave you screaming for just one critical quotation to counterbalance the suspiciously consistent praise.

A class mate: “He was the brightest boy in our school, no question about it.”

A communist party official: “One of [the men I encountered] stood out as a visibly good communicator, full of drive and energy. This young man was Nazarbayev.”

The young Komsomol member: “This was the first time I had ever met Nazarbayev and I was completely blown over by him.”

Even Aitken himself admitted in an interview with the Caspian Business Journal to having fallen immediately under the Kazakh leader’s spell: “He and I hit it off, in the sense that I could immediately see that he was very remarkable.”

The Education of a Soviet Leader

Sycophantism aside, the trajectory of Nazarbayev’s life, from the son of an illiterate shepherd to President of the Republic of Kazakhstan as told by Aitken is a compelling tale. Nursultan Nazarbayev was born in July 1940 on the scenic steppes of the Alatau Mountains. His childhood years in the small village of Chemolgan or “village of candlelight” were dominated by farm work and school. Nazarbayev grew to love reading, his obsession taking over to such a point that his mother was compelled to kick him out of the house for some fresh air. Only for the young boy to sneak back through the window and return to his books. Aitken sees the seeds of future success in Nazarbayev’s childhood diligence, diplomacy and leadership; at one point he convinces his reluctant classmates and parents that they all should transfer to a Kazakh-language school.

Upon graduation, Nazarbayev applied for a job at the Temirtau steel plant in northern Kazakhstan. In spite of long, physically exhausting days, he still found time to study the science of metallurgy in the evenings at a local polytechnical institute. He rose rapidly through the steelworker hierarchy, and was eventually invited to join the Communist Party. This, he admits to Aitken, was motivated as much by ambition as ideological zeal. “If I had thought it would help my ambition in those days to be a Buddhist, I would have become a Buddhist. But as it was, I became a member of the Communist Party — and a good one.” Regardless of motivation, Nazarbayev took his obligations very seriously. Once elected secretary of the Komsomol group of young workers at the plant, Nazarbayev cajoled his less-than-enthusiastic peers to take part in voluntary Saturday community projects. To convince young men and women, tired from a week of physical labor to give up their weekend and plant trees is no mean feat.

In 1979, Nazarbayev’s promotion to Party Secretary for Industry and the Economy prompted a move to Almaty, along with his new wife Sara, a co-worker from the plant. His natural talent for networking led him to blossom in the corridors of power. That said, wooing senior Politburo figures like A. P. Kirilenko who nodded off several times during one meeting with Nazarbayev before agreeing dozily to anything, did not yet fully test his political acumen. This was the golden age of the Soviet gerontocracy and the realization that the politburo was dominated by senile pseudo-patriarchs did not fill Nazarbayev with confidence in the future of the Soviet Union. Becoming Prime Minister of the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan in 1984, Nazarbayev set about cleansing the system.

His attempts to root out the old guard led to a growing rift between Nazarbayev and President Dinmukhamed Kunayev. While Nazarbayev’s early denunciations raised a few eyebrows, when he directly attacked Kunayev’s brother many thought this was a step too far. In the late 1980s, Kunayev was replaced as President. Rather than handing over the baton to Nazarbayev, however, the central authorities took the bizarre measure of bringing in a Russian, Gennady Kolbin. This looked like at attempt by Moscow to reassert control, and seemed to fly in the face of the winds of change which were supposed to be giving greater power and responsibility to the republics. Students took to the streets of Almaty, only to be brutally beaten into submission. Kolbin, though, lasted only a couple of years, until he was replaced by Nazarbayev in June 1989.

Nazarbayev’s accession to the post of President brought him new powers and new friends. It was at this point that his friendship with Boris Yeltsin began to blossom, and the exploits of this comical duo are the book’s most memorable moments. During a visit to Kazakhstan in 1991, shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin was presented with a beautiful stallion as a gift. After making increasingly exuberant toasts to the horse’s speed, beauty and strength, the Russian President was overcome by a desire to saddle up and ride at that very moment. As he balanced precariously in the saddle of the horse, two of his burliest henchmen prevented him from toppling from either side, while an additional two struggled to stop the stallion from bolting. Turning to these aides, Nazarbayev asked if Yeltsin had ever ridden before. “No,” one of them replied, “but there’s no way of stopping him.”

The personal chemistry between Nazarbayev and Yeltsin had a significant influence on the shape of Russian-Kazakh relations as the USSR fell apart, according to Aitken. They did not always agree. Nazarbayev had always done his best to save the USSR and was dismayed when he learnt of the collusion by Yeltsin and the leaders of Belarus and the Ukraine to create a Commonwealth of Independent States devoid of federal authorities. He did his best to mitigate this disintegration, by encouraging this trio to expand membership to a greater number of former Soviet states. At the time of the coup in 1991, Nazarbayev was constantly on the phone with different factions in Moscow trying to understand and coordinate the events from Almaty. In one conversation, a distraught Yelstin pleaded with him to somehow convince the hardliners to cease their advance on the White House. Nazarbayev got on the line with the Defense Minister in Moscow, Dmitrii Yazov, and begged with him to halt the tanks. Less than 20 minutes later, the tanks stopped their advance and the coup attempt collapsed.

The First President of Kazakhstan

Since independence, Nazarbayev has become an increasingly prominent international figure. In part, this was because of his role in dealing with Kazakhstan’s nuclear legacy. With the break-up of the union, the country found itself the de facto owner of over 1,200 nuclear warheads, much to the chagrin of the U.S., and the envy of Libya. A steady stream of global leaders just happened to drop in on Kazakhstan, in attempts to decipher Nazarbayev’s intentions. One meeting between U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Ambassador Robert Strauss took a novel turn when Nazarbayev suggested they relocate to the sauna to continue discussions. Nazarbayev then picked up a bunch of birch trees and began thwacking Baker on the back in order to open up his pores. Aitken retells how Strauss ran out of the steam room, and shouted with feigned urgency to their Secret Service guard, “Get me the President of the United States on the phone! His Secretary of State is buck naked and he is being beaten by the President of Kazakhstan.”

The decision to disarm was that of Nazarbayev. Since his days at Temirtau, he had been aware of the opposition to and effects of nuclear testing around the Semipalatinsk site. The death of one of his friend’s fathers from brain cancer and sisters from leukemia left a deep impact and, according to Aitken, was key in his commitment to disarmament upon independence. Yet even if he was committed to disarmament from the start, he struck a hard bargain, managing to obtain a hefty remuneration package for getting rid of the nuclear weapons.

In terms of post independence years, Aitken focuses on economic reforms undertaken by Nazarbayev, with less attention paid to political wrangling that accompanied them. It is clear that he is, on the whole, impressed by Nazarbayev’s economic management. “I know how difficult it is to build a successful economy. I was secretary of the treasury. When there are economic crises, inflation, these are problems…He has steered Kazakhstan through the most terrible economic turmoil,” Aitken has said.

As Yegor Gaidar embarked on his free-market reforms in Russia, hyperinflation swept through Kazakhstan from 1992-1994. Still part of a common currency zone, Kazakhstan was hurt by the refusal of Russian officials to release cash owed to Kazakhstan’s people, Kazakh companies and businesses, in part because they were broke themselves. Nazarbayev was forced to introduce a new currency, the tenge, and modestly refused to have his own face on the notes, as he argued, only African presidents do that when they are still alive.

Kazakhstan has undoubtedly emerged with one of the strongest economies in the CIS. Yet, even Nazarbayev made some mistakes in the early years, economic misjudgments that Aitken manages to portray in a positive light: it was because he trusted Moscow too much. This type of simplistic pseudo-analysis, which dominates the later sections of the book, is not helpful; in many cases Aitken tends to offer excuses than insights. In a brief passage on the James Giffen corruption indictment involving the Kazakh government, which tarnished Nazarbayev’s image, Aitken suggests that the domestic public understands that “their political leaders did make hay while the sun was shining” given that the revenues from Caspian development are so beneficial to the country. He does not unfortunately cite a source to back this up, and given his lack of Russian or Kazakh language, one must wonder who exactly has assured him that this is the case.  At times, this can leave the author looking unconvincing.

Aitken is surprised by the spontaneous self-dissolution of parliament in December 1993, calling it “an extraordinary case of turkey’s voting for Christmas.” His only explanation for this is that they must have been scared by hyperinflation and turmoil in neighboring states, and, therefore, wanted no part in governance. He neglects to point out that it was, in fact, Nazarbayev who ‘invited’ parliament to dissolve itself, and that one deputy was forced to apologize after suggesting that the president’s intervention was unconstitutional. Those who opposed Nazarbayev’s privatization measures, meanwhile, are labeled as “dinosaurs” who did not understand such concepts as the rule of law, overlooking the fact that many of the parliamentarians objected to privatization not in principle, but rather were concerned by the abuses of the allocation process.

Nazarbayev’s only quibble when reading the book was that Aitken had found out more about his pre-marital love life than expected.  It will come as no surprise then to learn that much of the content in the book covers areas more diligently analyzed by seasoned observers such as Martha Brill Olcott — a name conspicuously absent from Aitken’s bibliography. What Aitken’s biography does highlight, if through caricatures, is how important personalities have been in determining the trajectory of post-Soviet politics and economics. This remains the case today. For those looking at doing business in Kazakhstan, Aitken’s portrait of Nazarbayev can be instructive by offering a glimpse at how this pivotal figure understands himself and his place in Kazakhstan’s history, at the very least.