After the January events: Why Mongolia can’t and won’t produce broad mass movements
One aspect that was missing in the coverage of what happened in Kazakhstan was its initial workers-led protests in the Western part of Kazakhstan, where large mining projects have been running since the mid 1990s. Without considering the working-class beginnings of the protests and focusing only on elite power struggles between Tokayev vs. Nazarbayev, as many have speculated, will give us only a partial answer to what has really happened. So here I will try to systematize the build-up to the protests with a longer perspective and I will do it only comparatively to my home country Mongolia - which should provide some useful insights. In the end, I will try to provide an analysis of Mongolia's failure to generate broad mass protests in a seemingly free political environment with standards of life much lower to that of Kazakhstan in all aspects.
My progression of thoughts was only possible after an article on Lefteast where it explains socioeconomic background of the protests providing a long view of capitalist development in Kazakhstan since its independence. It becomes clear here that the ‘miracle’ of Kazakhstan’s economic development was indeed this Western region on the shores of Caspian Sea where much of its natural resources are extracted. While in Mongolia, there is only one - much quarreled large multinational project Oyu Tolgoi, in this part of Kazakhstan there are several large projects with similar magnitude. These include the jointly owned oil pipeline that goes through much of Kazakhstan to Xinjiang, as well as Chevron’s largest project Tengizoil.
Long story short, Kazakhstan’s version of ‘developmentalism’ or in other words full embrace of capitalist development was swift and intense backed with its strong state and foreign capital. As with any industrial developmental project it required rapid mobilization of Kazakh workforce - so that in the last 30 years there was significant demographic change in the region where large amount of young Kazakhs have migrated westwards for job prospects, while at the background there was also significant out-migration out of Kazakhstan especially for non-Kazakh citizens within the capacity of state promoted ‘kazakhization’ and with it ‘de-russification’.
This gradual demographic change to Western region is a classic example of what can be called proletarianzation of population and forming of common consciousness. It should be also taken into consideration that the proportion of Kazakh makeup was at the center of this transformation. Compared to the census in 1989, two regions saw an increase in migration of Kazakhs and out-migration of non-Kazakhs which today both regions have more than 90% Kazakhs. More telling numbers are the increase in absolute numbers in two regions, specifically the population in Mangystau today is 736795 compared to 324243 in 1989.
Even after the ‘January events’, at the time of the writing (March 9), strikes and demonstrations are still continuing in Zhanaozen against KazMunayGas, the biggest state owned oil and gas company in Kazakhstan. The labor struggles there have a long and tragic history with most significant in 2011 where 15 strikers were killed during the violent suppression.
When facts such as there are taken into account, it is no longer puzzling why the initial strike of the protests started here in Mangystau, more precisely in Zhanaozen where workers’ strike and protests had long history since the region was activated for extraction, and not in Almaty or in the capital Nur-Sultan.
Only after acknowledging the more structural preconditions of protests, can we delve into other social issues of general dissatisfaction apparent globally, in this case, developmentalism Nazarbayev style. It is stated elsewhere that only 162 people associated with Nazarbayev and to his extended family who make only 0,001% of the entire population own 50% of Kazakhstan’s wealth. In a very clumsy way if we apply this to the current numbers, GNI per capita in Kazakhstan decreases from 8,710 to 4,107.9 barely making the upper middle income group. Then the whole discussion of Kazakhstan being the success story and model case in Central Asia might lose its relevance.
Coming back to the comparative aspect to our discussion, it shouldn't be as troubling to compare the two countries. After all, both countries had similar beginnings after the collapse of the Soviet Union and both were in need to carry out the state-building, and for Kazakhstan it also had to undergo the nation-building project. One should keep in mind that in the last days of the Soviet Union, in the Kazakh ASSR only some forty percent of the population were ethnically Kazakh while the rest consisted of various Soviet peoples with lingua franca Russian. The Kazakh nation building then as with other newly emerged republics was to undo the Soviet aspect and replace it with Kazakh one.
While there are a number of differences between the two countries both in terms of their pre-reform economic capacity as well as how two countries actually undergone the transition - what we know in the end is that both Central Asian states have created resource dependent economies - a raw material model of capitalism where only the few has benefited while the vast majority are either clinging to or under poverty line.
What differs Kazakh experience to Mongolian one is the factor of political stability which Nazarbayev provided up until recently and the scale of mega projects that kick started as early as mid 1990s. As a result, in addition to its industrial base and found reserves explored during the Soviet period, the capitalist project in Kazakhstan was rather smooth and rapid. It was supported by its new founded oligarchy - former cadres guaranteed with stable commodity prices.
What went wrong is, however, the mega projects and its immediate impact in the form of industrialization and urbanization, especially in the Western region has created something akin to proletarianization and creation of common consciousness among the Kazakhs who found themselves in these regions for the search of jobs and better life. Unemployment is also the major issue in this region where the unemployed often go on streets to demand jobs. Even though, independent trade unions were banned in 2017, the very fact that the strikes and meetings are still happening to this day without an organized body clearly shows the class-for-itself aspect of the workers and unemployed in the region.
In comparison, none of these were present in Mongolia. Mongolia did not create a functioning extractive industry with a bulk of the working class, but instead social organization of the past thirty years of development can be summarized as the creation of an atomized precariat class with no job security and hopes of empty entrepreneurialism but most importantly without the notion of common consciousness.
Unlike Kazakhstan, because there was no significant concentration of industries located in one region or in several monotowns, the wage earners in Mongolia were not able to form a common interest and therefore mobilize their interests in some form of political statement where trade unions usually play a leading role. Not surprisingly, in the past years only teachers and doctors were able to mobilize protests to raise their concerns only because of the still visible professional solidarity together with their bare minimum salary of around 249 USD for teachers and 290 USD for doctors compared to national average of around 340 USD.
That is why, occasional demonstrations at the central square are not interest based but often call for more abstract and broad demands like better transparency, corruption or they instigated by seasonal political scandals that come in routine. Often these demonstrations are staged or supported by rivaling political parties so that the words like protests (temtsel) and demonstrations (jagsaal) became trivialized in public consciousness.
On the other hand, without specific demands targeting the other end, in Kazakhstan’s case, large mining companies both private and state-owned, there is no clear target for Mongolian precariat to channel their grievances but to themselves - a result of thirty year dogma indigenized in Mongolia with all sorts of culturalist explanations championed by Baabar and co.; or rightly so, blaming it to the state (tur) and the government (zasag). The absence of a clear target from the point of view of Mongolian precariat, then creates a conspiracy like imagined targets which is then used to discredit their cause and their entire agency. While in Kazakhstan everything wrong can be directed to Nazarbayev and his family, the collective project of Mongolian democracy removes any such singular figure and leaves it to an individual, a voter. Thus the saying: Yamar ard tumen baina, tiim l tur baina - roughly transalted ‘as the people are, so is the state’.
That is why broad mass movements are almost impossible to emerge in contemporary Mongolia without the specific demands that should emerge out of common interests based on the common consciousness of certain social groups, in this case, Mongolian workers.
Finally, few words on why to idolize and present social movements as something to aspire for? Many might say, mass movements and demonstrations lead to nothing but chaos, disruptions of normal life and even to unnecessary violence. To push against this, in many ways, modern history is the history of mass movements. It is the arena to enter when formal politics has failed to deliver. From raising a salary to fighting for civil rights - many of the things we take granted today were all fought through contentious politics. And when democracy erodes, it may be the only avenue left to push for real politics.
An edited version of this article was cross-published on Lefteast on March 25th, 2022 - After the January events: Why Mongolia can’t and won’t produce broad mass movements.
An edited Chinese version appeared on April 12th, 2022 曾是世界上第二个社会主义国家的蒙古,为何今天却无法产生广泛的群众运动? [Once world’s second socialist country - Mongolia, why it is unable to generate broad mass movements today?]
http://www.wyzxwk.com/Article/guoji/2022/04/453055.html