Following up our coverage of last week’s uprising in Kazakhstan, we have translated an array of perspectives on the situation from various Russian anarchist sources and interviewed two anarchists from Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan and the place where the fighting became most intense.

This text also includes previously unpublished photographs taken by our contacts in Almaty.

January 6: A view of Almaty. The photographer: “A grim fog hangs from the fires; now everything looks like nuclear winter.”

The following sources should serve to debunk any facile misrepresentations of the uprising from the authorities in Kazakhstan, Russia, or the United States—or their misguided supporters.

To those who spread conspiracy theories about the United States attempting to stage-manage a “color revolution” in Kazakhstan, we must point out that the protests began in response to the government canceling its subsidy on gas, which is produced under a profitable state monopoly in Kazakhstan. Those who defend the governments of Kazakhstan and Russia are defending repressive forces that are imposing neoliberal austerity measures upon exploited workers in an extraction-based economy. The honorable place for all who genuinely oppose capitalism is at the side of ordinary workers and other rebels who stand up to the ruling class, not supporting the governments who claim to represent protesters while gunning them down and imprisoning them.

This is not to say that the clashes in Kazakhstan represent a unified anti-capitalist struggle, or for that matter a labor movement. The most credible accounts of the composition of the protests acknowledge that there have been a wide range of different participants utilizing different tactics to pursue different agendas. Of course, if we are sympathetic to workers who protest against the rising cost of living, we can also understand why the unemployed and marginalized might engage in looting.

A crisis like the uprising in Kazakhstan opens up all the fault lines within a society. Every preexisting conflict is pushed to a breaking point: ethnic and religious tensions, rivalries among the ruling elite, geopolitical contests for influence and power. We saw this to a lesser degree in France during the Yellow Vest movement and in the United States during the George Floyd Uprising and its aftermath, though those crises did not proceed as far as the uprising in Kazakhstan, where, owing to the entrenched authoritarian power structure, any struggle is immediately an all-or-nothing venture.

If it is true, as we have argued, that the protesters in Kazakhstan were opposing the same forces that rest of us face all around the world, then the violent suppression of those protests by the soldiers of six nations’ armies poses questions that we all must confront. It seems that such explosions are becoming practically inevitable as economic, political, and ecological catastrophes hit one after the other all around the world. How do we prepare in advance, in order to maximize the likelihood that these ruptures will turn out well despite all the forces that are arrayed against us? In moments of revolutionary potential, how can we propose transformative questions to the others who make up this society with us, focusing the lines of conflict along the most generative and liberating axes even as we compete with a variety of factions that aim to centralize their own ideologies and interests? How do we avoid both conspiracy theories and manipulation, both defeatism and defeat?

In the following overview, composed in collaboration with Russian anarchists, we present the analysis of the uprising in Kazakhstan that has come out of the ex-Soviet region, then share an interview we conducted with anarchists in Almaty as soon as internet access was reestablished following the crackdown.

January 5 in Almaty; a photograph taken by Zhanabergen Talgat.

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The Prison of Nations

Starting on January 1, what began as a single protest against the rising cost of living escalated to a full-scale nationwide uprising, which for now has been brutally suppressed by a combination of domestic and foreign military force.

At first, the protesters sought the resignation of government, a reduction in the price of gas, and the removal of the ex-president—Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Grey Cardinal of Kazakhstan—from the head of the National Security Council. The slogan of the whole country for these days became “Shal ket!”—”Grandpa, go away!” As the protests gained momentum, people quickly came to the point of not wishing to agree to anything less than a complete change in the government, including the ouster of current president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

The regime attempted to suppress the protests. Yet the protesters managed to seize weapons from the police and fight back, looting shops and burning down or occupying municipal buildings. President Tokaev declared a state of emergency and sent military against the protesters with orders to shoot on sight anyone who dared to resist. At the same time, Tokaev officially asked the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO, consisting of Russia and several neighboring countries) for support in regaining the control over the country.

According to Kazakhstan’s Interior Ministry, nearly 8000 people were arrested during the demonstrations, and at least 164 people killed; since then, much higher figures have circulated. Some prominent bloggers and union leaders are reported to have disappeared. The internet was shut down for days. People were shot in the squares and on the street by snipers and other soldiers.

The military suppression of the uprising, including the intervention of the CSTO, played a key role in the outcome. As of January 10, media reports and testimonies of people in Kazakhstan show that the fighting has stopped in Almaty and mass gatherings have ceased in other cities.

Here is the analysis that Anarchist Fighter, an anarchist platform looking on from Russia, published on their Telegram channel:

1) CSTO intervention. All more or less sane sources among the Kazakhs perceive this as an intervention and an attempt of “Big Brother” on their sovereignty. Every hour of presence of these forces in the country multiplies the aversion and anger;

2) Authoritarian rule has not disappeared. President Tokayev has concentrated more power in his hands, invited foreign military, ordered his troops to “shoot without warning”… But Kazakhstanis are not used to government brutality. It does not stop them, and the dissatisfaction with the government is not going away.

3) The economic crisis will not cease without fundamental reforms towards social justice. Enforcement is essentially just a postponement of price increases. No measures to overcome poverty and reduce inequality in society are offered by the authorities. Consequently, the discontent they have created will not abate either.

In the 21st century, the prevailing social order is only maintained by ever-escalating exertions of brute force.

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“Wahhabis, Terrorists, Protesters”—Misinformation about the Uprising

According to the avtonom.org podcast, “Trends of order and chaos,”

The Kazakh authorities are trying very hard to save face and construct their version of reality. The punitive operation is called “counter-terrorist,” as if a “terrorist” is any person who opposes the authorities by violent means. Rebellious people, respectively, are “militants and bandits, they must be killed,” and the reason for the uprising is allegedly “free media and foreign figures,” which is literally what Tokayev said. We are witnessing the development of militant propaganda virtually live on air. The lie that black is white and war is peace, not to the point of sentimentality, and whoever doesn’t believe it—to the wall. After all, no one will feel sorry for the “terrorists,” this is a mantra that post-Soviet dictators have learned well.

From the beginning of the fighting, both Kazakh and foreign media made claims regarding the identities of the protesters. The definitions ranged from “protesters,” “aggressive youth,” and “marauders” all the way to “nationalist squads,” “20,000 bandits attacking Almaty,” and “Islamic terrorists.” It is true that a variety of groups and factions participated in the uprising. But that is not itself a problem—an entire society was represented in the uprising, with all its differences and contradictions. It is safe to assume that different people participated in different actions against the regime, including fighting and looting.

From Anarchist Fighter:

The journalist Maksim Kurnikov said some very interesting things on Ekho Moskvy’s morning broadcast. He remarked that the scheme “to take weapons from gun stores and then attack security forces” is not new in Kazakhstan.

Exactly the same thing happened in the city of Aktobe in June 2016: several dozen young men, divided into groups, took weapons from two gun stores, seized vehicles, and attacked a part of the National Guard, where they were defeated. The authorities of Kazakhstan have been much muddled about the case: It is still not very clear what the basis is for their claims of an “Islamist connection.”

Kurnikov also spoke of paramilitary guards at illegal oil refineries in western Kazakhstan, made up of local villagers, disparagingly called “mambets” (collective farmers) by Kazakhstani townsfolk. These groups have also at times engaged in armed confrontations with police officers.

What does all this tell us? Of course, President Tokayev’s words about “terrorist groups carefully trained abroad” are pure propaganda and most likely a gross lie. That armed cells capable of seizing security institutions and arsenals suddenly materialized from a motley crowd also sounds unlikely. That said, we have no evidence of Islamist or nationalist involvement in the Almaty events. However, as we can see, organized groups capable of active armed resistance exist in Kazakhstani society in principle. It is likely that those people who engaged in direct confrontation with the security forces were partly representatives of such groups and partly spontaneous self-organized protesters. There is an analogy with the 2014 Maidan [i.e., the protests in Kiev], where the defense was organized both spontaneously by the crowd and with the participation of radical organized groups that joined in.”

Claims about Islamic fundamentalists participating in the events may well be true to some extent. But it is also certain that the authorities will make use of any information about them to discredit all the other groups, identities, and participants involved in the uprising. Economic desperation and social and political persecution often drive people to fundamentalism as well as other forms of radicalism.

According to Anarchist Fighter:

“The question about the real balance of forces among non-state actors of the events is still urgent:

Opposition journalist Lukpan Akhmedyarov, on Ekho Moskvy radio station, expressed confidence that the armed attack on the authorities in Almaty was the work of Nazarbayev’s people. The arguments for this confidence are not clear.

It is noteworthy that Akhmedyarov noticed in his native Uralsk on the square next to the protesters a group of several dozen organized people calling for an assault on the Akimat. A small group of “identically dressed instigators” was also reported from Kostanai.

What is it? Some shadowy organized rebel force, criminal groups or really provocateurs from state services? Or maybe a “non-violent” narrative, seeking to immediately label supporters of direct action as such? There are no answers.

One thing is clear: dividing protesters into “peaceful” and “terrorists” is a distortion of reality. Even before the events in Almaty, there were clips from the same Uralsk, where the demonstrators were bravely liberating the detainees from the police.

Let’s allow ourselves a truism: yes, a radical “violent” protest does not guarantee success at all, nor is it immune to provocations. But a purely “non-violent” protest in our authoritarian reality is simply doomed in advance. “You have been heard, we’ll sort it out, and we’ll put the most violent of you in jail”—that’s always the answer from the powers that be in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan…

The various rumors about internal conflicts within the power structure in Kazakhstan and the speculations about geopolitical schemes at play in the uprising could all be true. But to elevate these rumors and speculations to the central position in the narrative about what is happening in Kazakhstan is a political choice: it is a decision to deny the agency of the countless ordinary people who participated in the uprising for their own reasons. Like all conspiracy theories, this assumes that the only people who have any agency in the situation are shadowy global power players; it also serves to distract people from the obvious things that everyone knows are happening, such as the political elite of Kazakhstan profiting at the experience of everyone else.

Rumors and speculation serve to influence the events and the ways that others understand and engage with them. True or not, each of these interventions serves to focus attention on certain figures, to spread a certain set of assumptions about how the world works. If these conspiracy theories cast doubt on the participants in the uprising enough to distract people from supporting the protesters who are standing up for themselves against economic exploitation and political domination, then they will have succeeded in their purpose to keep everyone everywhere dependent on political elites.

A throne after the looting of the president’s residence in Almaty.

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Tokayev himself has not hesitated to propound the most outlandish stories, claiming that the international terrorists who allegedly led the revolt cannot be identified because their bodies have been stolen from the morgues. According to Anarchist Fighter,

It turns out that the terrorists can’t be shown to the public even if they are dead. Their comrades-in-arms kidnapped the dead right from morgues!

And the main thing is that Kazakhstani authorities with no shame openly state that radical demonstrators dressed up as the police and the soldiers (!!!) Now any atrocity of the punishers can be attributed to the revolutionaries themselves. Maybe the protesters were shot by those “in disguise”? And if it now turns out that the children and journalists were shot by men in uniform and with shoulder straps - then you already know: of course it was the disguised “rioters” and not the brutal executioners of the Tokayev special forces.

Beyond the question of who participated in the uprising, it is important to ask who benefits from its suppression. As one commentary put it,

Putin is not a nationalist, but a guarantor. He guarantees the security of the post-Soviet elite and the safety of their property. He used to guarantee it only in the Russian Federation, but now it seems that he guarantees it in Kazakhstan as well. After all, there is Russian capital there too.

Look at Kazakhstan’s Forbes list. The real beneficiaries of the peacekeeping operation are listed there. The list, by the way, is interestingly international. The first two lines are occupied by the Kazakhstani Koreans of Kim. The first one is the major shareholder of KAZ Minerals, a “british copper company”, as Wikipedia describes it. In 2021, his fortune increased by $600 million. The second Kim, together with Baring Vostok, owns one of the main Kazakh banks, Kaspi Bank, which is also traded in London and has shown impressive growth, despite the pandemic. In third place I was surprised to find a citizen of Georgia Lomatdze, who is also a co-owner of Kaspi Bank and its manager.

Then comes a certain Bulat Utemuratov, who in the Nazarbayev’s government of the 90’s specialized in foreign trade. He owns ForteBank, whose net income for 2020 “amounted to 53.2 billion tenge” ($121 million), as well as the major stakes in the major mobile operators, 65% of the gold mining company RG Gold and a bunch of other assets, including a Burger King franchise and “Ritz-Carlton hotels in Nur-Sultan, Vienna and Moscow”…

The fifth and sixth places are shared by Nazarbayev’s daughter and son-in-law. His son-in-law, Timur Kulibayev, owns “the controlling stake in Singapore’s Steppe Capital Pte Ltd”, which owns the “Dutch” KazStroyService Infrastructure BV and Asset Minerals Holdings (Caspi Neft JSC, 50% of Kazazot JSC).

Dinara Kulibayeva, Nazarbayev’s daughter, together with her husband, owns Halyk Bank of Kazakhstan—the bank’s “market capitalization reached £3.1 billion ($4.3 billion).” In seventh place is a Russian financial speculator and founder of the “American investment company” Freedom Holding Corp. Timur Turlov. “According to the company’s financial statements, its assets tripled in 2020 to $1.47 billion ($453.5 million in 2019), equity almost doubled to $225.5 million ($131.3 million respectively), net income jumped 10-fold to $42.3 million ($4 million respectively).”

And so on.

And on the other side of the barricades are all those who either work for all this beau monde for 300 bucks a month (this is approximately how the median salary in Kazakhstan is estimated), extracting minerals for “British” and “Singaporean” corporations or serving fellow citizens in the service sector, which also belongs to all the same from the list; or those who have not found work at all in large and medium-sized business, whose earnings could only be guessed (it is believed to be even lower). Workers, concentrated around enterprises, demand social guarantees (lower utility prices, free medical care, higher wages, etc.). Those who aren’t even workers are simply trying to get their own from retail chains and banks through broken windows and looted shops.

Considering that workers are sure to be dumped as soon as the heat subsides, the actions of the latter cannot be called irrational or unjust.

Downtown Almaty on January 5; a photograph by Zhanabergen Talgat.

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A Spring that Has Been Delayed for Thirty Years

Again, according to the avtonom.org podcast, “Trends of order and chaos,”

“The Kazakh authorities and President Tokayev did not trust their own policing and governmental structures in the first place. The police and the army had already begun to move to the side of the rebels, and it was obvious that any of a variety of outcomes was possible. Under these circumstances, Tokayev decided on the last extreme—to call in the punitive forces from neighboring countries. This was political suicide: in fact, he admitted that he was at war with his own people and even with his own state apparatus.”

The sitution in Kazakhstan escalated very quickly—not only the protests, but also the brutality with which they were suppressed. The fighting in the streets is a consequence of the ways that the patience of people in Kazakhstan has been tried for decades now. Kazakh society has seen fighting and shooting in the streets before—in 1986, when Mikhail Gorbachev’s government suppressed an uprising in Almaty, carrying out a massacre,¹ and in 2011, when police shot striking workers in Zhanaozen, killing dozens.

When the first news of domestic military intervention came out, this did not seem to cause a major setback for the uprising. The fighting did not cease then—on the contrary, it intensified. We saw videos of disarmed soldiers in the crowd of people, welcomed for changing sides.

Then the internet was shut down. The official reason for the internet blackout was “preventing terrorists from various countries who are fighting in Almaty from coordinating with their headquarters.” That caused a crucial lack of information from the places where uprising was taking place, making it easier to represent—or misrepresent—the events. In a time when everything is filmed, photographed, uploaded, and shared, cutting off a social uprising from means of communication serves to erase it from reality, opening a space in which falsehoods can thrive.

Riot police filming the fighting in Kazakhstan from their vantage point. Information warfare always takes place on an uneven battlefield.

Yet one of the most important events took place in plain sight: the intervention of the CSTO. This raised many contradictions at once. Formally designated as “peacekeeping assistance from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO),” it includes a contingent up to 200 hundred soldiers from Armenia and Tajikistan, 500 from Belarus from dictator Lukashenko (who recently suppressed an uprising of his own), an unspecified number of Kyrgyz soldiers, and 3000 soldiers from Russia. It is significant that the Russian paratroopers who have been moved into Kazakhstan are commanded by Anatoliy Serdyukov, who is experienced in the Chechen wars, the annexation of Crimea, and the war in Syria. We can see Russia’s imperial activities on full display here.

In Kazakhstan, the regime is striving to remain in power by any means necessary, resorting to inviting neighboring dictatorships to invade. For people in Kazakhstan, this should mean the final loss of any legitimacy Tokayev might have had in their eyes. Everyone in the region can see that the CSTO represents the unity of its governments against their peoples.

According to avtonom.org:

A president who calls the people of his own country “terrorist gangs” represents a nadir even by the standards of post-Soviet authoritarian “republics.”

In fact, this is an invasion of another country by force on the side of the authorities who have lost the trust of the people. It would mean the endless reproduction of the “Russia is a prison of nations” scenario and would be on a par with the suppression of the Hungarian revolutions in 1848 and 1956, with tanks in the streets of Prague in 1968, and with the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

The burned-out shell of a military vehicle in Almaty, photographed on January 7. No government is invincible, not even the most powerful empire.

From Zhanaozen to Almaty: Remembering the Dead

From Anarchist Fighter:

“The current uprising in Kazakhstan began with the protests in Zhanaozen. The same city where, in December 2011, the authorities shot striking oil workers. The tragedy in Zhanaozen has left a mark on the protest culture in Kazakhstan. The people have cherished the memory of the dead. The duty of the living was to continue the work of the fallen.

And in January 2022, Zhanaozen rose again. The first city in the country, an example for all the others. The formal reason for the protests was the increase in gas prices and rising food prices. But, as noted by Mikhail Bakunin, mere dissatisfaction with the material situation is not enough for the revolution, a mobilizing idea is needed. In Kazakhstan, one such idea was the loyalty to the fighters who died in 2011. The workers who died then under the bullets will never see the world they dreamed of, but death for the sake of a dream became a testament to the living to continue their cause. And so for the rebels of Kazakhstan there is no way back now.

Kazakhstan’s rebellious culture has much to learn from. We, too, must keep the memory of the martyrs of the liberation movement in Russia and Belarus. About Michael Zhlobitsky, Andrey Zeltzer, Roman Bondarenko and other heroes. They died to make us braver and stronger, and we are indebted to them. We must tell how they lived and what they gave their lives for. As events in Kazakhstan show, fallen martyrs are capable of raising people to revolt.”

The wreckage of revolt: Almaty after the uprising.

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采访:阿拉木图(Almaty)无治主义者的目击证言

为了更深入地了解哈萨克斯坦的事件，我们联系了两位亲眼目睹了起义现场的无治女权主义者，虽然他们不在冲突的最前线，但他们是著名的活动家，多年来参与了该市的女权主义组织²。所以他们是我们能找到的对事件最接近 “中立 “立场的人。

2021年3月8日国际妇女节，阿拉木图的无治女权主义者

请介绍下你们自己和你们所处的状况

我们是两个来自哈萨克斯坦的无治主义者，都是她/他。在过去的11年里，我们在阿拉木图参加了许多左翼无治主义-女性-生态、动物解放、素食主义者的活动，但目前我们并不那么活跃。

在21世纪，我无法说出哈萨克斯坦的有任何的无治主义运动。20世纪90年代有一些地下活动，但就目前而言，没有这样的活动存在。我曾经参加过一个左翼马克思主义团体：会议、阅读小组、一些公开讲座。我不知道那些留下来的前成员现在在做什么。我在这没有听说这里有任何的 “左翼 “团体。

我是这里最早的女权运动之一——Kazfem的组织者之一，我们组织了许多公共活动和表演，出版了一本名为Yudol’的女权主义杂志，并为3月8日的[国际妇女节]组织了示威活动。

这里有一个叫Oyan Kazakhsta（”醒来吧，哈萨克斯坦”）的青年自由运动，现在很活跃。他们组织公众集会、表演、游行，并经常受到警察的骚扰。它始于Beibarys Tolymbekov和Asya Tulesova在2019年城市马拉松上拉了条横幅³。他们被监禁了15天，这引发了一大波关注，尤其是在社交媒体上，这在以从未发生过的。有一种阴谋论认为，所有这些活动家都是亲政府的，因为现在没有人在监狱里，但我认为这不是真的。我认识他们中的许多人。他们也支持女权主义和LGBTQ活动。而在反对的一方–主要是互联网上的仇视者和一些政府媒体–人们声称所有这些都是 “西方”（欧洲和美国）所为。

哈萨克斯坦是一个专制国家。我们的总统[努尔苏丹-纳扎尔巴耶夫（Nursultan Nazarbayev）]在位了28年，而新的总统[卡西姆-若马尔特-托卡耶夫（Kassym-Jomart Tokayev）]只是一个傀儡。但当第一任总统辞职后，人们开始考虑改变。围绕努尔苏丹-纳扎尔巴耶夫的个人崇拜并没有在他辞职后消失。首都阿斯塔纳被重新命名为 “努尔苏丹（Nur-Sultan）”，这引起了许多抗议。在过去的几年里，经济形势一直在恶化，特别是在大流行病之后，通货膨胀率非常高，腐败等等。而且，我们的土地被大量出售和出租给中国和其他国家。

情况一直如此–但十年前，甚至五年前，更多的人忠于总统，害怕 “不稳定”。当时，人们希望我们[哈萨克斯坦]只是正在 “发展”，事情会很快好起来。

即使是在2011年扎瑙津大屠杀（Zhanaozen massacre）发生时，抗议的工人被枪杀，在阿拉木图的支持声也非常少。许多人认为那里发生的事情是正确的。

以前，如果有任何抗议活动，都是由老一辈人、工人和来自各地区的人、auls（村庄）组织和支持的，通常由反对派领导人Mukhtar Qabyluly Ablyazov领导。但在过去三年里，来自城市中产阶级的年轻人开始成为政治活动家。这主要是来自阿拉木图的人，但在其他城市也有支持。

顺便说一句，我认为阿拉木图的生态问题——那里的污染程度极高，而且每年都在恶化——是这里年轻人抗议的主要原因。当然，除了社交媒体的发展。

阿拉木图市中心，1 月 5 日

请跟我们讲下你上周在阿拉木图的经历

新年过后不久，开始有消息说扎瑙津的工人起义。抗议是和平的，但要求相当激进–从降低汽油价格到政府辞职不等。其他城市也开始了抗议活动。人们知道1月4日在阿拉木图将有声援行动，但我没有确切的信息。

那天在回家的路上，我了解到该市不同地区的抗议活动，以及[上述青年自由运动]Oyan Kazakhstan 的活动家被逮捕。我住在离城不远的山上，在家里就已经很清楚有严重的事情发生了。晚上，所有的网络连接都断了。我不知道该去哪里，也不知道能不能回来。

关于那段时间在该市发生的事情，我的战友、政治记者达尼亚尔-莫尔达别科夫写道：

“当示威者走近广场时，警察开始投掷眩晕手榴弹和催泪瓦斯。我和其他数千人被呛到了，我们的眼睛和脸被刺痛了，我们感到不适，不停地咳嗽。我没有晕倒真是个奇迹。从晚上11点到凌晨4点，他们肯定发射了一百多枚眩晕手榴弹，这时我的同伴不得不把我送回家。我在公寓里仍能听到爆炸声。

人群到达共和广场（Republic Square）后大约一个小时，他们前往阿拜街（Abai Street）。在那里，他们遇到了一辆向他们驶来的装甲运兵车。一辆卡车驶过，上面载着挥舞着哈萨克旗帜的市民。其中一些人手持盾牌，似乎是从防暴警察身上抢来的。”

人们整晚都听到爆炸声。我拒绝相信。早上，通过电话报道了这个消息。我给大家打了半天电话，听说了受害者的情况，活动家被释放了。只有在一些朋友的家里才有可能上网。Akimat大楼（市政厅）被占领。每个人都在劝说我们留在家里。由于猜测抗议活动可能具有民族主义特征，一些人开始害怕（我在哈萨克斯坦是俄罗斯族）。

没有任何关于当时谁在广场或城市获得信息。我和我的朋友决定自己去看看。

1月5日，阿拉木图市中心

这座城市比平日空阔了一半。挂着哈萨克国旗的汽车在街上行驶，喊着一些欢快的口号。一切都是封闭的。门上挂着 “我们与人民在一起 “的牌子。一种兴奋的气氛。当我们越来越接近广场时，能看到更多的年轻人群。我看到一条警察的肩带躺在路上。有的人拿着棍子在开会。这变得有点吓人，但没有人有攻击性。在1986年事件（反对苏维埃政权的起义）纪念碑前，我们遇到了手持警察盾牌的抗议者。没有看到一个警察或士兵。

1月5日，阿拉木图市中心。门上的标语上写着“我们与人民同在

然后我们看到市政厅在燃烧。我们简直不敢相信自己的眼睛。人们在照看篝火。每个人都很平静。他们砸开了市政厅对面大楼的门。那里有电视频道和其他政府服务。男人们再次向我们走来。”你们为什么来？” (他们的意思是–你为什么要来，因为你是俄罗斯族裔？）

“这是我的城市和国家，也是你们的。”我回答。他们兴高采烈地问候我们。我们没有感受到来自他们的任何侵略性。

我们为抗议者提供了热茶。这名男子告诉我们，他从一开始就参加了抗议活动–开始时一切都是和平，直到当局开始引爆闪光弹并使用暴力。

“现在，”他说，”他们正在射击战斗人员。” 警卫们只留在市政厅大楼本身附近。

他和其他在场的人都看到有人头部中枪。他们打电话给出租车公司，把受伤的人送上汽车，把他们送到医院。他告诉我们，他们计划占领机场，这样俄罗斯军队就不能在那里降落。

许多资产阶级高级政府和商界人士已经乘坐私人航班离开了该国。有传言说，纳扎尔巴耶夫也已经离开了这个国家。

我们在广场上看到的人没有一个看起来像 “掠夺者”[原文如此]。

他们希望政府辞职。他们不是在执行命令；没有人在拉拢他们。这是一场全国性的劳工起义。没有人害怕死亡，但我们没有看到任何愤怒。他们给我们看了橡皮子弹造成的伤害，并警告我们很快就会有严重的枪击事件发生，我们最好离开。

爆炸声和枪声越来越近，越来越频繁。我们离开了。一个人用他的车送我们一程。在那些日子里，人们都在相互声援。

我和我的朋友们决定一起住在我家里。我们都感到很兴奋。这是在出现任何有关破坏、抢劫和平民伤亡的新闻之前。在1月5日和6日的午夜，所有互联网连接都被关闭。四天来，我们处于孤立状态；我们只能拨打和接听电话，而且效果不好。

那天晚上，那天晚上，整个城市被所有服务部门抛弃，包括消防部门和医疗服务部门。火灾被志愿者们扑灭了。另外，一些抗议者和志愿者试图阻止 “强盗”。⁴

1月7日，远离市中心的一些商店和自动提款机仍在工作。在城市的那一部分，除了广场周围被烧毁的政府大楼外，大部分东西都很正常。一些服务部门在那里工作。前一天，我们进入这些建筑；没有人看守它们。这一次，我们拍了一些照片，然后附近传来一声枪响，我们离开了这个地区。

1月9日晚，有机会通过代理服务获得互联网连接。移动连接仍然无法使用。1月10日上午，各地的连接都能正常使用，但只到下午1点，然后从下午5点半到7点半。、

1月5日，阿拉木图市中心

来自哈萨克斯坦以外的很多人都在谈论谁是抗议活动的“幕后黑手”。这些指控有可信度吗？我们还看到一些新闻报道称，权力结构内部的敌对派系之间的冲突也是造成这种情况的原因。你认为伊斯兰原教旨主义在多大程度上参与了这些事件？

尽管有退休的传言，但托卡耶夫总统仍然执政。现在，政府电视频道和媒体正在散布如此多的虚假信息和宣传。现在得出结论还很早，但有些事情是清楚的。

一切都始于一场民众起义。是的，他们烧毁了市政厅大楼，但没有人领导他们。他们只是想让旧政权消失。他们不是“罪犯”[原文如此]。

开始之后，又出现了一些其他势力。我们不知道他们是谁。但他们确实是有组织的。但由谁？现在有很多谣言。一些官方媒体称他们来自[邻国]吉尔吉斯斯坦，那里自独立以来发生了几次革命。这些媒体也在传播有关塔利班或圣战分子的报道。我个人认识的人说，他们在街上看到“长得像他们”的人[原文如此]。

在哈萨克斯坦，我还没有看到任何关于 CIA [美国政府中央情报局] 的讨论。我认为这是俄罗斯的宣传。

这位前总统顾问一直在宣称政府机构内部存在阴谋，声称几年来在山区有 “训练营”，而国家安全委员会却隐瞒了这一信息。他声称。”我有独家消息，例如，在袭击机场前40分钟，有人下令完全撤除警戒线和警卫”。

阿拉木图，1月7日

关于起义的内部内在原因，你能说些什么？

哈萨克斯坦以外的每个人都在尝试分析正在发生的事情，如果没有上下文，很难做到这一点，而国内的人由于缺乏完整的信息而无法做到这一点。我想即使是我们——这个国家的居民——很长时间也不会明白发生了什么。除了现在没有稳定的网络连接，之前连手机都没有，所有新闻频道都被严格审查，而且只会变得更糟。

我不会描述现在流传的理论，但它们都涉及纳扎尔巴耶夫家族和其他寻求权力的人之间的不同权力斗争–例如，有一种理论认为，托卡耶夫在俄罗斯军队的协助下，正在确保其权力地位。

这一切的可怕之处在于，数以万计的人参与了这场游戏，他们为了所有人的利益而改变这个国家的社会和政治状况的善意尝试，现在被少数人利用以一种新的方式在他们之间分配这个国家的资源。是的，这一切都始于哈萨克斯坦西部工人的经济需求，他们抗议天然气价格的大幅上涨。然后，这些要求变成了政治要求：政府和总统辞职，选举Akims（市长），以及建立议会制共和国。有些要求得到了满足，但不是一下子就能做到的，当这些要求被忽视时，抗议和声援的浪潮蔓延到了哈萨克斯坦的所有城市，所以从外面看，这就像一场大的革命爆发，这在我国三十年的专制政权中还没有发生过。

我们现在不能确定任何事情，除了一件事–这次抗议活动没有公共领导人，街头暴动和占领行政大楼也没有提出要求。但在民众中发生了谋杀和大量的受害者，他们先是在与警察的战斗中受苦，然后在街头相互厮杀，警察逃离，然后哈萨克斯坦和集体安全条约组织的武装部队在街头射杀平民（尽管我们被承诺他们现在只保护国家设施）。

被允许继续运作的大众媒体开始向我们讲述激进分子和伊斯兰教徒，使用来自外部的敌人形象。在此之前，在抗议活动的头几天，有一种呼吁 “与抗议者进行和平对话 “的论调–而一天后，已经有了开枪杀人的命令（在托卡耶夫总统的讲话中）。集体安全条约组织的军队进入后，两天来街头枪声不断，托卡耶夫将抗议者等同于恐怖分子，以及活动家和人权维护者，用他的话说，独立媒体成为稳定的威胁。在这个寻找敌人的过程中，国家话语不断变化：昨天这个敌人据说是来自吉尔吉斯斯坦的受贿失业者，今天已经是来自阿富汗的激进分子。我们都希望明天不会是过去三年来在哈萨克斯坦倡导政治改革并出来参加集会的活动家。

1月5日，阿拉木图市中心

关于镇压，你能告诉我们什么？

吉尔吉斯斯坦音乐家Vikram Ruzakhunov被哈萨克斯坦当局逮捕并以“恐怖分子”的名义遭受酷刑，并被要求录制视频并“供认不讳”。现在他已经自由了。

当地独立记者 Lukpan Akhmediyarov 已被捕。另一位独立记者 Makhambet Abjan 发消息称，1 月 5 日，警察来到了他的公寓；现在他失踪了。我的朋友和社交媒体上的许多其他人发文说他们的亲友也失踪了。

官员们已经确认有数百名受害者死亡，包括两名儿童。来自工会的积极分子下落不明–包括Kuspan Kosshigulov、Takhir Erdanov和Amin Eleusinov及其亲属。、

在阿拉木图，Dozhd频道（Телеканал Дождь）的记者试图在市立停尸房拍摄镜头，遭到枪击（他们没有受到伤害）。

1月6日，志愿者来到广场。一些活动人士展示了“我们不是恐怖分子”的横幅。警察向他们开枪，造成至少一人死亡。

1月5日阿拉木图市中心；Zhanabergen Talgat拍摄的照片

您认为从长远来来看，俄罗斯军队进入哈萨克斯坦将如何改变局势？

俄罗斯军队的进入是非常令人担忧的。在与乌克兰发生战争的情况下，我们可以想象所有最糟糕的情况。我认识的每个人都同意，这是不恰当的，我们可以称之为占领。

就我个人而言，我担心俄罗斯军队进入这个国家会巩固俄罗斯在政治上对哈萨克斯坦已经很强大的影响，哈萨克斯坦会变得像我们现在所知道的俄罗斯一样，活动家被折磨，案件被捏造。我们的政治反对派已经被完全压制，国家的民众也被完全恐吓。考虑到这是抗议期间的第二次枪击事件（2011年和2022年），在哈萨克斯坦的历史上，1986年苏联时期也曾残酷镇压过一次起义，而当时被杀人数的信息仍然是保密的……那么，在不久的将来，我们没有希望知道真正发生了什么，有多少人被杀和受伤。这个数字很可能达到数千人。

你认为接下来会发生什么？

在信息战、宣传和孤立的情况下，现在想象结果还为时过早。我不是政治专家。

可以肯定的是，现在镇压会加剧。互联网和所有媒体都会被审查。现在政府试图装出一副 “好面孔”，好像他们是把我们从恐怖分子手中拯救出来的救世主。我不确定这是否会奏效。但就目前而言，我认为它将是有效的。人们太害怕和震惊了。

哈萨克斯坦以外的人能做些什么来支持你或那里的其他人吗？

当然，是为了传播信息。也许很快就会有更多的镇压，一些活动家将需要帮助才能离开这个国家。

最重要的支持是信息性的。2019年，在总统选举之后，我们都在集会上被逮捕，而唯一写到这一点的是外国媒体和独立的哈萨克斯坦媒体（这些媒体非常少，网站经常被封锁）。现在非常重要的是，哈萨克斯坦血腥的一月并不像许多左翼出版物所写的那样只是一幅美丽的革命图景，而且也不像所有来自不同国家的官方消息来源所说的那样，被当作来自外部的恐怖行为而被记住。

twitter.com/bad_immigrant/status/1480692689364471814

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Further Reading

• The Uprising in Kazakhstan: An Interview and Appraisal
• “Anger, injustice and politics brought people to the streets in Kazakhstan“—A credible account of the situation from a longtime human rights advocate in Almaty
• “The people will still have the opportunity to rid the country of the dictator”—an interview with an anarchist from Kazakhstan
• “Colonialism of the twenty-first century“—A perspective from Belarusian anarchists
• Statement of Russian Anarcho-Syndicalists and Anarchists on the Situation in Kazakhstan
• Consequences of the Protests in Kazakhstan

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January 6: A view of Almaty in the smoke, the day after.