Kazakhstan). POUL FUNDER LARSEN A S THE traditional power structures of the Union have withered over the last few months, the Central Asian region has increasingly come into focus as a separate entity. When the treaty for the new post-coup economic union was signed by eight republics on October 18 it happened neither in Moscow, nor St. Petersburg nor in Kiev but more than 3,000 kilometres away in Alma Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan.' Meanwhile throughout the autumn a flow of Western politicians, including James Baker and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, arrived in Alma Ata to meet Nursultan Nazarbajev, emphasizing the importance Kazakhstan, the USSR took place "in a decisive epoch of revolutions of national liberation and of social revolutions, of emancipation of peoples which are under the yoke of world imperialism and of the liberation of workers from the chains of exploitation and capitalist oppression".
For almost two centuries, successive generations fighting for the national freedom of the Ukrainian people have stressed the fact that all the defeats of the successive efforts to win Ukrainian independence have had the same cause; the incapacity to radically change society, to smash the oppressive social regime or to prevent the substitution of one socially oppressive regime by another.
There can be no national liberation for the Ukrainian people without the social liberation of the workers - that was their message. The old bureaucracy in power, including those who now support the moves towards independence, and the and to a lesser extent the whole Central Asian region, has acquired in contemporary Soviet politics.
Kazakhstan and the other Central Asian republics (Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Kirghizia and Turkmenistan) now constitute one of the three main "lumps" left over from a Union on the brink of collapse. Measured by space, Kazakhstan is the second biggest Soviet republic (four times the size of the Ukraine, five times the size of France), but little more than 16 million people live in this area which encompasses vast steppes. The Kazakh population is a minority in the republic, numbering less than 40% of the population; there are approximately the same percentage of new political elite which has emerged from the national movement, are orienting towards the restoration of capitalism, which would subvert a barely won national independence by submitting the Ukraine to the domination of the Western imperialist powers and, once again, to Russia. It is impossible to assure a solidly based independence for the Ukraine without the concentration of all state power in the hands of the representatives of the people and without the nationalized economy coming under the collective democratic control of the masses.
Ukrainian national independence in itself carries no solution to the key question, that of the social and political nature of the new state. But in overthrowing national oppression, it opens the road, until now blocked, to the recomposition of the social forces and to their class differentiation. * 4. Ukrayinske Slovo, February 24, 1991.
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Russians, while a hundred other
(Germans,
Koreans, peoples
Ukrainians and others) make up
LITHUA
CENTRAL ASIA
RUSSIA the remaining 20%.
Before the October revolution
Kazakhstan and the whole Cen-
VIET UNT tral Asian area - then known as
POLAND
Turkestan — was a Russian colony. The bloody Russian conquest was finished by the early
1880s and millions of Russians settled in Central Asia as cotton
ESTONIA
LATVIA
• MOSCOW
BYELORUSSIA
UKRAINE
N°
KAZAKHSTAN
OMA producers, or in Kazakhstan, driving away the nomads from the steppes. There were several waves of this Great Russian domination; for example on the eve of October, in 1916, it took the Tsar's armies several months to quell an insurrection among
GEORGIA
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TURKEY
ARMENIA
KIRGHIZIA
- UZBEKISTAN
CHINA
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TURKMENIA the Kazakhs against forced military service. E Mediterranean
In the late 1920s, the party/ launched the all-out collectivization of the countryside with disastrous consequences for the people of the region, thus squandering the trust won by such measures as the distribution of plots of land to poor peasants in Kazakhstan in 1921. In a ruthless continuation of the Tsarist policies, depriving the nomads of their pastures, the Stalinists unleashed a veritable genocide, the casualties of which probably ran into millions. The collectivization and repression in turn triggered massive emigration from Kazakhstan — primarily to China. Today more than three million Kazakhs live outside Kazakhstan — one million in Russia, one million in Uzbekistan and between one and two million in China. The republic's national composition was further modified in the 30s and 40s through the influx of hundreds of thousands of deportees including whole communities of "repressed peoples" (for example, Volga Germans and Crimean Tatars).
### Wave of Russification
In the 1960s, Kazakhstan saw a further wave of Russification — ascribed to the CPSU ideologist Mikhail Suslov — closing Kazakh schools, changing names and so on. These latent national contradictions were at the root of the outburst of anger on December 17-18, 1986, when the centre (headed by Gorbachev) ousted the Kazakh leader Dinmoukhamed Kunayev - an old-time nomenklaturist - and replaced him with a Russian, Gennadi Kolbin.
A protest in the central Republican Square of Alma Ata turned into street fighting followed by a wave of repression by the authorities. This was the first major national confrontation of the perestroika period — and the first indication of the repressive line that the centre would pursue through these years.?
The rise to power of Nursultan Nazarba-
AZERBAIJAN SYRIA TRAO IRAN jev, a Kazakh technocrat educated in economics, who was appointed CP first secretary in 1988, marked a stabilization of national relations in Kazakhstan. By maintaining a relatively independent profile in relations with Moscow, while supporting the drawing up of a new Union Treaty, he has managed to win broad support among the different nationalities.
The Nazarbajev leadership has combined the drive towards a market economy with the preservation of a firm administrative grip, based on the largely intact structures of the nomenklatura in Kazakhstan.
### Democracy found inexpedient
As one Soviet business monthly puts it with more than a hint of admiration: "Nursultan Nazarbajev is not at all inclined to give up authoritarianism. This is not because he is a stranger to the ideas of democracy, but because he thinks it is more expedient. By studying the international experiences he has realized that such serious economic transformations have nowhere been carried out without a strongly centralized power. This explains his systematic course towards acquiring new authorities and powers. More than a year ago he reformed the Soviet councils of Kazakhstan, thereby strengthening the administration — something which Yeltsin has just begun."
After the failed coup d'état in August, which Nazarbajev managed to keep clear of by adopting a "wait-and see" position and which had few repercussions in Kazakhstan, the republican CP was abolished and a "Socialist Party of Kazakhstan" founded by mid-September as its successor. There are no signs that the events of August profoundly altered the
TADJIKISTAN AFGHANISTAN? 1000 relationship of forces in the republic. As Izvestiya's correspondent noted: "It is evident that the party nomenklatura still plays a role and that the existing Supreme Soviet of Kazakhstan is still predominantly composed of "former Communists'. Although the leading bodies of the new (Socialist) party contain virtually none of the leaders of the old CP of Kazakhstan, all former party leaders today receive state appointments as ministers, state councillors and so on."
Though the issue of the property of the republican CP has not yet been settled, it seems likely that the new party can hold onto at least parts of it. In a personal conversation, an economist from Alma Ata apuly summarized the whole development: "All the apparatchiks of the CP have moved into the administration of the president — only now they get twice their former salary."
The political life of Kazakhstan has not seen the advent of opposition groups comparable in scope to, for example, the People's Fronts in other republics. Some parties of a liberal democratic orientation and a social democratic party have been formed, while a green party is in the making, but none of these will be able to challenge Nazarbajev's political hegemony in 1. The eight initial signatories were Russia, Belarus (Byelorussia), Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tadjikistan, Uzbekistan, Kirghizia and Armenia. 2. In the Republican Square today you can find a small memorial board commemorating the victims of Decemher 1986, while in a park in the centre a statue of Kunayev, who is said to live in a house nearby, remains. As a concession to rising national consciousness, December 17-18 are now being made national 3. Delovye Lyudi, July-August, 1991. With the granting of wide-ranging powers to Yeltsin on November 1, he has also accomplished this authoritarian goal. 4. Izvestiya, September 14, 1991. One instance, mentioned in Izvestiya, September 2, 1991, is the former head of the republican CP's ideological department, Kuanysy Sultanov, who was appointed minister of press and mass media by a decree of Nazarbajev.
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International Viewpoint #219 • December 23, 1991
CENTRAL ASIA the short run. He has even been able to impose a "moratorium on meetings and demonstrations" on the opposition forces.
A concrete illustration of the opposition's weakness was given in the run-up to the republican presidential elections. The deadline for the nomination of candidates (supported by at least 100,000 signatures) was November 10. However by that date, only one candidate, Nursultan Nazarbajev, had collected the required signatures. The democratic grouping Sjeltoksan announced its own election enough signatures — a contributing cause of this apparently being ment from the authorities serious harass-
The Unity movement, counting on support from sections of the Russian population, also called on its supporters to vote against Nazarbajev — but the vast majority of the republic's Russian population ignored this call.
### Islamic forces
A key question in the political life of the whole region in coming years will be the issue of the development of the Islamic forces. With religion only beginning to emerge as a political factor after many decades of repression, there are widely different assessments of its current impact.
It could undoubtedly become a tool both in the hands of opposition currents challenging the "old regime" from a religiousfundamentalist position and of former Communist elites seeking a new power base.
Several states in Central Asia and the Middle East (notably Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia) have made considerable efforts to link up with the "new" republican leaderships. Iran is probably in the lead as regards Tadjikistan (where the language is Persian) while the Turkish government has had extensive consultations in Kazakhstan.
Some intellectual circles in this republic identify Turkey's secular, modernizing regime of Ataturk in the 1920s as a possible model for their own social development.
The following for parties basing their appeal on references to Islam is obviously linked to the general social situation in the republics. Uzbekistan and Tadjikistan are deeply affected by the socio-economic crisis, fuelling fundamentalist currents and national tensions, for example in the densely populated Fergana Valley, while Kazakhstan, which has a non-Muslim majority, is currently suffering much less from the supply crisis than are many regions of Russia.
It remains an open question to what extent the institutions established in the Soviet period (compulsory education and so on) and the close ties between parts of 8 the Islamic clergy and the Soviet regime will be able to counteract a strong religious revival on the political Recently the Mufti of the Kazakh Mus-
Nyzanbajev, denounced attempts to form an Islamic party in the republic as "threatening the stability of Kazakhstan" and loose the idea of pan-Turkism which can create hostility between believers from
As a sign of the times, the exhibition in Alma Ata devoted to the achievements of the Soviet economy (VDNKh) has now been turned into a commercial centre and exchange. The government of Nazarbajev is set for liberal reforms and commercial enterprises are multiplying.
By mid-September, a programme outlining the first phase of privatizations in Kazakhstan — involving at last 50-60% of the shops, services and small industrial enterprises as well as housing — was published in the republic's press? According to the programme, this "small privatization" will take place in 1991-92 and should be immediately followed by a "large privatization" and large industrial enterprises, with nonprofitable and non-functioning enterprises being sold off first.
Apparently Nazarbajev's privatization programme envisages a more gradual process, and a more pronounced role for state intervention than its Russian counterpart. The programme does pay some lip service to workers' rights in the privatization process; however no special provisions for transferring enterprises to collective ownership are described. As regards the privatization of housing the programme prescribes a system of coupons distributed according to work seniority. This aspect of the reform has come in for strong criticism from the trade unions who have pointed to its unfortunate consequences for young workers, among other things. Another point also criticized by the unions concerns the way in which this sweeping privatization programme came into being: it was simply published following an order from Nazarbajev, without any discussion or decision in the Kazakhstan parliament.
Authoritarian design of economic reforms
This type of decision making pinpoints the authoritarian design of the economic reform in the republic. When the discussion touches on the "model" of economic development it is usually the experience of the Pacific Rim economies, and particularly South Korea, which is evoked: "He (Nazarbajev) doesn't conceal his admiration for authoritarian regimes as long as they have robust market economies. He speaks respectfully of South Korea, which he visited last year. 'We're interested in how they managed to develop so much in only 30 years", he says. "The market was established there under very tough discipline.'
"This month Nazarbajev plans to tour China's free economic zones, where economic liberalization coexists with political repression; Singapore's former prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, no proponent of unbridled democracy himself, will visit Kazakhstan later this year. "If you've got democracy on the production line, democracy in life, then who's going to work?' asks Nazarbajev.'9
This concept of a development (in Kazakhstan and in the whole region) along the lines of the South-East Asian economies is obviously based on a series of fragile assumptions, including the feasibility of a large-scale restructuring of the working class (imposing iron discipline and long hours) and the creation of huge investments, to a large extent through the influx of foreign capital. But in reality, the foreign investments have so far been sparse, focussed on the extraction of raw materials and highly speculative.
The scandal around the enormously rich Chengiz oilfield is an indication of what can be expected from future investments by transnational corporations in the area — and in the former Soviet republics in general.
### Massive unexploited oil deposits The Chengiz oilfield is thought to contain at least 25 billion barrels of oil, and is perhaps the biggest oil deposit in the Soviet Union not yet exploited. After a prolonged period of manoeuvring and bargaining, with both the leadership of Kazakhstan and the union authorities involved, the outline of a deal with the American Chevron oil company was disclosed early this year.
The deal involves investments of billions from the Soviet/Kazakh side, while Chevron will contribute a smaller sum -but nevertheless profits are to be split 50/ 50. Chevron should make the technology for this enormous joint venture available, but several observers believe that the technological solution offered is second-rate and already outdated. However no neutral feasibility study has been carried out, and rumours of the incompetent and corrupt behaviour of the Soviet/Kazakh side in the negotiations were proliferating.
Two governmental commissions have characterized the project as not profitable for the Soviet/Kazakh side, which in turn prompted the liberal Moskovskiye Novosti (Moscow News) to state: "The size of the 5. Sjeltoksan means "December" in Kazakh. A main cause of this party, which advocates the rights of the Kazakh population, is the rehabilitation of the partici. pants in the December 1986 demonstration. 6. Izvestiya, November 13, 1991. 7. Ogni Alalau, September 19, 1991. The programme was apparently co-authored by the South Korean economist Chan Yung Bang. 8. Izvestiya, September 27, 1991. 9. Newsweek, July 8, 1991. 10. Moscow News/Fax Digest, 24 June 1991.
December 23, 1991 • #219 International Viewpoint joint venture's authorized capital is only one fiftieth of the sum this country is to spend on prospecting and equipment, not to mention the worth of the oil deposit itself. Plans do not take into account the expected rise in world oil prices, which constitutes a double loss for this country.
conservative estimates put Chevron's net profit share in this project at twice that of the average rate of profit in the US oil industry. The contract has been drawn up in such a manner that the corporation can get more than $100bn. This country does not get anything like this. Chevron does not take on any serious ecological obligations, it does not even consider the danger of earthquakes that can be caused by the use of the technology. It does not commit itself to seriously taking part in the region's development."10
Moskovskiye Novosti then had to conclude: "The project's economic substance is perfectly clear: the Soviet Union and Kazakhstan are losing control over the country's richest oil deposit, while being promised absolutely nothing in exchange. Such an agreement is unprecedented in our time. Delving into the history of oil concessions, I realized that this is how former mother countries treated their colonies at the beginning of the century, moreover at gun-point."1
Trusting in Chevron
However, when James Baker visitea Alma Ata in mid-September Nazarbajev confirmed his trust in Chevron and publicly endorsed the project. This was by all accounts part of an agreement between the Americans (promising economic aid and support for Kazakh control over the nuclear weapons inside the republic) and the Kazakhstan government. As one newspaper quipped: "Nazarbajev gave away Chengiz and approached the bomb."2
But Chevron is far from the only multinational corporation dying to get its share of the huge natural resources of Kazakhstan; when Nazarbajev visited Britain he The fittle Prince held long talks with, among others, top officials from British Petroleum. The decision concerning Chengiz is clearly an attempt by the leadership of Kazakhstan to appear "flexible" and "open". to foreign investors. But foreign capital is likely to be exclusively interested in the republic's raw materials, thereby maintaining it as a producer and exporter of raw materials with only the remnants of a (highly unprofitable and polluting) domestic industry.
Kazakhstan is indeed a treasury of raw materials: it contains 70% of the Union's deposits of lead, zinc, titanium, tin and magnesium; 90% of the phosphorus and chrome; 65% of the silver; 30% of the copper; and 60% of the molybdenum. The republic's coalfields produce 142 million tons of coal a year — and there are important oil and gas deposits. After Khrushchev's "virgin lands" scheme of the 1950s, Kazakhstan has been one of the main producers of agricultural crops; primarily wheat, but also rice and cotton. Today more than 20% of the cultivated area of the Union is in Kazakhstan. Most of the agricultural products are exported, mainly as raw material — only 19% is
The industry allocated to Kazakhstan by central planning is dominated by heavy engineering, chemical and petrochemical industries, power stations and some light industry (for example, shoe ized by the production of raw materials and with only a rudimentary manufacturing sector is more pronounced in the other Central Asian republics. While they grow virtually all of the cotton in the Soviet Union, more than 80% of this is manufactured in Russia. The tendency towards monoculture has had serious consequences for the region's socioeconomic and ecological situation. It has also created a strong dependence on the Union's trade structures, which meant certain social gains for the region despite
CENTRAL ASIA the uneven division of labour.'S
The ecological price paid for the industrialization and the agricultural monoculture has been terribly high. The disaster of the Aral Sea has become a symbol of the reckless exploitation of natural resources by the bureaucratic regime. This enormous lake of 66,000 square kilometres (second in the Soviet Union only to the Caspian Sea) has been shrinking over the last four decades primarily due to the irresponsible irrigation projects for the large-scale growing of cotton, rice and wheat. The rate of disappearance of the Aral Sea has accelerated over recent years and more than 60% of the Sea's waters have now gone, leaving serious health problems and social and cultural misery behind.
At the end of November, the Kazakhstan State Environmental Committee declared the area "an ecological disaster zone", acknowledging that "the ecological situation in the region is out of control."
The Aral Sea disaster
"The living standards and health of the population have deteriorated dramatically, general mortality and infant mortality is rising." The statement estimates that: "All in all three million people on the banks of the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan are living under such extreme conditions. "6 As the Soviet Union republics directly affected will probably be willing to pay a part of the astronomical bill to clear up the disaster.
The Aral Sea is far from being the region's only ecological problem. Northern and eastern Kazakhstan are severely polluted by unfiltered smoke from factories and mines and large parts of this vast territory (particularly the area around the industrial centre of Ust-Kamenogorsk) is seriously contaminated by toxic and chemical leakages. The Soviet army has placed some of its most damaging installations on the soil of Kazakhstan, including the notorious nuclear site of Semipalatinsk, which has wreaked havoc for several decades. The test sites for chemical and biological weapons are also situated in
A breakdown of the economic ties between the republics could spell disaster for much of Kazakhstan's industry. The 11. Moscow News/Fax Digest 21, May 1991. 12. Kommersant, September 23, 1991. 13. The statistics are from Delovye Lyudi, op. cit. and
Union of Fewer and fewer
*
Republics
*
# the APN Yearbook, USSR, 1990. 14. The Guardian, August 28, 1991. 15. The discussion on the terms of trade within the Soviet Union is often extremely biased, and consequently many, widely differing statements are given. One estimate in the independent Nezavisimaya Gazela (September 17, 1991) indicates that the Central Asian republics of Kirghizia, Tadjikistan and Turkmenistan would actually benefit from a switch to world market prices — gaining respectively 110 million, 60 million and 300 million roubles a year. 16. Izvestiya, November 26, 1991.
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International Viewpoint #219 • December 23, 1991
CENTRAL ASIA Central Asian region would be left behind with its enormous ecological problems Throughout the negotiations around the various forms of economic and political union Kazakhstan has therefore been one of the main proponents of preserving the unity of the republics. The preferred option of the Nazarbajev leadership has clearly been the combination of a binding economic union and a looser political con-
However, a series of steps towards asserting and strengthening the republic's power structures have been made: after the coup, Nazarbajev announced that all enterprises on the territory of Kazakhstan would be transferred to the jurisdiction of the republic, and that a republican reserve of gold and diamonds would be estab-
The government has also announced that the republic is prepared to launch its own currency, but that it will not take such a step unilaterally. Some inter-republican economic agreements between Kazakhstan and other republics have already been the idea of setting up a regional grouping of the Central Asian republics has not yet made much progress.
The process of Russia seizing the institutions left over from the Union explained bluntly by Yeltsin's henchman Burbulis: "Russia is the successor of the Union and all its institutions"; it has been met with disapproval in Alma Ata. So has the go-it-alone attitude implicit in the Russian economic reform, for example, the imminent price hikes that will affect all other republics as well. The prospect of a Russian superpower catering for itself and not ruling out territorial claims on other republics, with a strong army controlling all nuclear weapons, is hardly an encouraging one for Kazakhstan.
Control of nuclear weapons
Consequently, Nazarbajev has been increasingly unwilling to give up control of the nuclear weapons deployed in Kazakhstan. When asked whether Moscow should retain its control over the nuclear strategy of the country he answered: "Not Moscow, but the General Staff, which will be composed of the defence ministers of the republics."' On November 26, a defence committee of Kazakhstan was set up. The immensely popular decision to close down the Semipalatinsk test site, decreed by Nazarbajev on August 28, was also a warning to Russia and the Soviet army that Kazakhstan Will not put up with everything.
The friction between Russia and Kazakhstan is of course a particularly important issue in the northern parts of Kazakhstan, where Russians are in the majority. Tensions were aggravated when, following the coup, Yeltsin aides 10 between the two republics may be neces- suggested that a revision of the borders sary at some point. Kazakh nationalists immediately countered, maintaining that "original Kazakh territories include parts of the Saratov, Orenburg, Astrakhan and Omsk regions. "18
There was a glimpse of the potential conflicts when in September some hundreds of Russian Cossacks arrived in the city of Uralsk, situated in Kazakhstan close to the Russian border. They wanted to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Cossacks in the region serving the Russian state and brought with them a Russian flag. This was immediately countered by a large protest demonstration of Kazakhs who saw it as an outright chauvinist provocation. "9
Northern and eastern Kazakhstan is the industrial heartland of the republic, with the coal-mining city of Karaganda (700,000 inhabitants) as the "capital". In this area, as in other coal-mining centres of the Soviet Union, the workers' movement was reborn at the time of the 1989 strikes. Soon after, part of the strike leadership took over in reality the official miners' trade union in the region, but they were gradually coopted by the local
Efforts to form independent miners union
The attempt to maintain an independent workers committee within the official trade union and set up a political workers organization, the Union of Workers of Karaganda, failed. Instead some of the activists moved on to initiate a local organizing committee of the Independent Union of The strikes of March-April this year did not get a massive following in Karaganda, because of the active intervention of Nazarbajev (promising comprehensive indexation of wages) and the role played by the local trade unions: "Our strike was not as big as the one in Kuzbass [in Western Siberia]. The national question in the region and the fact that we are better off economically played a role in this connec-
"It was very difficult for us. The authorities tried to stigmatize our actions as extremist. The leader of the official trade union personally tried to call off the strike. We were immediately told that the consequences of the strike and all the economic losses would be imposed on those who organized it. The strike was spontaneous: there were no links between the strikers, and the miners thought that no one was supporting them.
"Immediately after the strike the persecution began. Workers were summoned by the directors who threatened to fire them. After that we decided to leave the official trade union."2] The Karaganda branch of the NG also played an important role during the three days of the August coup, when they tried to organize popular resistance, giving out — under very difficult conditions — seven differ-
Meanwhile the official union, which can still count on support from the majority of miners in Karaganda, hopes for a bright future through the setting up of export described in a Soviet paper under the telling headline: "What is better — to strike or to receive dollars?" The idea was explained by the chairman of the regional trade union committee: "With the help of the president of Kazakhstan, we have signed contracts with foreign firms about delivering 200,000 tons of coal. Sixty percent of the currency is earned by the mines, thirty percent is given to the republican budget and ten percent to the region-
This is undoubtedly the type of trade unionism that Nazarbajer likes, while unions trying to pursue a more independent line are subjected to explicit pressure from the authorities: "The authorities of Kazakhstan are trying to pacify the hotbeds of the workers' movement. One example is that the administration of the regional soviet has just taken away the legal approval of the regional workers' committee (in Karaganda). "23
The Independent Union of Mineworkers is not the only union trying to build a structure independent of the nomenklatura (though it is probably the one with the biggest potential). By mid-August, a republican Independent Trade Union Centre, consisting of 12 (very heterogeneous) unions, was set up in Alma Ata. Union criticism of economic policies
Lately the official unions have also been posing as more critical towards the economic policies of the republican leadership, as has also been the case in Tadjikistan, where in November, the trade unions announced a one-hour warning strike against the reduction in living standards. In a situation where the social crisis is felt by all workers, and scepticism about the market reform is widespread, the unions are forced to take a clearer stand. That could in turn spell trouble for the dreams of Nazarbajev and the other leaders in the region about turning their republics into replicas of South Korea. * 18. Rabochaya Tribuna, September 17, 1991. 19. Izvestiya, September 18, 1991. 20. One of the Gulags of the Stalin period, "Karlag", was situated here until 1961. The city was constructed from 1934 onwards around the area's coal deposits involving large amounts of forced labour. Today there are 25 mines in the region, the largest employing 4,500 workers, and nearby, in the satellite town of Temirtau, a steel works (employing 33,000 workers) has been constructed. 21. Extracts from an interview with Pavel Syumlin and Igor Frolov from the Independent Union of Miners. The interview was carried out by the author in Karaganda in September. 22. Rabochaya Tribuna, September 28, 1991. 23. Pavel Syumlin and Igor Frolov, op. cit.