We present to the readers the program of transitional demands of the Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan, adopted at a meeting in Bishkek on June 30 - July 1. A bilingual brochure of this document will be ready shortly. We present for the time being a version in Russian for activists of the labor and social movements.
Kazakhstan Socialist Movement Program (Transitional)
More oil and more worker blood!
This slogan and one sentence can characterize the situation and the mechanics of the rule of the current elite and the ruling castes in Kazakhstan. It is no longer possible to achieve the previous level of plunder of the country and unheard-of exploitation of workers without murders, arrests and widespread repression. Everything mixed up, both oil and blood, in the game of interests of domestic party and Komsomol leaders who became oligarchs and latifundists, on the one hand, and the political establishment in alliance with Western industrialists who support such a regime that ensures stable super profits, on the other. Elbasy plays a key role in this construction, modern imperialism prays for him.
Nazarbayev, publicly demonstrating his young offspring in public, showed the elite groups, and the whole society, that he was not going to give up his positions on the imperious Olympus. The cult of longevity, the construction of specialized medical institutes, the search for the "elixir of youth" - all this betrays the decrepit Elbasy's desire to stay in power and deceive the time, as well as to preserve the system he has built and the neo-colonial model of the country's development.
Unstable "stability"
At the same moment, the main predators lurked at the throne, who sensed his weakness after the Zhanaozen execution and the health problems of the reigning elder and dreamed of starting an open struggle for the legacy. They are already ready to tear the country to pieces, and only the fear of popular revolt, as well as the bloodthirstiness of the despot, forces them to somewhat restrain their appetites and still be near his bed, nurturing their more thorough plans for palace coups. And now many are secretly trying to come to an agreement with each other in order to outline the contours of the future structure of the country in the event of a sudden withdrawal due to illness or an "accident" with the "Great Nursiyaniy". Some, like Imangali Tasmagambetov or Aslan Musin, do not hide their ambitions.
Despite the creation of a new Central Asian miracle of "managed democracy", namely the "three-armed" or - in the official language - "multi-party" Mazhilis, this did not give stability to the entire system, and there are signs of its gradual stagnation. Any new political crisis of the Zhanaozen type, when angry masses enter the scene, can bring down the walls of the entire building overnight. And now the Elbasy and his entourage rule rather through a bloody police dictatorship than through oligarchic parliamentarism. The current Mazhilis is as sham as the previous one. So far, parliamentary parties are called upon to show for the West that there is progress towards "democracy", where Nur Otan depicts the center, the right-wing liberal Ak Zhol - the party of industrialists and entrepreneurs, and the Kosarev court communists - the "left opposition."
Like the CPPK, the role of other puppets, but already in the sphere of labor relations, represented by the Federation of Trade Unions of Kazakhstan and the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Kazakhstan, is the same - it is obscuring and maximum concealment of the truth from workers, their disorganization, disorientation and demoralization. These "federations" and "confederations", in fact serving the regime and employers, did not say a word about the forthcoming amendments to the Labor Code, as they are silent about the expected increase in the retirement age for women to 63 years and for men to 68 years. Nor do the yellow trade union bosses remember the plans of Ak Orda to introduce a 60-hour working week, that is, to legalize a 12-hour working day in the country.
Bullets instead of bread and prison instead of freedom
But this is no longer enough and it does not work, since Nursultan Abishevich understands perfectly well that the masses do not trust Vladislav Kosarev, Siyazbek Mukashev, Sergei Belkin and other clowns and puppets of power. Therefore, the "velvet dictatorship" that Hillary Clinton loves so much, on December 16 last year in Zhanaozen turned into a bloody tyranny in the style of the most brutal East Asian regimes. The oil workers, who had been on strike for almost eight months, were deliberately shot from machine guns, from sniper rifles and from machine guns of police armored vehicles in order to intimidate all workers in the country, and especially their counterparts from the oil and gas industry and mining enterprises.
But this intimidation can turn against those who are now trying to pour blood on the factories, factories and pavements of our cities. Thus, the authorities are pushing the workers into clandestine actions, driving organizations and groups of workers into an illegal channel, which cannot but radicalize the general mood of the working people. In this case, an explosion at other enterprises of various industries this year is simply inevitable.
Friends of Elbasy from other countries praise the former first secretary of the CPC Central Committee for "unheard of democratization" of the political system - in the form of admitting several parties to parliament - and note the "progressive amendments" to the Labor Code, also suggesting that our government accelerate Kazakhstan's accession to the WTO! This is done, first of all, to obtain additional preferences and benefits for their corporations, for even greater opportunities to extract and export minerals from our country for next to nothing, to exploit our workers mercilessly in exchange for "forgiveness" for the bloody crimes of the regime. Realizing this, Ak Orda plays on such "weaknesses" of European and American industrialists, concluding contracts with them enslaving for the country. And so the West needs more of our oil, and Nazarbayev needs more blood from our workers!
Therefore, the first 49 worker activists from Zhanaozen and Shetpe were arrested and put on trial in Aktau for daring to oppose the arbitrariness of Chinese and domestic employers, for encroaching on the right to private property, demanding nationalization and workers' control. And - most importantly - for the fact that in their resolution at the rally in Zhanaozen on December 16, they wanted to call on all the working people of the country to a general strike demanding the resignation of the government and the president.
Elbasy could not ask the oilmen for this under any conditions! This leads to the conclusion that workers have no other means of resolving their labor disputes other than taking an active part in the political struggle in order to eliminate a political system that prohibits strikes, rallies, meetings, unions and imprisons workers' leaders. … The history of the labor movement in Latin America under right-wing dictatorships, South Africa, Indonesia, Egypt and Tunisia shows that the labor movement will not stand aside in this situation and will sooner or later respond to government terror.
The unfolding struggle and our slogans
Delaying their inevitable collapse, the regime and the ruling castes are shifting onto the shoulders of the working people all the economic difficulties caused by the crisis and the dead end of the raw material economy. The inevitable drop in oil and metal prices will undoubtedly further reduce the social package of budgetary appropriations. Wages for workers in all sectors have been frozen, which is already leading to agricultural workers' strikes. 80% of the country's scientists were left without a salary, as well as temporarily unemployed. The Customs Union has brought the workers so far only an increase in prices for utilities, fuel and lubricants and led to bankruptcy of many small enterprises and farms. A new round of food prices, job cuts will inevitably cause a surge in social protest sentiments and performances in various industries and regions of the country.
Despite the brutal police dictatorship, repression and violence, an understanding is growing among unemployed youth, workers, internal migrants that only decisive actions, rallies and strikes can change their lives for the better. Yes, and the blood of hundreds - yes, it is precisely hundreds of workers and ordinary residents of Zhanaozen and Shetpe, as well as torture, humiliation and arrest of strike activists, no one will forgive Nazarbayev and his nukers.
We insist on an independent investigation into the bloody shooting of workers on December 16-18 in Zhanaozen and at Shetpe station and on the release of all arrested oil workers, journalists and political opposition activists.
One of the main challenges today is to build a strong democratic trade union federation to defend our rights, including:
For fair pay for work in accordance with international standards.
For a 35-hour work week with no loss of wages.
Against agency work, precarious employment, probationary periods, discrimination on the basis of age, sex, etc. when applying for a job.
For equal pay for equal work, regardless of nationality.
For the timely indexation of salaries, scholarships and pensions, according to the inflation rate.
Against the actions of private pension funds and the increase in the retirement age, for the full state provision of pensions for all.
For universal quality and free education with full funding from the budget. To ensure that HEIs are controlled and managed by elected committees of students and educators.
For a government investment plan to tackle unemployment and unprofitable businesses.
The republican trade union of workers in industrial, budgetary sectors, services and the agricultural complex "ZHANARTU" is such a militant trade union independent of the administration, which is ready to organize workers to fight against employers' policies. He advocates the greatest possible unification and international solidarity in the labor movement - not those based on unification from the top down, but those based on unity in action, on the exchange of experience and ideas on how to stop closures and wage cuts. …
But no trade union in the conditions of modern Kazakhstan can stop only at the struggle for economic demands. It is also necessary to fight for political issues and demands: for freedom of assembly, freedom of trade union activity, freedom of the press, the right to strike and mass protests, and the possibility of joining a political party. In a multicultural country, trade unions must also defend the rights of all nations to cultural, linguistic development and proletarian internationalism.
The massive and prolonged strike of oil workers showed the power of the emerging labor movement, which is turning into a revolutionary force, and the fact that now more than ever it is necessary to consolidate workers and social activists on the basis of a single political platform and their own organization. In this situation, we intend to call on everyone who is ready to fight against oppression and capitalist slavery to unite and join the ranks of the Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan! The Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan stands on the principles of social justice, solidarity and internationalism and sets itself the goal of creating a mass party of workers capable of consistently protecting the interests of workers and fighting to replace the capitalist system with a socialist one.
Nationalization
The primary task for the Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan is the question of changing the balance of class forces in the country, and the main point in this is the demand for nationalization under workers' control and production management. This demand was put forward by the workers of Zhanaozen back in 2009 in order to stop the plundering of enterprises and the closure of production by the owners.
That is, now we are talking about the nationalization of all strategic sectors of the country's economy, namely, enterprises of the extractive industry, metallurgy, energy, transport, large-scale trade, scientific institutions and other sectors of the economy that are important for society under the control of the working committees being created.
Nationalization is inconceivable without the transfer of the entire banking sector and the country's financial system into the hands of the working people and the state, with its centralization, carrying out fundamental changes with the expropriation of speculative income and preventing the flight of capital abroad. The most important element is the issue of introducing a state monopoly on foreign trade.
Nationalization is only a means in the hands of organized workers and the workers' party to change the balance of class forces in society through fundamental socio-economic and political transformations and broad democratic reforms in the economy. The nationalization of enterprises in the hands of the Nazarbayev oligarchs and foreign capitalists is a necessary step towards democratization, that is, access of workers to a part of the national wealth through the control and management of production.
In this situation, nationalization is inseparable from the issues of changing the country's political system in favor of the majority, where it will be necessary to transfer power to the workers and all working people of the country on a democratic basis. This is unthinkable without the liquidation of the Samruk-Kazyna Mega Monster, joint-stock companies and “national companies”, which should become completely state-owned trusts, without any “boards of directors”. The Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan advocates a transition to a democratic planned economy under the full and direct control and administration of the organized working class.
By economic democracy or workers' democracy, we mean workers' access to the management of the means of production through the established workers' factory committees and their independent class trade unions. It is they who must become the real power at the local level, elect the management of enterprises and raise issues of further development of production, which is also impossible without the construction of a single planned national economy.
Constituent Assembly
Opposition liberals still demand democratic rights, since under the current regime many of them have been removed from the trough and are even subjected to repression, but their demands do not go further than speculations about abstract freedoms. They are not ready to concretize the political program - after all, for example, the right to strike is definitely not in their interests. For them, democracy is at best in the field of politics, at worst in the field of idealistic ideas, but they will not tolerate democracy in the field of economics.
The workers, however, need democratic rights and freedoms not only by themselves, but also as a means of fighting for a piece of bread, for their labor, social rights, for the right to manage the economy. Obviously, there can be no equality and real democracy between a big owner and a poor worker; democracy cannot be ensured by liberal phrases alone. Therefore, the struggle for democratic rights for the working class is a struggle for a democratically controlled planned economy.
Against the modern authoritarianism of capitalist Kazakhstan, the Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan advocates the convening of a Constituent Assembly from democratically elected representatives of workers, organized into their trade unions, workers' committees, social movements and self-government bodies, to radically change the political system in the country. This demand logically follows from the demands of nationalization and fundamental social and economic changes in the life of the country. The political consolidation of these changes should be carried out within the framework of this wide gathering of democratically elected representatives of workers and ordinary citizens, self-organizing in their trade unions, movements and local self-government bodies.
Although the slogan of the Constituent Assembly will cause many more discussions and require concretization, it, like the creation of broad democratic organs of self-government, as well as purely class organs of the labor movement, must be raised now. We should not leave the issues of democratic reconstruction in the hands of only the bourgeois opposition, which will hide behind populist rhetoric and use these slogans in order to redistribute property and power and carry out such changes that would preserve the overall economic and political system.
It is clear that these radical democratic changes in the country can only be carried out by the working class, and the goal of such a Constituent Assembly will be the formation of a new political system, without presidential power, election at every level by direct voting by the citizens of the country with full accountability and election of the executive power by republican and local representative bodies. authorities and self-government bodies.
Everything will depend on the balance of class forces. If the labor and social protest movement gains massive political power in the country, then the slogan of the Constituent Assembly will become a weapon in the hands of the working people with the aim of changing Kazakhstan in favor of the majority of society, that is, transferring the country's wealth into its hands in order to overcome property and social stratification and exploitation.
General strike question
The events in Zhanaozen showed how a strike unfolding with economic demands, when employers and special services intervened in the affairs of the union, and the union's lawyer Natalya Sokolova was arrested and sentenced to 6 years for “inciting social hatred”. As a result, as a result of an 8-month confrontation, a peaceful rally of oil workers was shot, and the leaders of the strike were arrested. In the current system, any economic demands will take on a political nature, since the employers have power in the person of the president, government, parliament, akims, prosecutors, police and special services, which protect the interests of domestic and foreign employers by all repressive methods.
In this situation, the only way to protect against arbitrariness is to conduct decisive, well-organized and well-prepared strikes, including those with a political content, where, in addition to economic demands, demands must be made:
Freedom of trade union activity and the right to form new associations.
Freedom of assembly and nomination of your own version of the collective agreement.
Avoiding reprisals against worker activists.
At a government meeting at the end of 2011, the president ordered to reduce the number of state-owned enterprises, which means their closure or privatization. In such enterprises, in addition to the listed requirements, the following policy requirements will be relevant:
Prevention of privatization and closure of state-owned enterprises.
Avoiding layoffs of workers under the guise of "optimization".
Opening financial accounts of state-owned companies for workers' organizations and introducing working control over the accounting department.
Workers need to elect their workers' committees (strike committees) in their factories, which will lead the strike as elected legal representatives to negotiate and manage the strike. These committees must be fully controlled and accountable to those who elect them. Such committees have the same legal force as those yellow trade unions of the FPRK that exist under employers. At the same time, there is a favorable opportunity to re-elect the management of these corrupt trade unions, or immediately create a new trade union association on the basis of the working committee.
To prevent reprisals against the activists, the striking collectives will have to select volunteer vigilantes from their composition. The oil workers of Zhanaozen set a good example back in the summer of 2011: they independently organized the protection of their assemblies from the tyranny of the police and attacks by hired bandits.
The establishment of workers' control over production will become a tool not only for pressure on employers, but also on the government. Only in this way can organized workers achieve the exercise of their economic rights, freedom of trade union activity, and subsequently achieve the nationalization of their enterprises.
If the strike is massive and stable, it is necessary to expand it to other enterprises where the same problems and conflicts exist, for self-organization and unification of labor collectives of different enterprises and industries.
It is impossible to achieve fundamental changes in one's life without a general speech in the form of a nationwide strike. Therefore, we are talking about a general national strike, which should radically change the situation in the country, where organized workers will dictate their conditions to employers and authorities, and not vice versa.
Demands for a general strike with a single coordinating center should address fundamental issues of labor and economic relations and political issues of the country's development:
Reforming Labor legislation in favor of labor collectives.
Nationalization of strategic sectors of the economy under the control and management of labor collectives.
Prevention of raising the retirement age, nationalizing pension funds and returning to a solidarity pension system.
Full freedom of peaceful assembly, rallies and processions, freedom to create unions and organizations of workers at enterprises of any form of ownership, freedom of the press, speech and to hold strikes.
The release of Zhanaozen workers and all political prisoners from prisons, an investigation into the mass execution of striking oil workers in Mangistau on December 16-18, 2011 under the control of workers' organizations.
The introduction of public control over law enforcement agencies, their election and turnover.
These actions will be inseparable from other political demands. In particular, the labor movement will have to raise demands and slogans, some of which the oil workers of Zhanaozen wanted to endure on December 16, 2011 at their rally:
Resignation of President Nazarbayev and his government.
Dissolution of Parliament and local governments.
Convening a Democratic Constituent Assembly.
Performances at this stage will require the unification of workers with all democratic forces represented by social movements, organizations of local residents, student groups and unemployed youth and public associations into single Committees of Action (struggle committees). This will make it possible to coordinate joint actions and resist the forces of reaction that want to split and crush the protests of ordinary citizens of the country for their social and political rights and interests. Moreover, such committees can become the seeds of new bodies of local self-government, independent of the existing system of government.
United class trade unions and the workers' party
In a situation of growing class confrontation and deepening political crisis, workers need both their own branch trade unions and a national workers' organization (a single trade union) that would be able to lead and effectively wage the offensive struggle of the entire class.
Therefore, it is necessary to expand work on the deployment of new trade union organizations at enterprises on the basis of workers' and strike committees. The new democratically-formed trade unions will have to create a single trade union center to replace the corrupt FPRK structures and deploy industry associations. The backbone for such a center can be the republican workers 'trade union association "Zhanartu" (Revival), which is now the embryo of a new federation and which includes advanced trade union groups and workers' organizations.
The second most important task of the labor movement and all social protest groups will be the formation of the Socialist Workers' Party, which will have to become a political organization for the working people to seize political power in the country. This party will have to work out a full-fledged program for reorganizing Kazakhstani society on socialist foundations and pursuing a principled consistent policy to achieve the set goals and unite all union social forces of society in breaking the capitalist model of the country's development.
The situation of the absence of such a party already shows, using the example of Kyrgyzstan and the Maghreb countries, that, despite the favorable conditions and all the elements of a revolutionary crisis, the working people are not able to overthrow the rule of the new and old exploiters without their militant organization. Future social and political upheavals, which are inevitable in Kazakhstan and other countries, can again only lead to another change of persons or to a change of bourgeois groupings with a subsequent redistribution of property, while the broad oppressed masses will be neutralized and deceived.
That is why the main goal of the Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan is to create a truly socialist society based on the socialization of natural resources, means of production and exchange, financial system and basic social infrastructure, with their inclusion in a planned system governed and controlled by democratically elected committees of workers and consumers.
A socialist society in which all key democratic rights and freedoms are guaranteed, in which trade unions and political parties can form, in which human rights will no longer be a good wish or an imperialist toy used to justify imperialist aggression.
Socialism based on internationalism, when peoples have the right to self-determination, and all the nations of the world unite in a voluntary federation to eliminate poverty and exploitation, wars and environmental disasters.
We are fighting for a socialist society based on:
Democracy in the interests of the working majority in the form of a state, in the governing bodies of which all workers will be represented, and in which the state itself will wither away, dissolving in the bodies of social self-government.
Socialization of industry, banking, transport and communications, as well as land and natural resources, including oil and gas, and workers' control over the production and distribution of all public goods.
A democratic planned economy under the full and direct control and administration of the organized working class.
The right of all nations to cultural and state self-determination up to secession or unification.
A free and equal alliance of workers' states on a global scale that will end the chaos of imperialist wars and ethnic conflicts.
A government of workers with a socialist program.
Oil and the country's wealth in the hands of the people!
For new class trade unions and the Socialist Labor Party!
For a general strike!
For the Democratic Assembly of the Working People and the Popular Masses!
July 1, Bishkek
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