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Introduction
On December 16, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh SSR adopted the Constitutional Law on Independence. Kazakhstan was the last Soviet republic to declare independence — not because its people were less eager for freedom, but because its leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, was trying to hold the Soviet Union together until the very end.
The path to independence was not sudden. It was prepared by decades of quiet resistance, moments of explosive protest, and the slow collapse of a system that had tried — and failed — to erase Kazakh identity.
IJeltoqsan: The December That Changed Everything
On December 16, 1986 — exactly five years before independence — Moscow replaced the Kazakh Communist Party leader Dinmukhamed Kunaev with Gennady Kolbin, an ethnic Russian with no connection to Kazakhstan. It was a routine Soviet personnel decision. What followed was anything but routine.
On December 17, thousands of young Kazakhs took to the streets of Alma-Ata (Almaty) in spontaneous protest. They carried signs reading 'Kazakhstan for Kazakhs' and demanded that the republic be led by a Kazakh. The protests, known as Jeltoqsan (December) or Желтоқсан, were the first mass anti-Soviet demonstrations by a non-Baltic nation.
The Soviet response was brutal: riot police, soldiers, water cannons in sub-zero temperatures, mass arrests, beatings, and at least two deaths (the actual number remains disputed — some historians estimate dozens killed). Hundreds of students were expelled from universities, imprisoned, or exiled.
Jeltoqsan was a turning point. For the first time since the Alash movement sixty years earlier, Kazakhs had collectively demanded national self-determination. The Soviet leadership was shaken — Kolbin was quietly replaced by Nazarbayev in 1989.
Today, December 16 is Kazakhstan's Independence Day — the date chosen to honor both the 1986 protesters and the 1991 declaration.
IIThe Unraveling of the Soviet Union
Between 1989 and 1991, the Soviet Union disintegrated with astonishing speed:
- 1989: The Berlin Wall fell. Baltic states demanded independence. Eastern European communist governments collapsed one after another.
- 1990: Lithuania declared independence (March 11). Other republics issued 'sovereignty declarations' — claiming their laws took precedence over Soviet law.
- October 25, 1990: Kazakhstan adopted its own Declaration of State Sovereignty — asserting primacy of Kazakh law, control over natural resources, and the right to an independent foreign policy.
- August 19-21, 1991: Hard-line Soviet officials attempted a coup against Gorbachev. The coup failed, but it destroyed remaining confidence in the Soviet system.
- August 29, 1991: Nazarbayev closed the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site — one of his first acts of genuine sovereignty. Over 450 nuclear tests had been conducted there since 1949, devastating the health of the local population.
- December 1, 1991: Nazarbayev won Kazakhstan's first presidential election with 98.7% of the vote (he was the only candidate).
- December 8, 1991: The Belovezha Accords — leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus declared the Soviet Union dissolved.
- December 16, 1991: Kazakhstan declared independence.
- December 21, 1991: Kazakhstan joined the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
- December 25, 1991: Gorbachev resigned. The Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time.
Kazakhstan was the last republic to leave. Nazarbayev had spent months trying to negotiate a reformed union — he feared that sudden dissolution would be catastrophic for a republic whose economy was entirely integrated with Russia's. He was not wrong about the economic consequences.
IVBuilding a New Nation
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Keywords
independence1991JeltoqsanDecember 1986NazarbayevSoviet Unionnuclear weaponsSemipalatinskAstanaЕНТтәуелсіздік
Sources
This article references 6 academic sources. Selected references used in preparing this article.
- 01
Martha Brill Olcott, Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2010)
- 02
Bhavna Dave, Kazakhstan: Ethnicity, Language and Power (Routledge, 2007)
- 03
Sally Cummings, Kazakhstan: Power and the Elite (I.B. Tauris, 2005)
- 04
Nursultan Nazarbayev, The Kazakhstan Way (Stacey International, 2008)
- 05
Nurbulat Masanov, The Nomadic Civilization of the Kazakhs (Almaty, 2011)
- 06
Togzhan Kassenova, Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb (Stanford University Press, 2022)