Customer Reviews

Nazarbayev and the Making of Kazakhstan: From Communism to Capitalism

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This is the first really credible biography of Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has been at the former Soviet republic's helm since the 1980s. At 248 pages of text, the book provides a very well-written and informative account of the life of this controversial leader.

The author, Jonathan Aitken, is a former British Member of Parliament (who apparently spent some time in prison and was ousted from Parliament in disgrace). There is not much background either in the book or on the web about how this former MP came into the confidence of both Nazarbayev and, evidently, Gorbachev, but however he did so, it makes for a very good narrative, riddled with solid facts that support his claims.

As to those claims, it must be mentioned that Aitken's bio of the Kazakhstani leader is staunchly pro-Nazarbayev. I was shocked that a Westerner would take such a slant. Almost all public press on Nazarbayev in the West is overwhelmingly negative, fraught with complaints and murmurings about rigged elections, Duvalierian despotism, and comparisons with both Stalin and Islamic extremists. I expected to read a condemnation of the president, but what I had at the end of the book was a new sense of Nursultan Nazarbayev both as a leader and a man. How? Aitken is simply that convincing a writer. One might try to write even that much off to Aitken's having been "duped" by Nazarbayev and his press, but the solid statistics and flawless accounts of events would seem, in my opinion, to make the case in the Kazakh leader's favor. I believe that the reader will come away with a similar opinion on Nazarbayev. He is far from a democratic leader, but his "brand" of democracy may actually be evolving in conjunction with the winds of progress in Kazakhstan. I am not in any way making any excuses for totalitarianism; rather I believe that Aitken truly uncovered the greatness of Nazarbayev's character and achievements while still maintaining a wary stance.

A very well-written book, and probably the best biography of a post-Soviet Central Asian leader yet written. (Now if we could just get similar lives of Islom Karimov and Saparmurat Niyazov!)