Comparative analysis of color revolutions in Kyrgyzstan

It should be noted that the causes and results of the “Tulip Revolution” of 2005 had a devastating effect on Kyrgyz society. The weak political culture in the

republic, which was an unpromising periphery even during the times of the Soviet Union, during the period of independence received the name “steppe democracy” in local political terminology. In reality, the tribal structure quickly revived in Kyrgyzstan after the collapse of the USSR acquired a convenient tool for conducting a clan struggle. But the fascination with such tools turned out for Kyrgyzstan a whole series of crises, the most striking of which was the “melon revolution” of 2010, a slide into the status of a “failed” state, which inevitably led to the loss of real sovereignty.

Over the years, due to the concentration of power and authority in the hands of ex-president A. Akayev, the country's financial and economic wealth was monopolized. Privatization of large and economically attractive objects of state ownership was carried out with numerous violations, using an administrative resource. The largest enterprises were owned and controlled by people close to the "family" of the president and his associates. Under K. Bakiev, nepotism reached even greater proportions. The relatives of K. Bakiev swept the enterprises that used to belong to the family of A. Akayev away. Corruption, nepotism and clanism are what united both regimes. In both cases, the government lost its political reality, and this, in turn, led to the opposition movement in the state.

In general, the “melon revolution” scenario of April 2010 was predetermined by the same factors as the events of March 2005, when A. Akayev's regime was overthrown as a result of the “Tulip Revolution”.

K. Bakiev, like A. Akayev, became a hostage to the traditionalist system of relations, directly affecting his way of thinking and practical actions. However, if Akayev at the beginning of his journey had an internal conviction of the need for democracy for Kyrgyzstan, then K. Bakiev, apparently, was not enough to carry out the declared reforms. The acutely necessary socio-economic transformations declared by K. Bakiev for the most part remained on paper. The focus was only on enhancing the role of the president at all stages of the decision-making process. The history of the formation, development and fall of the regime of A. Akayev was mirroredly repeated. Like his predecessor, K. Bakiev every day lost his social and political base, turned into another authoritarian dictator who tried to stay in power through the apical manipulations.

If the “tulip revolution” of 2005 began in the south of Kyrgyzstan, then the fire of the “melon revolution” in 2010 broke out in the north of the country. Having experience in a similar situation, K. Bakiev behaved differently than A. Akayev. He did not want to part with power so easily, as a result of which force was used against the protesters, including firearms. In addition, the consequences of these events escalated so much that they caused an ethnic conflict (most likely from the filing of family members of K. Bakiyev) between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the Osh region, which claimed the lives of a large number of people. Thus, the melon revolution cannot be called nonviolent.

From the positive aspects, one can note at least two factors that allowed Kyrgyzstan to break the vicious circle of instability and chaos generated by the “color revolutions”. Firstly, this is a transition from a presidential form of government, when all power was concentrated in the hands of one person to parliamentary-presidential. As rightly noted by domestic researcher V. Pryakhin, in this way a form of government was created in Kyrgyzstan with a well-thought-out system of checks and balances, which was extremely important in the conditions of a continuing clan society [3, p. 121]. Secondly, and this is much more significant, the rejection of geopolitical throwing and flirting with America. It seems that the rate of a number of CIS countries on a close alliance with the West, primarily the USA, has not paid off. The fact is that Washington considers most of the states of the world exclusively as an object of its geopolitical aspirations. In the case of the post-Soviet republics, they are assigned the unenviable role of a battering ram aimed at Russia. Of course, in the United States little concern is given to the consequences of a confrontation with Moscow for these countries. However, the consequences, as a rule, are catastrophic: socio-economic chaos, loss of territories, transition to external management and, as a result, complete loss of state sovereignty.

Today, few doubt that the "color revolutions" pose a serious threat to the state sovereignty of the countries in which they occur. Being the fruit of Western geopolitical engineering, these technologies are not aimed at genuine democratization of countries, not at a drastic improvement in the standard of living and socio-economic status of citizens, but at turning these states into obedient executors of the will of the United States and their allies in the international arena. In such circumstances, it is not necessary to talk about the existence of state sovereignty, that is, the ability of state authorities to independently and independently exercise their functions both within the country and in relations with other states. In this regard, the events in Kyrgyzstan over the past fifteen years show that the consequences of the “color revolutions” are not irreversible. Under certain conditions and with the political will of the elite-minded national categories, maintaining their own sovereignty even in such crisis situations is quite possible.

1. Gullette, D; Heathershaw, J. The affective politics of sovereignty: reflecting on the 2010 conflict in Kyrgyzstan // Nationalities Papers. January 2015, Vol. 43 Issue 1, pp. 122-139.