Turkmenistan: Former Soviet Republic (part 2 of 2)

Continued from Part 1

 

Coat of Arms of the Turkmenistan
Soviet Socialist Republic

Part II

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS

Although the constitution declares the country to be a secular democracy and presidential republic, Turkmenistan is an authoritarian state that was dominated by its first president, Saparmyrat Niyazov, who retained his monopoly on political power until his death on December 21, 2006. The Halk Maslahaty (People's Council) decided on December 26 to select Niyazov's successor through public elections on February 11, 2007. Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov became president through a public election in which the population eagerly participated, even though the election did not meet international standards.

 

Government efforts continue to focus on fostering centralized state control. The president controls the parliament and the judiciary. The civilian authorities maintain effective control of the security forces. Neither independent political activity nor opposition candidates are allowed in Turkmenistan. The Democratic Party of Turkmenistan (DPT) is the only legal political party. Political gatherings are illegal unless government-sanctioned, and the citizens of Turkmenistan do not have the means to change their government democratically.

 

On November 25, 2002, an armed attack against then-President Niyazov's motorcade occurred, and the Government of Turkmenistan moved quickly against perceived sources of opposition. There were widespread reports of human rights abuses committed by officials investigating the attack, including torture and punishment of families of the accused. The Government of Turkmenistan denied the charges, but refused to allow independent observers at trials, to accept a mandatory Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) fact-finding mission, or to permit the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to prisons. It also instituted new measures to stifle dissent and limit contact with the outside world.

 

While the constitution provides for freedom of the press, there is virtually no freedom of the press or of association. The government has full control of all domestic media and restricts foreign publications. International satellite TV is widely available.

 

The population is 89% Sunni Muslim. The constitution provides for freedom of religion and does not establish a state religion; however, in practice, the government continues to monitor all forms of religious expression. Amendments to the law on religious organizations adopted in March 2004 reduced membership requirements from 500 to 5 for registration purposes. All groups must register in order to gain legal status with the government. Until 2004 the only religions that were registered successfully were Sunni Islam and Russian Orthodox Christianity. As of August 2010, 11 other religious groups were registered. The government limits the activities of unregistered religious congregations by prohibiting them from gathering publicly, proselytizing, and disseminating religious materials.

 

The government has started to review and rewrite its legislation with the stated goal of meeting international standards, including the criminal and criminal procedures codes and laws on religion and assembly. In late September 2008, a revised national constitution was adopted. It included provisions for a strengthened and enlarged Mejlis (parliament), eliminated many of former President Niyazov's arbitrary addenda, and contained some rights-related textual changes the international community had suggested. Most notably, it eliminated the Halk Maslahaty (Peoples Council), an oversized, bureaucratic, and largely rubber-stamp body whose powers have largely been transferred to the Mejlis.

 

Flag of Turkmenistan

A legacy of a Soviet-style command economy greatly limits equality of opportunity. Industry is almost entirely dominated by government or government-owned entities. Services are now largely in the private sector. Agriculture is dominated by a state order system, mainly for wheat and cotton, although about 50% of food production is in private hands.

 

In 2007, a law on state guarantees of the equal rights of women was adopted. Nonetheless, women continue to face discrimination, and their freedom is further restricted due to traditional socio-religious norms. All citizens are required to carry internal passports, noting place of residence. In July 2007, the government rescinded the requirement for citizens to acquire visas for travel to border areas.

 

Corruption is pervasive. Power is concentrated in the president. The judiciary is subservient to the president, with all judges appointed for 5-year terms by the president without legislative review.

Veterans History Project Launches Multi-Year Effort to Collect Vietnam War Stories

The Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP) has launched a multi-year campaign to preserve the stories of the nation’s Vietnam War veterans. Volunteers and veterans are needed to record these important stories for the Veterans History Project collection, accessible at www.loc.gov/vets/.

 

"In the coming years, our nation will commemorate 50 years since the conflict in Vietnam," said VHP Director Bob Patrick, referring to the United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration established to honor and pay tribute to Vietnam War veterans and their families. "The personal histories of those who served will help us heal, learn and remember, while leaving a powerful legacy for future generations."

 

The stories of former Sen. Chuck Hagel and his brother Tom Hagel, who fought side by side in the 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong River Delta, are among the more than 13,000 Vietnam veteran collections already held by VHP. The brothers recently ushered in VHP’s new campaign by donating more than 20 hours of interviews and film footage to the Library. Originally collected by Nebraska Educational Telecommunications (NET), representatives from NET were on hand to commemorate the donation.

 

"When we think of wars – whether it’s Vietnam or any other war – we think of it as a unitary subject, the Vietnam War," Tom Hagel shared at the event. "But there are millions of Vietnam Wars. If you were a clerk-typist stationed in Saigon or up on the demilitarized zone, or some other unit with some other type of job, your Vietnam War would be totally different from ours. And that’s important to tell. It gives a more complete, realistic picture of that experience. That’s the value of this project."

 

The Vietnam Veterans Collections Initiative Kick-off can be viewed here.

 

Epitomizing that thought are the stories of Brian Markle and Jeanne Markle, who were among the first married couples to arrive in country. She was a nurse with an evacuation hospital, and he was an officer in charge of medical logistics. African-American truck driver Thomas Hodge didn’t expect to live long when he got to Vietnam; he heard that the life expectancy of a wartime truck driver was three days. He survived, as did nurse Rhona Marie Knox Prescott, though her friend and fellow nurse perished in a helicopter crash.

 

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs and exhibitions. Many of the Library’s rich resources can be accessed through its website at www.loc.gov.

 

Congress created the Veterans History Project in 2000 as a national documentation program of the American Folklife Center (www.loc.gov/folklife/) to collect, preserve and make accessible the first-hand remembrances of American wartime veterans from World War I through the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war. The project relies on volunteers to record veterans’ remembrances using guidelines accessible at www.loc.gov/vets/. Volunteers may request more information at vohp@loc.gov or the toll-free message line at (888) 371-5848. Subscribe to VHP’s RSS feed on the VHP home page.

Turkmenistan: Former Soviet Republic

Part 1 of 2

PEOPLE AND HISTORY

Flag of the Turkmenistan Soviet
Socialist Republic

The majority of Turkmenistan's citizens are ethnic Turkmen; other ethnic groups include Russian, Uzbek, and Kazakh. Turkmen is the official language of Turkmenistan, though Russian still is widely spoken as a "language of inter-ethnic communication" (per the 1992 constitution). Education is universal and mandatory through the secondary level, the total duration of which is 10 years.

 

The territory of Turkmenistan has been populated since ancient times, as armies from one empire to another decamped on their way to more prosperous territories. Tribes of horse-breeding Turkmen drifted into the territory of Turkmenistan, possibly from the Altay Mountains, and grazed along the outskirts of the Karakum Desert into Persia, Syria, and Anatolia.

 

Alexander the Great conquered the territory in the 4th century B.C. on his way to India. One hundred fifty years later the Parthian Kingdom took control of Turkmenistan, establishing its capital in Nisa, an area now located in the suburbs of the modern-day capital of Ashgabat. In the 7th century A.D. Arabs conquered this region, bringing with them the Islamic religion and incorporating the Turkmen into Middle Eastern culture. It was around this time that the famous "Silk Road" was established as a major trading route between Asia and Europe.

 

In the middle of the 11th century, the powerful Turks of the Seljuk Empire concentrated their strength in the territory of Turkmenistan in an attempt to expand into Afghanistan. The empire broke down in the second half of the 12th century, and the Turkmen lost their independence when Genghis Khan took control of the eastern Caspian Sea region on his march west. For the next 7 centuries, the Turkmen people lived under various empires and fought constant intertribal wars.

 

From the 16th century on, Turkmen raiders on horseback preyed on passing caravans, pillaging and taking prisoners for the slave trade. In order to consolidate the Tsarist Empire in Central Asia, and upon the pretext of freeing Russian citizens from slavery, Russia sent forces to Turkmenistan, and in 1881 fighting climaxed with the massacre of 7,000 Turkmen at the desert fortress of Gokdepe, near modern Ashgabat; another 8,000 were killed trying to flee across the desert. By 1894 imperial Russia had taken control of Turkmenistan. The October Revolution of 1917 in Russia and subsequent political unrest led to the declaration of the Turkmen Republic as one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union in 1924. At this time, the modern borders of Turkmenistan were formed.

 

Following the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan declared its independence on October 27, 1991. Saparmyrat Niyazov became the first president of the new republic and was "president for life" until his death in 2006.

Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies' Travel to Russia, January 31 - February 3, 2012

Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

January 27, 2012

 

Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies will travel to Russia January 31 - February 3, to deepen cooperation and share perspectives on North Korea.

 

Special Representative Davies will arrive in Moscow on January 31. While there, he will meet with senior Russian officials, including Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov and Ambassador-at-Large for Six-Party Talks Grigoriy Logvinov.

 

Special Envoy for Six-Party Talks Clifford Hart will accompany Special Representative Davies on this trip.

China: Writer Yu Jie's Arrival in the United States

Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

 

Question Taken at the January 12, 2012 Daily Press Briefing

 

Question: Was the State Department informed of the arrival of Chinese writer and activist Yu Jie? Did we have any contact with Chinese officials about the possibility of his arrival?

 

Answer: We are aware of reports of Mr. Yu’s arrival to the United States. We have not had any contact with Chinese officials about his reported arrival.

Bauer and Lenin: The Problem of Economic Calculation

By Ludwig von Mises (written in 1920)

 

Since recent events helped socialist parties to obtain power in Russia, Hungary, Germany and Austria, and have thus made the execution of a socialist nationalization program a topical issue, Marxist writers have themselves begun to deal more closely with the problems of the regulation of the socialist commonwealth. But even now they still cautiously avoid the crucial question, leaving it to be tackled by the despised "Utopians." They themselves prefer to confine their attention to what is to be done in the immediate future; they are forever drawing up programs of the path to Socialism and not of Socialism itself. The only possible conclusion from all these writings is that they are not even conscious of the larger problem of economic calculation in a socialist society.

 

To Otto Bauer the nationalization of the banks appears the final and decisive step in the carrying through of the socialist nationalization program. If all banks are nationalized and amalgamated into a single central bank, then its administrative board becomes

 

“the supreme economic authority, the chief administrative organ of the whole economy. Only by nationalization of the banks does society obtain the power to regulate its labor according to a plan, and to distribute its resources rationally among the various branches of production, so as to adapt them to the nation's needs.”

 

Bauer is not discussing the monetary arrangements which will prevail in the socialist commonwealth after the completion of the nationalization of the banks. Like other Marxists he is trying to show how simply and obviously the future socialist order of society will evolve from the conditions prevailing in a developed capitalist economy. "It suffices to transfer to the nation's representatives the power now exercised by bank shareholders through the Administrative Boards they elect, "in order to socialize the banks and thus to lay the last brick on the edifice of socialism. Bauer leaves his readers completely ignorant of the fact that the nature of the banks is entirely changed in the process of nationalization and amalgamation into one central bank. Once the banks merge into a single bank, their essence is wholly transformed; they are then in a position to issue credit without any limitation. In this fashion the monetary system as we know it today disappears of itself.

 

When in addition the single central bank is nationalized in a society, which is otherwise already completely socialized, market dealings disappear and all exchange transactions are abolished. At the same time the Bank ceases to be a bank, its specific functions are extinguished, for there is no longer any place for it in such a society.

 

This is excerpted from Economic Planning in the Socialist Commonwealth.  Read or download the entire book at the AntiMarxists Internet Archive e-library.

 

Image and book courtesy of the Ludwig von Mises Institute

Marx and the Violence of Socialism and Communism

Battle at Soufflot Barricades, 24 June 1848
by Horace Vernet

In the terminology of Marx and Engels the words communism and socialism are synonymous. They are alternately applied without any distinction between them. The same was true for the practice of all Marxian groups and sects until 1917. The political parties of Marxism which considered the Communist Manifesto as the unalterable gospel of their doctrine called themselves socialist parties. The most influential and most numerous of these parties, the German party, adopted the name Social Democratic Party. In Italy, in France and in all other countries in which Marxian parties already played a role in political life before 1917, the term socialist likewise superseded the term communist. No Marxian ever ventured, before 1917, to distinguish between communism and socialism.

 

In 1875, in his Criticism of the Gotha Programme of the German Social Democratic Party, Marx distinguished between a lower (earlier) and a higher (later) phase of the future communist society. But he did not reserve the name of communism to the higher phase, and did not call the lower phase socialism as differentiated from communism.

 

One of the fundamental dogmas of Marx is that socialism is bound to come "with the inexorability of a law of nature." Capitalist production begets its own negation and establishes the socialist system of public ownership of the means of production. This process "executes itself through the operation of the inherent laws of capitalist production." It is independent of the wills of people. It is impossible for men to accelerate it, to delay it or to hinder it. For "no social system ever disappears before all the productive forces are developed for the development of which it is broad enough, and new higher methods of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have been hatched out in the womb of previous society."

 

This doctrine is, of course, irreconcilable with Marx's own political activities and with the teachings he advanced for the justification of these activities. Marx tried to organize a political party which by means of revolution and civil war should accomplish the transition from capitalism to socialism. The characteristic feature of their parties was, in the eyes of Marx and all Marxian doctrinaires, that they were revolutionary parties invariably committed to the idea of violent action. Their aim was to rise in rebellion, to establish the dictatorship of the proletarians and to exterminate mercilessly all bourgeois. The deeds of the Paris Communards in 1871 were considered as the perfect model of such a civil war. The Paris revolt, of course, had lamentably failed. But later uprisings were expected to succeed.

 

This is an excerpt from Planned Chaos by Ludwig von Mises.  Read or download the full book at the Anti-Marxists Internet Archive.

Book file at the AMIA e-library is courteously hosted by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. The Vernet painting is in the public domain.