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There was more death and damage in Alma-Ata than was at first reported in the Soviet media. According to Nazarbaev and Interior Minister Grigory Knyazev, up to 3,000 youths participated in the demonstrations, significantly more than the "several hundred" reported in the Soviet press. They also said that two people were killed, a student and an auxiliary policeman, not one, as previously stated. Both died from head injuries, but the officials did not specify whether the injuries were caused by rioters' stones or policemen's clubs. An additional 200 were injured, Nazarbaev said, and 100 were "detained." Of those, three were sentenced to prison terms of up to five years, and another 28 are "under investigation."
The size of the disturbances hardly measured up to recent student unrest in Paris, Seoul, Madrid or Shanghai. Nonetheless, they were deeply troubling to a Kremlin regime that rules over a vast patchwork of nearly 100 nationalities, ranging from the European-minded Lithuanians to the Asian-oriented Kazakhs, who are of predominantly Muslim heritage. The Soviet Union is held together by a ramshackle, Russian-dominated central bureaucracy that is ever fearful that nationalist outbreaks could spread. Moscow was therefore quick to punish not only those who participated in the riots but the officials who failed to prevent them.
The students were hardly back in their dormitories before Politburo Member Mikhail Solomentsev was dispatched to Alma-Ata to dress down party officials and order changes. "We are all apologizing," a young government official ruefully commented when asked how things had been going since the riots. "We are cleaning things up."
The cleanup is more like a purge. The republic's former leadership has undergone scathing criticism for inefficiency, nepotism, corruption and high living. Scores of officials have been dismissed from office, including many of those responsible for education. The minister for higher education was fired last week, and Kunaev's brother Askar was ousted as president of the Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences. The head of the republic's Communist youth organization has also been ousted. In addition, teachers are being reprimanded for not keeping students under control. But if the Kremlin was quick to punish, it was also quick to placate. The Politburo's Solomentsev paid highly publicized visits to stores, markets and housing complexes to hear citizens' complaints about food shortages and poor housing. "Before Dec. 18 there was nothing in the shops," said a Kazakh. "There were shortages of meat, milk, cheese, everything. But in three days, suddenly, the shops were full." A special effort was made to provide adequate supplies of good-quality mutton, beloved by the Kazakhs, who do not eat pork because of Muslim dietary rules.
Ordinary Alma-Atans were pleased with the change. Soviet officials might take pause, however, to consider why they were pleased. One young man at the city's central market, marveling at the newfound abundance, quipped that maybe they should have a demonstration every year.