- Gennady Kolbin
Gennady Kolbin (Геннадий Колбин, 1927-1998) was the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party ofKazakh SSR fromDecember 16 ,1986 toJune 22 ,1989 .Kolbin had not worked in the Kazakh SSR prior to his appointment. He was appointed by
Mikhail Gorbachev in an attempt to root out corruption in the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR.As an outsider to Kazakhstan, he was not well received there. His appointment resulted in violent protests in the Kazakh capital
Almaty and other cities, with several protesters killed and hundreds injured. This revolt is now known as "Zheltoksan ", the Kazakh for "December". It is reported that the outgoing first secretary,Dinmukhamed Kunayev , participated in organizing the protests, which involved 60,000 protesters [http://www.eurasianet.org/resource/kazakhstan/hypermail/200204/0053.shtml] .In June 1989, Kolbin was replaced by Kazakh
Nursultan Nazarbayev . Kolbin was then transferred to a position inMoscow .References
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