Party leader of late Soviet Kyrgyzstan
At the presidential selection in the Supreme Soviet on 25 October 1990, neither he nor Apas Jumagulov won a majority, and Akayev was chosen first president on 27 October. In the 1995 election he lost to Akayev, 71.6 to 24.4 percent.
Kyrgyz Soviet party and state leader, born on 10 April 1933 in Alysh, Osh oblast, died on 31 July 2004 in Bishkek. A mining engineer trained at Kyzyl-Kiya and in Moscow, he began work in 1956 at the Kyzyl-Kiya coal administration and rose through party bodies. Elected first secretary of the Communist Party of Kirghizia on 2 November 1985, he held the post to 6 April 1991, was a member of the CPSU Central Committee from 1986 to 1991 and of the CPSU Politburo from 14 July 1990 to 25 April 1991. Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Kirghiz SSR in 1990, he lost the presidential selection to Akayev and the 1995 election. From September 1992 until 2004 he led the Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan. Sources differ on the death date, 31 July or 1 August.
Also known as: Absamat Masaliev
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1956–1961Assistant chief engineer at the Komsomolskaya mine of the Kyzyl-Kiya coal administration, then assistant chief engineer of the Kirghizugol trust
- 1961–1973Instructor of the Osh regional party committee, student at the Alma-Ata higher party school, party-state control posts, head of the Osh regional party department for industry and transport, deputy head of a Central Committee department, first secretary of the Tash-Kumyr city party committee
- 1972–1974Chairman of the Frunze City Executive Committee
- 1974–1979Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kirghizia
- 1979–1985First Secretary of the Issyk-Kul Regional Party Committee
- 1985–1991First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kirghizia (elected 2 November 1985 at the 21st plenum; released 6 April 1991 to move to the CPSU Central Committee apparatus). Member of the CPSU Central Committee 1986–1991 and of the CPSU Politburo from 14 July 1990 to 25 April 1991
- 1990Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Kirghiz SSR (elected 10 April 1990 at the first session of the 12th-convocation Supreme Soviet, released at his own request on 10 December 1990)
- 1991Consultant to the ideological department of the CPSU Central Committee (April–August 1991)
- 1992–2004Leader of the Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan from September 1992; chairman of its central control commission and a member and deputy chairman of the executive council of the Union of Communist Parties–CPSU
- 1993–1996Director of the State Inspectorate for industrial safety and mining supervision (January 1993–June 1996)
- 1994–2004Chairman of the I. Razzakov Foundation from 1994
- 1995–2004Deputy of the Assembly of People's Representatives of the Zhogorku Kenesh (elected April 1995, re-elected April 2000); from 2000 a deputy of the Legislative Assembly
Related historical events
The 1990 Osh Crisis and the Loss of Power
The close of Absamat Masaliyev's tenure as first secretary coincided with the sharpest crisis of late-Soviet Kirghizia. In June 1990 a land dispute in the Fergana Valley's Osh region between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks erupted into violent clashes across Osh and Uzgen. The trigger was a standoff over kolkhoz land allocation between the Uzbek organization Adolat and the Kyrgyz Osh Aymaghi, whose rival demonstrations soon clashed. The republican party leadership failed to contain the violence, and only after Gorbachev sent in interior-ministry troops on 6 June did order begin to return. With over 300 dead by official count and more than 1,000 by unofficial estimates, the tragedy fundamentally shook the authority of the republic's party leadership. In Frunze (Bishkek), demands for Masaliyev's resignation over the affair grew, with the democratic movement and intelligentsia criticizing him for not responding in time. Under this pressure, in the October 1990 parliamentary presidential selection neither Masaliyev nor Apas Jumagulov won a majority, and the independent-minded scholar Askar Akayev was chosen as first president. Masaliyev lost the Supreme Soviet chairmanship and in 1991 was effectively shunted aside to a consultant post in the central CPSU apparatus. He did not, however, abandon communist politics. In independent Kyrgyzstan he led the Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan, ran against Akayev again in the 1995 presidential election and lost, and, drawing strong support in his native southern Osh region, remained in parliament from 1995 until his death, a symbolic centre of the communist current in the new republic.