The “Stolen Revolution” and Hope: ‘Progressive’ and ‘Conservative’ Forces of the Contemporary Political Context of Kyrgyzstan

Abstract This article examines the role of the progressive forces in recent revolutions in Kyrgyzstan, and asks why their movements have not led to real political change in this Central Asian country. In Kyrgyzstan, the progressive forces are identified with such groups as young people, the educated middle class, lawyers, and journalists. Their discourses, such as demands for fair elections and the rule of law, have been central to the three revolutions that have taken place in Kyrgyzstan since 2005, as has their concept of Umut , or hope. The central thesis of this article is that, although these forces may have led recent revolutionary movements, they have proved unable to establish political dominance after the completion of revolutionary processes. Instead, after each revolutionary attempt, the rules of “local politics” have been consistently reasserted in Kyrgyzstan. These are rules based on the power of informal social and political networks governed by rules of reciprocity and the pursuit of self-interest. In spite of this recurring outcome, the progressive forces retain their commitment to hope, and it is the prism of hope which this paper uses to make sense of revolution’s failure. In this paper, a contribution to the anthropology of revolution, that idea of hope is deconstructed: this permits a greater focus on how and why the promises of revolution have, so far, been betrayed and unfulfilled in contemporary Kyrgyzstan, where the idea of hope plays a fundamental representational and political role.