DID THE NOMADS HAVE STATEHOOD?

Nonetheless, the concept of nomadic statehood had not received significant political attention in Eurasia until 2014, when Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, stated that the Kazakh state was founded by Nursultan Nazarbayev, making it only twenty-three years old at that point. Before that, discussions about the nature and characteristics of nomadic statehood were not common, except in scholarly works dedicated to the history of nomadic peoples across Asia. It is crucial to recognize that assessments of the history of nomadic societies were typically made by individuals from agrarian communities, and this applies not only to scientific works from the nineteenth century but also to much older texts that constitute the primary sources of information about the nomadic peoples of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Due to the absence of a formal, written tradition, nomads did not document their own history extensively, if at all. It has become evident that both ancient and modern historians extensively dealt with the rich tradition of external evaluations and descriptions of nomadic culture. As historical science evolved during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the prevalent view of the political past of nomadic peoples was largely shaped by representatives of historically competitive agrarian states.

Through history, the relationship between agricultural and nomadic societies has been complex and often fraught. The presence of nomadic peoples near rural economies often stirred anxiety for farmers. Nomads were perceived as outsiders, leading a life that seemed alien, even barbaric, and in their interactions with sedentary societies, they were often viewed as aggressors. It is understandable that observers from agrarian societies applied familiar forms of societal organization to understand nomadic societies, particularly in matters of politics, economy, culture, and institutions. For instance, a typical agrarian society had a bureaucracy, taxation systems, judges, lawyers, and notaries, and this model was considered the ideal representation of a state. Any political formation that did not conform to this model was, in the eyes of the agrarian society, not a proper state.

This perspective illuminates President Putin’s emphasis on the founding of the modern state of Kazakhstan in 2014. While we can set aside the political motives behind such a statement (which undoubtedly existed), it indirectly reflected the ingrained, inherited attitude of a representative from a sedentary society toward nomadic governance in general. By downplaying the history of the Kazakh Khanate, Putin implicitly implied that he did not consider it a legitimate state. However, it is essential to recognize that the Kazakh Khanate, in all its various forms, existed for between 400 and 500 years and was one of the successors of the Ulus Dzhuchi, known in Russian history as the Golden Horde, which, in turn, was the heir to the Mongol Empire.

Interestingly, in Russian historiography, both the Mongol Empire and the Golden Horde were acknowledged as legitimate states. This recognition was particularly significant as the titles of the khans from both states served to confirm the political legitimacy of the princes of Moscow, starting with Alexander Nevsky and continuing with Ivan III. The Principality of Moscow was expanded by annexing other principalities in northeastern Russia precisely by leveraging this legal basis. Moreover, the Russian state recognized various khanates, such as the Kazan, Crimean, Astrakhan, and Siberian, along with the Nogai Horde. Diplomatic relations were maintained with these entities through a state body called the Ambassadorial Prikaz, which was much like a modern Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Diplomatic relations between the Russian Empire and Muscovy and the Kazakh Khanate were evident, which clearly indicated the recognition of the khanate’s state status. Contact was initiated in the sixteenth century with Kasym Khan, who led a vigorous policy along the Volga River. Diplomatic correspondence subsequently continued with Tauke Khan at the end of the seventeenth century. Even after the formal treaty of dependence was signed with Abul Khair Khan of the Junior Juz in the early eighteenth century, the collegium, and later the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire, continued to maintain relations with various Kazakh khans and sultans. These interactions were considered within the context of interstate relations despite the decreasing levels of state organization in the Kazakh khanates. The Russian Empire adhered to this approach until the 1860s, when with the conquest of Central Asia, the entire territory of Kazakhstan became an internal province of the empire.

In contemporary accounts, particularly of those who interacted and maintained international relations with the former nomadic states of the Mongol Empire, there was no doubt about the statehood of their peoples. These states remained active political entities, which was deemed more crucial than their having a developed bureaucracy or other institutions characteristic of sedentary states. Diplomatic correspondence with a specific khanate served as evidence of statehood, irrespective of whether it originated from a large institution like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or a small secretariat in the khan's yurt diligently drafting letters.

As the history of nomadic states came to an end once the Eurasian agrarian empires gained control of their territories, the focus shifted to the attitudes of agrarian societies toward specific institutions, their presence, quantity, quality, and cultural traditions. These communities were known for producing various artifacts and monuments of material culture, giving them a perceived advantage over nomadic societies in terms of cultural richness and development. Consequently, the absence or the insufficient production volume of such objects began to serve as a basis for critical or negative evaluations of statehood for the nomads.

After nomadic societies disappeared from the political landscape, perspectives of nomadic statehood became more critical, with its civilizational aspects taking on a significant role. The European tradition, especially during the colonial wars between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, adopted a civilizational approach to human history. The writings of the British historian and philosopher Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) are a telling example of this mindset. Toynbee argued that Western civilization superseded nomadism, implying that underdeveloped civility and the stagnant economy of nomadic hordes had no place in the world’s progressive society and its dynamic economy.

This perspective reflects an extreme view held by representatives of sedentary societies toward nomads and their history. Many intellectuals in nineteenth-century Europe, including Toynbee, considered nomadic communities unnecessary or excessive elements in the broader picture of their vision of modern world progress. This perception was partly driven by the notion that over the centuries, nomadic societies had exhibited a certain rigidity in their social and economic organization, while agrarian economies underwent quantitative and qualitative changes, evolving from early agricultural communities to modern states.

Additionally, this transformation encompassed not only material objects like the Egyptian pyramids or the Great Wall of China but also advancements in science, technology, and social progress. In contrast, nomadic societies appeared archaic, seemingly frozen in their social and economic organization, while their sedentary neighbors continued to progress and change.

In this context, the theory of Marxism1¹MarxismThe ideological foundation of Marxism rested on the concept of the correspondence between the base and superstructure. According to the teachings of Karl Marx (1818–1883), the base of society consists of production relations, referring to the relationships involved in the process of producing, distributing, and exchanging goods. The superstructure encompasses everything related to ideology and the institutions responsible for it. Consequently, changes in production relations lead to changes in the superstructure. In this context, what is related to material culture and its changes is considered primary. Based on this, Marxism developed a schema for the successive replacement of socio-economic formations, totaling five—from primitive communalism to communism. is quite revealing. Its ideological foundation centers on the idea of correspondence between the base and the superstructure of a society. The base refers to modes of production, or the economic structure of a society, including relations in production, distribution, and exchange. Changes in production relations, or the social relationships and hierarchies among people involved in production, according to Marxism, lead to corresponding changes in the superstructure, including ideological and institutional aspects. Thus, what is important is the significance of material culture and the changes occurring within it. Marxism, in particular, formulated a framework for identifying and categorizing different stages of socioeconomic development, recognizing five distinct stages from primitive communal societies to communist ones. Central to Marxism is the relationship of ownership over the production means. According to Marxists, changes in forms of ownership and associated production relations lead to the evolution of formations, transitioning from primitive communal to slaveholding, then to feudal, capitalist, and ultimately communist systems.

This conceptual framework primarily applied to the history of agricultural societies, especially when considering issues of property, which played a fundamental role in the Marxist understanding of production relations. While it was theoretically possible to construct a similar formational model for settled communities with their successive changes in material production and production relations, the same could not be applied to nomadic societies as easily, despite various attempts to do so.

For instance, in the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), efforts were made to establish the concept of ‘nomadic feudalism’ to fit nomadic societies within the general theory of formations. However, the reality was that the property relations and social organization of the nomadic peoples of Central Asia remained relatively unchanged throughout their existence. The clan and tribe formed the basis of their social organization, and family and kinship relations within the tribal structure extended to property matters. Land ownership consistently was communal, while ownership of livestock could be private. Private ownership of livestock and other property among nomads remained interconnected with tribal interests, leading to various forms of partial redistribution among community members. This system of partial redistribution contributed to the relative social homogeneity among the nomads.

On the other hand, the initial process of state building in sedentary societies involved the social stratification of the tribal community. State formation entailed the gradual dismantling of tribal and kinship structures, leading to a significant portion of society becoming a dependent, taxed population. The taxes that were collected ensured the income of the early states and supported the positions of the upper strata of society, including warriors, priests, and officials.

As a result, the early agrarian states evolved from their initial tribal social organization, while the tribe continued to serve as the foundation of the entire social structure in nomadic states until recent times. This created an inherent contradiction for any theoretical constructions proposed by representatives of settled societies as the accepted theories of social evolution, developed based on agrarian societies, could not be seamlessly applied to nomads, rendering Marxist constructs limited and unsuitable for understanding the nomadic reality.

When something does not neatly conform to invented, established models of social progress, it is often convenient to label it as an evolutionary dead end. For example, the civilizational approach inspired by Toynbee tended to exclude tribes from the polity, subjecting them to being categorized as backward and uncivilized. During the era of colonial conquest, such assessments were common in the European consciousness, particularly when it came to many tribes in Asia and Africa. Consequently, nomadic tribes were often categorized as peoples outside of certain civilizational frameworks, and they were sometimes seen as destined for extinction, excluded from the vision of a beautiful future of reason and progress.

However, history has often demonstrated that nomadic peoples frequently acted as the founders of large states, including mighty empires. Interestingly, when conquering sedentary states, seen as highly developed and progressive, nomads often organized a system for the regular exploitation of the conquered population. While they undoubtedly utilized the administrative competencies of the conquered people, there is no doubt that certain unique skills and strategies employed by the nomads also played a critical role in their successes.

Traditionally, the stories told by the peoples of sedentary societies tend to focus on the devastation accompanying nomadic conquests, like those during the expansion of the Mongol Empire. However, we now understand that the Mongols were able to rapidly subjugate the Jurchen Jin Empire by extensively using local resources. The Mongols handed power to defectors who retained the entire former bureaucratic system of government, with their main task being the management of state control instead of the exploitation of the agricultural and artisanal population for tax collection. These taxes were partially redistributed for the benefit of the Mongol Empire.

A notable example is the city of Otrar, which was destroyed at the beginning of the Mongol invasion of Central Asia, but which later became a crucial commercial center on the new trade route from China to Europe. This route passed through Otrar, the Syr-Darya towns, Saray-Jük on the Ural River and then the Volga towns, leading to the Genoese port of Kaffa in Crimea and the Venetian port of Tana at the mouth of the Don River. Taxes from this trade constituted a substantial portion of the Ulus Dzhuchi’s revenues. The Golden Horde modeled its system of government on Muslim statehood, where Muslims had the exclusive right to rule within a territory, led by the natives of Khoresm serving their khans. It included a divan (government) and viziers (ministers), and the chancellery carried out correspondence with dependent territories in Central Asian Turkic regions.

During the initial stages of its development, the Mongol Empire drew upon the administrative experience of the Uyghur Khaganate and later the Chinese bureaucracy. They conducted censuses in all conquered lands to identify the number of taxpayers and calculate the tax burden. For instance, the taxation system introduced by the Mongol Empire for the Russian princedoms was unusual and burdensome compared to the pre-Mongol times. In response, a revolt against the census and tax collectors (baskaks) from the Mongol Empire arose in northeastern Russia in 1260 CE. Prince Alexander Nevsky’s negotiations with the Golden Horde administration led to an agreement where Russian princes, rather than the baskaks, collected and paid taxes from the dependent population in favor of the Mongols.

The emergence of bureaucratic statehood in the Russian principalities can be traced back to foundations laid during the Mongol Empire. The Mongols implemented various taxes and created a suitable administrative system for efficient tax collection. Part of the tax revenue contributed to state building and provided the grand dukes with a potent tool—the monopoly on violence. After the weakening and decline of the Golden Horde, the local bureaucracy in various areas played a pivotal role in strengthening the central power of the Moscow princes. Interestingly, the authorities of the Moscow Principality retained the entire taxation system inherited from the Golden Horde and adapted it to serve their own interests.

The administrative systems of the Mongol Empire and its successors exhibited remarkable flexibility. Initially, they incorporated the expertise of the nomadic Uyghurs, even adopting their alphabet for business documentation. Subsequently, they integrated local administrative practices from China, using them to manage the Chinese population and collect taxes. The principles of Chinese bureaucracy were later extended to all conquered territories, including the dependent Russian principalities. When the Mongol Empire disintegrated into separate ulus, the Dzhuchi ulus adopted the Muslim model of government.

Chinggis Khan and his successors skillfully utilized flexibility in establishing the governance of their state. They not only enlisted local officials from the conquered agricultural territories to manage the dependent population but also maneuvered them to centralize power and standardize taxation. In regions lacking an official apparatus or local bureaucracy, such as the Russian principalities, they initiated the establishment of administrative structures.

The swift development of the administrative apparatus in the Mongol nomadic state was crucial because they used various managerial practices to rapidly expand their influence. During its initial stages, the conquered territories of northern China, Central Asia Iran, and Mesopotamia operated as separate provinces of the new empire, each maintaining its own bureaucracy. The central administration of the entire state was located in the Mongolian steppes, allowing for the implementation of policies and the dissemination of administrative practices to other dependent agricultural territories.

Naturally, the capabilities demonstrated by the Mongol Empire were built upon the continuity in political organization and state traditions from other nomadic states. These included not only the Uyghurs, who had a state in Mongolia from 744 to 840 CE, but also the Kidans in northern China and Manchuria from 907 to 1125 CE, and the Turks, Huns, and Xianbei. All these nomadic groups required a sophisticated political organization to unite the efforts of numerous tribes.

As the Mongol Empire expanded, its political organization became more complex. However, with the crisis and degradation of its successor states, the system gradually became simpler. After the fall of the Yuan dynasty in China in 1368 CE, some Mongol forces and administrative representatives retreated to the steppes north of the Great Wall, attempting to maintain formal continuity with the Yuan Empire. However, in reality, they had reverted to a tribal system of organization, and the bureaucracy that had fled China had to adapt to tribal structures. Although Ligdan Khan, the last Chinggisid ruler, was considered the successor of the Yuan dynasty and held the imperial seal, he also functioned as a tribal leader of the Mongolian Chahars tribe. He eventually perished in 1634 CE in a power struggle with a new contender for hegemony—the Manchurian tribe.

The rise and fall of the Mongol Empire illustrates the exceptional flexibility of nomadic societies in their sociopolitical organization. They were capable of adapting to large changes in circumstance, transitioning easily from complex administrative systems to tribal organization when external conditions demanded it. This level of adaptability would have been challenging to imagine if these nomadic peoples had possessed only the institutions typical of agricultural communities. However, the question remains: why did nomads never develop such institutions?

This conundrum of nomadic history warrants an in-depth exploration. Nomads did not undergo the conventional stage of labor specialization during the initial phases of state building, where groups of warriors and rulers emerged from the mass of equal community members. Farming is labor intensive and incompatible with extensive military training, campaigns, sacred knowledge accumulation, ritual performances, or administration. In contrast, the growth of agricultural production leads to a surplus, necessitating protection from neighboring tribes, which becomes the primary impetus to building centralized associations as observed in the functioning of early city-states in ancient Mesopotamia, China, India, and Egypt.

The early stages of state formation in agrarian societies were characterized by the concentration of power and control in the hands of the ruling elite. These groups gained a monopoly on violence and religious authority, enabling them to coerce the rest of society into labor and collect taxes. As a result, a significant portion of the population became taxed and subject to the state's authority. But nomadic societies followed a different path. They lacked the conditions for labor specialization as all men remained warriors, forming the collective strength of the tribe. Their mobility also prevented the establishment of a violence monopoly as they could easily move away from unwanted pressure. Moreover, their economy did not allow for the accumulation of taxes like agrarian societies. Unlike grains that could be stored, meat spoiled quickly, and live cattle required constant grazing, water, and care.

Despite these differences, for a significant period of time, agrarian societies were often weaker than nomadic ones. Agricultural tribes could easily assimilate with other agrarian societies, but the nomadic steppes posed a unique challenge. The nomads' mobility and military prowess allowed them to gain superiority over their sedentary neighbors. In such cases, they formed new political and military systems, using their monopoly on violence against the sedentary population tied to land and property. Whether through raids or regular taxation, this superiority became a decisive factor in their state building.

Despite not having extensive administrative structures, nomadic societies proved capable of effective public administration as these structures were tailored to the tasks at hand. When there were no people to tax, they minimized administration, as demonstrated by the Mongol authorities of the fallen Yuan dynasty, who retreated to Mongolia. This flexibility and adaptability in governance were crucial to the successes of nomadic state building. These qualities were also vital for the nomadic state to maintain a stronger position with agrarian neighbors, such as China. The nomadic states tried to improve communication with farmers, including on issues related to border trade, access to domestic markets, and receiving tribute disguised as gifts or direct payments. Together, these practices could be described as a form of distant exploitation.

Despite the need for coordination, the nomadic states faced challenges due to the efferent tendencies of their administration. Individual tribes often tried to avoid excessive taxation and burdens from the state, particularly for military campaigns. In the case of the Dzungar Khanate in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they enforced strict laws compelling soldiers to participate in military campaigns, ensuring their military dominance over rivals in Central Asia, including the Kazakhs.

As far as the Kazakh Khanate was concerned, the centralization of power decreased during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, leading to increased independence for tribes and individual Chinggisid aristocrats. As a result, the Kazakh tribes’ militias faced a more disciplined and centralized Dzungar army, leading to defeats for the Kazakh forces. However, under the threat of destruction in the 1720s, the Kazakh tribes managed to unite their efforts and defeat the Dzungars. About twenty years later, though, the Dzungars attacked the Kazakh Khanate again and inflicted several losses. Thus, the dynamics of power and coordination played a crucial role in the outcomes of conflicts between the nomadic states.

The weakening of central power in the Kazakh Khanate during the early eighteenth century not only enabled the Dzungar to undertake a powerful offensive but also resulted in the emergence of multiple centers of power, including among the Chinggisid aristocracy and various tribes or tribal groups. Seeking protection from the Dzungars, the Kazakh khans engaged in diplomatic relations with external states. However, their pursuit of self-assertion and prestige played an equally crucial role. An illustrative example of this was when Abul Khair Khan of the Junior Juz signed three treaties with the Russian Empire, the earliest of which was in 1731. Following suit, the khans of the Middle Juz, Sameke and Abulmambet also entered into treaties with Russia.

However, these agreements were primarily formal, and the Kazakh khans who signed them did not assign much importance to these treaties. They saw these documents as a means to secure support from the Russian Empire in their struggle against external threats, like the Dzungars, and to subdue domestic political rivalries. Thus, as Abul Khair took the first step toward Russia, his competitor Sameke Khan could not remain passive.

The Russian Empire also did not attach much substance to these treaties. One traditional sign of political dependence in nomadic statehood, as seen in the traditions of the Mongol Empire, was the payment of yasak. For nomads, yasak entailed giving one head of cattle for every hundred. Yet, the Kazakh khans did not pay yasak during the eighteenth century. Significantly, the directives from St. Petersburg to regional Russian authorities stressed that there was no need to insist on yasak payments. They understood the impracticality of it and the impossibility of effectively controlling the situation in the vast Kazakh steppe at that time.

Nevertheless, by cultivating relationships with different Kazakh khans, Russian authorities were able to cultivate an atmosphere of political intrigue, pitting them against each other. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, local Russian authorities also supported the Kazakh tribes in western Kazakhstan during their confrontation with Abul Khair Khan’s successors, particularly through a movement led by Srym Datov.2²Sarym DatovSarym Dat-uly (1753–1802), the leader of the anti-colonial movement of the Kazakhs in the Younger Juz from 1783 to 1797. St. Petersburg declined to receive Ablai Khan as the all-Kazakh khan, recognizing him only as the ruler of the Middle Juz. They insisted he appear at one of the border fortresses to retrieve the relevant papers that proved his limited authority. In response, Ablai Khan skillfully maneuvered between the Russian Empire and the Qing Manchurian dynasty, attempting to restore the centralized statehood of the Kazakh Khanate with its center in Turkestan, its former capital.

As it is clear, nomadic societies in Central Asia, in general, possessed unique political and social organizations that differed from sedentary communities, based on tribal structures and mobility. This made it impractical for them to follow the trajectory of agrarian societies with their labor specialization, social stratification, state monopoly on violence, and tax collection. This remained the case as these nomadic societies retained their military significance, hinging on the general arming of the population and the importance of mounted troops in history. In addition, until the nineteenth century, nomadic societies in Eurasia could rely on the vastness of the steppe territory, enabling them to maintain independence from agricultural states. The Kazakhs represented the last relatively independent nomadic society of the Eurasian steppe.

However, when the Eurasian agrarian empires, such as the Russian Empire and the Qing Empire, succeeded in gaining control over the steppe regions, the independent political history of nomadic communities came to an end, and the rather unique but effective model of nomadic statehood was also over. Nomadic societies embarked on a new chapter, this time within the context of agricultural economies. This historical transformation eventually led Kazakhstan to become an independent state in 1991, conforming to modern statehood standards. Nevertheless, the legacy of its nomadic past and statehood undoubtedly continue to influence the present state of Kazakhstan.

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3. Barfield, T. The Dangerous Frontier: The Nomadic Empires and China, 221 BC to AD 1757. (Translated). Saint Petersburg. 2009.

4. Vladimirtsov, B.Ya. The social structure of the Mongols. Moscow. 2002. (In Russ.).

5. Kradin, N.N. The nomads of Eurasia. Almaty. 2007. (In Russ.).

6. Toynbee, A. A Study of History. (Translated). Saint Petersburg. 2006.

7. Fuks, S.L. Essays on the History of the State and Law of the Kazakhs in the 18th and First Half of the 19th Centuries. Astana. 2008. (In Russ.).

8. Khazanov, A.M. Nomads and the Outside World. 3rd ed. Almaty. 2000. (In Russ.)