'December uprising'), also spelled Zheltoksan, or December of 1986, were protests that took place in Alma-Ata, Kazakh SSR, in response to CPSU General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's dismissal of Dinmukhamed Kunaev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and an ethnic Kazakh, and his replacement with Gennady Kolbin, an ethnic Russian from the Russian SFSR.

This event was the start of the slow collapse of authoritarian communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe which would later begin in 1989.

[8] In Nursultan Nazarbayev’s memoirs, he recounts a pivotal moment when he left Kolbin’s office and headed to the square.

[9] Demonstrations started in the morning of 17 December 1986 as 200–300 students gathered in front of the Central Committee building on Brezhnev Square to protest the decision of the CPSU to appoint Kolbin rather than an ethnic Kazakh.

TASS reported A group of students, incited by nationalistic elements, last evening and today took to the streets of Alma-Ata expressing disapproval of the decisions of the recent plenary meeting.

Hooligans, parasites and other antisocial persons made use of this situation and resorted to unlawful actions against representatives of law and order.

They disagreed with the characterization of the riot as related to nationalism or independence; they said it was a protest over Gorbachev's appointing an outsider to head the state.

[11] As a response, the CPK Central Committee ordered troops from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, druzhiniki (volunteers), cadets, policemen, and the KGB to cordon the square and videotape the participants.

Among them was Eduard Shevardnadze, who wrote: "During the Perestroika, in 1986, the changes in the party leadership of Kazakhstan sparked massive student protests.

There were also other issues that deeply affected the national sentiments of the youth, notably the so-called "quota obsession" in determining the ethnic composition of the student body—a practice some leaders had begun to enforce rigorously just before the events.

[17] On 18 September 2006, the Dawn of Liberty monument, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Jeltoqsan, was opened with a solemn ceremony in Almaty.

The monument has three-parts: two pylons of intricate shapes symbolizing the breach and conflict of past and future, the explosion of the nation's consciousness and downfall of ideological canons, and the triumph of liberty and independence of the state.