After Deportation

This chapter provides an overview of the period from deportation and exile to the Chechen separatist movement of the early 1990s. While life in exile had changed people, many North Caucasians had yet to come to terms with unresolved traumas upon their return to their homeland in the second half of the 1950s. The problem was not a “lack of Sovietization,” as some Russian historians infer, but the fact that the discrimination and injustice experienced by these peoples under Stalinism could not be discussed at any time during the late Soviet era. There might have been an occasion for a true reconciliation with history and with Russia at the end of the 1980s and in the early 1990s, during the period of “glasnost” and “perestroika” under Gorbachev and Yel’tsin, when a clear reckoning was held concerning the crimes during the Stalinist era. However, this opportunity was tragically missed in the course of resurgent Chechen nationalism and the wars that Russia waged in the 1990s and 2000s against this small Caucasus republic.

Conformity and Rebellion

The territory of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR (apart from a small sector at Mozdok) was never occupied by the Germans, and while many of its residents certainly had sympathies with the Germans, there was never wholesale collaboration with the enemy. Nevertheless, the Soviet leadership later added “collaborationism” to the catalogue of accusations used as a pretext to expel the Chechens and other North Caucasians peoples from their homelands. This chapter discusses this tragic, and highly controversial, chapter of North Caucasian history by following the life story of Khasan Israilov, one of the most prominent Chechen rebels who led the anti-Soviet insurgency from 1941 until his death in 1944. The chapter draws to large parts on the unpublished (and to date unknown) diaries of Israilov, which he had ostensibly written during the period 1941–3. These memoirs are among the rare accounts by an anti-Soviet resistance fighter that have survived and show that the path to armed resistance was not foreordained. In order to understand the motivation for Israilov’s choice, the ambiguities of his biography must be taken into account.

State and Society

The focus of this chapter is on the difficult state-society relations in the North Caucasus developing during the 1920s. Despite the Bolsheviks’ disarmament campaigns and the purges of Muslim leaders, the rural and non-Russian-populated areas remained largely detached from the modernizing processes that characterized developments in the few Russian- and Slavic-populated cities such as Groznyi and Vladikavkaz. During most of the 1920s, Soviet state institutions and party organizations were still practically non-existent in the countryside. One way in which the Bolsheviks sought to establish their rule over the rural areas was through their program of korenizatsiia (“indigenization”), the promotion of national languages and cultures and the creation of a Soviet-trained indigenous elite. Another was to draw young North Caucasians into the industries of the cities and merge individual ethnic territories into larger units. Through the fate of a contemporary, Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov, some aspect of life in Chechnia during the 1920s are exemplified.

Illusion of Freedom

This chapter explains developments during the early 1920s, when the Bolsheviks, for the sake of consolidating their still shaky hold on power, were eager to win over the rural populations and strengthen the alliances they had forged during the Civil War. One way to achieve this was to accommodate aspirations for freedom through the creation of autonomous administrative units in the form of ethnically defined territories, and by promoting members of the so called “titular nations” to positions of power. In the early 1920s, the Bolsheviks even co-opted religious figures into administrative local structures in order to expand their power basis and gain the trust of the native populations. This chapter provides an insight into developments in the Soviet North Caucasus through the life story of the famous Chechen Sheikh Ali Mitaev, whom the Bolsheviks included into the regional Chechen government in 1923, only to arrest and kill him two years later. At the same time, the Bolsheviks also conducted several campaigns to disarm the male population. The case of Mitaev illustrates the ambiguities of Soviet nationalities policies, especially regarding their attitude towards Muslims, as well as the complex struggle for power and influence in the non-Russian populated North Caucasus region.

Revolutions and Civil War

The focus of this chapter is on the complex developments in the North Caucasus during the time of Revolution and Civil War (1917-1921). If the period of the February and October revolutions was characterized by attempts of the North Caucasian political and religious elite to form a single state entity, the outbreak of civil war brought societal and ethnic cleavages to the fore, undermining common state-building efforts. Caucasians fought on all sides of the front, but most of the North Caucasian Muslims allied themselves with the forces of the Bolsheviks, with whom they shared a common cause: to prevent the re-establishment of the old regime. While the “White” troops under former tsarist General Anton Denikin fought for a Russia “one and united,” the Bolsheviks promised the non-Russian peoples land and freedom. Shortly after the triumph of the Bolsheviks, cracks began to appear in these alliances. By mid-1920, the mountainous parts of Chechnia and Dagestan had been set aflame in a large-scale anti-Bolshevik uprising led Imam Gotsinskii. Only in late 1921 did the Bolsheviks, with assistance from regular units of the Red Army, manage to crush this rebellion and establish military superiority.

The North Caucasus Within the Russian Empire

This chapter traces the trajectories in the North Caucasus from the end of the Caucasus wars of conquest in the mid-19th century until the outbreak of revolution in 1917. A detailed treatment of this epoch is necessary due to the fact that historical investigation of the post-war period, as opposed to the Caucasus wars themselves, has been rudimentary to date. While Russian historical research has begun to study this period systematically based on new sources, albeit without reaching any kind of consensus in assessing Russian policy, the Western literature has only dealt with this epoch in cursory overviews. This chapter remedies some of these deficiencies by looking more closely at the nature of Russian rule in the Caucasus after the end of formal military conquest. It also takes into account the societal responses and changes that took place during this period.

Conquest and Resistance

This chapter provides an overview of the most important historical trajectories, covering the period from Russia’s advance towards the Caucasus under Catherine II in the last third of the 18th century to military conquest in the mid-19th century with the surrender of Imam Shamil. The main goal is to give readers an understanding of the character of Russian imperial strategies of conquest, as well as providing an insight into the nature and the changing forms of resistance against Russia’s advance. This chapter also includes a discussion of societal, cultural and political changes taking place in the North Caucasus, and an overview of the main historiographical debates concerning the reasons for Russian military victory.

Russia and the Peoples of the North Caucasus

This chapter introduces the North Caucasus region and its peoples. It provides an overview of the state of research and historiographical controversies, presents the lead questions and theoretical and methodological approaches, and also explains the concept and content of the book.

Precarious Rule and Contested Loyalties

The concluding chapter presents a brief summary, discussing main arguments and theses in a concise way, and highlights the main findings of this book.

At the Fringes of the Stalinist Mobilising Society

In order to understand Moscow’s decision to deport the Chechens and other North Caucasians in 1943-4, it is essential to analyze the situation as it presented itself to the Soviet leadership during the late 1930s and early 1940s. The topics covered in this chapter include an in-depth analysis of the functioning of Chechen society and politics, including the role of traditional clan and family structures; the difficulties of the various state mobilization campaigns, namely the effort to mobilize soldiers for the Red Army; the situation in the Chechen-Ingush republic during World War II and the phenomenon of desertions and anti-Soviet rebellions.