The Conflict Between

Russia and Chechnya: A Historical Anaysis

 

Agha Ali Akram

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

Russo-Chechen Conflict: Varying Perspectives

 

The Russo-Chechen conflict is a long running one and still poses a problem in the contemporary context. Most analyses of the conflict tend to pitch it as a regional issue situated in the Caucasus, or as a contemporary security issue. This tends to limit the cause for the conflict to an issue of resources (namely oil) and the conflict is seen in terms of its implications on the region (including neighbours and the European Union).

 

There are numerous journalistic accounts of the contemporary episodes in the conflict (i.e. the war of 1994 and 1999) like Sebastian Smith’s book Allah’s Mountains and Vanora Bennett’s book Crying Wolf: The Return of War to Chechnya.¹ These accounts provide a lot of details of the conflict from a first hand perspective. As resources for furnishing the basic facts of an analysis of the conflict these accounts are invaluable – the purpose of journalistic accounts is to provide an insight and a view of things from the ground. Their limitation, however, is the fact that they are more descriptive than analytical. Furthermore, while these accounts (specifically Bennett’s and Smith’s) do make an attempt to dig up the history of the conflict but in a very cursory fashion, which does not really help to sufficiently explain the contemporary episodes of the conflict.

 

Many of the analyses of this conflict tend to look at it as a securitised ethnic and communal conflict or as a peace and conflict studies issue.² These approaches tend to look for the very immediate and concrete causes for the conflict. Also, since these approaches are solution-oriented they tend to build an analysis that will result in a workable peace solution. Consequently, these studies tend to be formulaic in applying a predefined model for analysis, by basing their analysis on experience gained in other conflict situations. The advantage of this analysis is that it is able to identify the potential causes of a conflict in very concrete terms – usually economic resources or political resources. However, the conflict is not given a more targeted analysis and the limitation of such accounts is that they are grounded in the most contemporary events, i.e. only the recent or more immediate causes of conflict are given prominence, and ignore its extended history. Other accounts tend to view the conflict from a human rights perspective.³ Certainly there is considerable merit to look at the conflict in the light of human rights violations. It highlights the fact that the most serious issue in this conflict is by far the human suffering caused by it, especially to the civilians of both Chechnya and Russia.

 

The Danish Association for Research on the Caucasus (DARC) poses the Russo-Chechen conflict as both a regional issue entailing human rights violations as well as an issue of peace and conflict.⁴ This perspective combines the regional perspective with the human rights approach and the peace and conflict studies approach. But like exclusively human rights-oriented and peace and conflict studies approaches, DARC’s combined approach lacks historical depth.

 

One of the few works that does seem to put some kind of historical perspective on the problem is a set of essays in a collection titled, “Russia and Chechnia [sic]: The Permanent Crisis – Essays on Russo-Chechen Relations.”⁵ The work contains essays that deal with each phase of Russo-Chechen conflict. However, there is no link between the essays – the essays stand as individual pieces. Each essay analyses a particular event or phenomenon from a given phase in Russo-Chechen relations – for instance Bulent Gokay’s essay traces the interpretation of Imam Shamyl’s resistance movement over time, while William Flemming’s essay furnishes the various details of the deportation of the Chechens in 1944 and Pontus Siren’s essay seeks to answer why the Russians and Chechens went to war in 1994. But these essays look at specific events and phenomena and do not link up into a cohesive narrative of events (not that that is necessarily the object of the authors of the work).

 

Objectives of this Study

 

Russia and Chechnya’s relations are aptly described as “the permanent crisis.”⁶ The two have had a long history of conflict beginning in the 19^th century, when the Imperial Russian Army invaded the region, and stretching to the present day, where the status of Chechen aspirations for an independent nation-state still remain ambiguous and contested by Russia. This study will attempt to analyse the Russo-Chechen conflict in light of its history, look at this relationship of conflict as a historical phenomenon, as well as attempt to determine the primary – in contrast to the contemporary – causes of the conflict based on this historical analysis. This analysis will be conducted using scholarly and other works available.⁷ For instance, there is a need to understand the Russo-Chechen wars of 1994 and 1999, not as isolated events but ones that have specific historical roots and placing these wars in their specific historical context. Based on a historical analysis, this study contends that the nature of the conflict between the two sides is the result of two irreconcilable factors, namely, the divergent political positions both sides have taken in the conflict. One factor is that of adversarial Russian policy and attitude towards Chechen aspirations. As will be demonstrated during the course of this study, their policy and attitude is a very aggressive one, looking to thwart Chechen nationalism at all costs. What began as a colonial mission driven by a military-strategic vision soon turned into a deliberate policy to integrate the Chechens into Russia. The second factor is that of a fierce Chechen nationalism, which makes it unacceptable to the Chechens to integrate into the Russian polity. This fierce nationalism has its roots in the revival of Sufi Islam in the region and unified Chechen opposition to Russian invasion. Both these factors will be elaborated during the course of the study.

 

The study divides the history of Russo-Chechen conflict into three distinct phases – the imperial phase, the Soviet phase and the post-Soviet phase. The demarcation of each phase in terms of time is important but the exact dates involved in the transition from one phase to another are not so crucial. In broad terms, the beginning of the imperial phase of Russo-Chechen relations lies at the point of first contact between the two sides, close to the end of the 18^th century and the beginning of the 19^th century when Russian soldiers fought directly with their Chechen opponents. The entry of the Russian army into this region signified the implementation of its drive to colonise the region. The imperial phase ended with the Russian Revolution and the seizure of power by Lenin and the Bolsheviks in 1917 – the phase of the Soviet Union (USSR). This phase led to the integration of a number of “autonomous regions,” including that of the Chechens, into the USSR and lasted about seventy four years, till December 1991, when the USSR collapsed. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russo-Chechen relations entered their third and current phase – the post-Soviet phase.

 

It will be noted that the phases have been created from an entirely Russian perspective. This is a useful categorisation of the history, as it is the Russians who in a sense initiated the conflict by their drive to colonise, and as the more powerful entity in the conflict have tended to dictate its direction. Thus, the three phases outlined are the result of the internal political dynamics of Russia. The imperial phase sees the two sides first come into contact with each other. With the collapse of imperial rule due to revolutionary activity in Russia, there is the creation of a new, socialist political system in Russia – namely, the Soviet Union. Russia in the Soviet Union saw a new political order established, with a new government and leadership, resulting in considerable change in the way that the Chechens were dealt with. Finally, the collapse of the Soviet Union, saw the emergence of a changed political system in all the countries of the Soviet Union, including Russia. This ushered in another, more violent, stage in Russo-Chechen relations – the post-Soviet phase.

 

The structure of the study that follows is based on the phases delineated above. Chapter 2 looks at the idea of ethnicity and nationalism in some detail and applies it to the Chechens. Having established the Chechens as a unique nation and a brief study of what constitutes nationhood, the study proceeds to look at the three phases of Russo-Chechen relations. Chapter 3 looks at the imperial phase, while chapter 4 looks at the Soviet phase of Russo-Chechen relations. The latest phase of conflict, i.e. the post-Soviet phase, has seen two wars between the two sides. Two chapters are dedicated to the post-Soviet phase: Chapter 5 looks at the war of 1994 while Chapter 6 looks at the war of 1999. Chapter 7 while retracing the conflict in each phase and elaborating the thesis of the study presents the conclusions, as well as the weaknesses of this analysis and the potential for further studies.

 

References

 

1. Sebastian Smith, Allah’s Mountains – Politics and War in the Russian Caucasus, New York: I B Taurus, 1998; and Vanora Bennett, Crying Wolf: The Return of War to Chechnya, London: Pan Macmillan, 1998.

2. For example, see Tarja Vayrynen, “Securitised Ethnic and Communal Conflicts”, in Peace and Conflict Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, December 1997, George Mason University, at http://www.gmu.edu/academic/pcs/vayryn. html

3. For example, see Oktay Tanrisever. “A Symposium on Chechnya – Russian Nationalism and Moscow’s Violations of Human Rights in the Second Chechen War,” in Human Rights Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, April – June, 2001.

4. For example, see Magnusson, Marta-Lisa, “The Failure of Conflict Prevention and Management: The Case of Chechnya Part l: Conflict Assessment and Pre-War Escalation” in Conflict and Forced Displacement in the Caucasus: Perspectives, Challenges and Responses (eds: Trier, Tom & Hansen, Lars Funch), Copenhagen: Danish Refugee Council, 1999.

5. Ben Fowkes, (ed), Russia and Chechnia: The Permanent Crisis Essays on Russo-Chechen Relations, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave, 1998.

6. This is part of the title of a book – “Russia and Chechnia [sic]: The Permanent Crisis,” Fowkes, ibid.

7. The literature consulted for this analysis is all available in the English language; sources in other languages were not consulted for this study.

 

CHAPTER 1

 

CHECHEN ETHNO-NATIONALISM

 

 

What is Chechen Ethno-Nationalism?

 

With reference to Chechen history and present aspirations, the terms “ethnicity” and “ethno-nationalism” and some of their implications need to be discussed.

 

“Ethnicity” is perhaps one of the more basic ways of identifying oneself. Humans tend to identify themselves as part of a larger group – it is in our nature as social beings. It has been described as “primordial” by many authors, i.e. something which has existed from before, something that is primary in terms of origin, creating an unbreakable bond with others of similar “ethnic” background. It is a powerful form of association – as Robin Cohen, a sociologist, puts it “It is the closest form of association that can be achieved by a collectivity of humans.”¹ The basis of “ethnicity” is the concept of group identity.

 

What constitutes ethnicity? Cohen feels that there are two dimensions to ethnicity – subjective and objective. Subjectively, ethnicity and ethnic identification are based on human perception—it is in essence the “meaning of ethnicity to the actors themselves.”¹² It is the members of an ethnic group who view themselves and those in their group as being of the same ethnicity. This perception of being from the same group can be based on any subjective or objective factor, (for example – language), as long as it is mutually accepted by members of the particular ethnic group. There is also an external perception by others viewing a set of people as an ethnic group, thus further reinforcing and strengthening their ethnic identity. Again this can be based on any subjective or objective factor that runs across the identified group, such as, language. Tarja Vayrynen, Research Director of the Tampere Peace Research Institute in Finland, expands this and states: “[ethnicity] is a part of the frame of reference of the social group in terms of which both the physical as well as socio-cultural world is interpreted… ethnicity is a way to typify the world, others and oneself.”³

 

By the objective dimension is meant that exogenous force that reinforces existent perception or creates a new sense of ethnicity. Cohen argues that often this is not treated as importantly as the subjective dimension but that it ought to be. Objective factors that give rise to notions of ethnicity include, first of all legal and political restrictions on “what occupations and activities are permitted to subordinated groups.”⁴ A current-day example of this is the types of work that were, or were not allowed to the South African Blacks. A second objective criterion is coerced migration – like that of Indians of the South Asian subcontinent to the east coast of Africa as labour during the British Raj. Finally, there is the third objective factor – phenotype or appearance. This is by no means an exhaustive set of objective criteria, but demonstrative of the objective or exogenous dimension of ethnicity.

 

What is important to note from the above discussion is that there are two experiences (“dimensions”) of ethnicity – those that are subjectively experienced by members of an ethnic grouping and those that externally shape and influence an ethnic grouping.

 

Walker Connor, also a sociologist, concurs with the above, in that he believes that it is important to define the group that one belongs to in relation to others. Connor introduces an interesting distinction between the concept of “nation” and “ethnicity.” He states, “we can describe the nation as a self-differentiating ethnic group.”¹⁵ Thus, a nation is a group that differentiates itself from other groups on the basis of any factor that may allow this differentiation. Crucially, he follows on to state: “[a] prerequisite of nationhood is a popularly-held awareness or belief that one’s own group is unique in a most vital sense. In the absence of such a popularly-held conviction, there is only an ethnic group… without a realisation of this fact… a nation does not exist.”⁶ Connor distinguishes a nation from an ethnicity by claiming that a nation is a unique ethnic group that has realised that it is indeed different to and separate from other groupings. Furthermore, because of this more knowledge-oriented perception of ethnicity, overt cultural symbols do not matter as much as the attitude of the group itself. However, once a group begins to differentiate itself as different to others, it will naturally turn to more overt cultural symbols – anything from language to religion, cultures and traditions.

 

Essentially then, an ethnicity is the expression of the “us and them” syndrome.⁷ Ethnicity is overtly expressed in the form of cultural symbols, but equally important are the perceptions that surround the ethnicity. While Cohen believes that this perception has a subjective and objective component, Connor tends to lean more toward the side of the self perception of a group in believing it is a distinct ethnicity.

 

What constitutes ethnicity will vary from context to context. For example Sean Byrne and Neal Carter, both political scientists, in a unique analysis of ethno-territorial conflict in Northern Ireland and Quebec, proposes six ethnic “variables,” which they label as “socio-cubism” and that constitute a potent basis of ethnicity:

 

1)      History

2)      Religion

3)      Demographics

4)      Political institutions and non-institutional behaviour

5)      Economics

6)      Psycho-cultural factors⁸

 

Terrence Ranger equates ethnicity in Africa with tribalism.⁹ Soviet sociologists, however, base their ethnic analysis on language – to them, language provides the key distinction between groups.

 

Having briefly looked at the concept of ethnicity, the concept of nationalism needs some analysis. We already saw that Connor believes a nation to be a “self-differentiating” ethnic group. The concept of nation can be interpreted as going a little beyond this. Moynihan states that the difference between the two is one of “degree.”¹⁰ He states that the nation is the “highest form of the ethnic group” which along with a subjective emotional component has an objective form in its territorial link.¹¹ So, a nation is defined as a grouping of people, replete with their characteristics (language, ethnicity, religion etc.), but linked to a demarcated territory. The political scientist, Anthony D. Smith confirms this. He defines nationalism as “an ideological movement for the attainment and maintenance of autonomy, unity and identity of a human population, some of whose members conceive it to constitute an actual or potential ‘nation’.”¹³ He further states that a nation is a “named human population sharing an historic territory (amongst a host of other qualities, but the link with territory is crucial).”¹⁴ This is quite important in distinguishing a nation from an ethnicity, as is exemplified by the case of the Kurds who span the territories of a few nation-states consequently are not considered a nation. Therefore, while an ethnicity builds up the basic group identity, when that group is linked to a particular territory it becomes a nation. Therefore, nationalism is an ideology that can employ the ethnic bond in calling to attain independence and/or maintain the autonomy, unity and identity of a “territorial community of shared history and culture.”¹⁵ In other words “nation” is a bond that can be achieved through the vehicle of “ethnicity.”

 

However, this is only one interpretation of nation and nationalism, namely the ethnic form of nationalism. Nation and nationalism have other forms too, for instance there is the concept of civic nationalism. This is nationalism based on a different method of identity, a rather more idealistic identity based on the principles of the French Revolution, which “sees the nation as a territorial association of citizens living under the same laws and sharing a mass, public culture.”¹⁶ However, for the purposes of this study, ethno-nationalism is the form of nationalism that is of concern and that shall be used. This study deals with Chechen ethno-nationalism.

 

Defence of the Ethnic Paradigm

 

Often ethnicity is dismissed as a viable concept for analysing politics, especially in the modern world. There have been some major criticisms of the concept of ethnicity as a tool for political analysis. Ethnicity is a controversial topic and, therefore, a controversial paradigm. It has been criticised by three schools of thought – the Marxists; the nationalists; and those who support the globalisation perspective.¹⁷

 

Marxists criticise ethnicity on the basis of its criteria of identification. They believe that group identity in the modern world is differentiated along class lines. Ethnic groupings are, according to Marxists, an “epiphenomenon” or “false consciousness.”¹⁸ It is something that has been created for the use of the dominant classes in a society, to allow them to subjugate other classes. Moreover, modern capitalist social ordering has meant that the interests of people are now based on the relations of production that define capitalism.

 

Certainly there is some truth in the Marxist perspective. But it should be realised that class alignment is only true where there is awareness of class-based interests. People’s awareness of their interests need not be class-based and often they are not – despite the beliefs of Marxists that “people live not just by interests alone but also by their emotions… anger, grief, anxiety, jealousy, affection, fear and devotion.”¹⁹ The awareness of one’s interests need not exclusively be class-based and may more often be based on their emotions.

 

Nationalists argue that ethnicity only serves to divide and does not unite groups. For nationalists, the largest logical grouping of people is at the level of a nation. However, nations are not necessarily constituted of a single ethnic group and can be multi-ethnic in nature. It is in these multi-ethnic nations that nationalists feel ethnically-based identification will destroy national unity. So, the nationalists present the nation as a rival form of identification to ethnicity and advance it as “an object of affection, not merely a vehicle for advancing an interest.”²⁰ Again there is a fair degree of truth to this, but a nation-state is often too “large and amorphous an entity to be the object of intimate affection.”²¹

 

To those in favour of the globalisation perspective, ethnicity is an “irrelevant anachronism,” since globalisation has meant the demise of differences and the realisation of globally common set of problems and hopes.²² The world has become increasingly interlinked and interdependent. But this very process of “the dissolution of the known world” creates in people a reaction whereby they reach out to what is familiar and local to them – their ethnicity.²³

 

It is important to note that these critiques are more of the implications of ethnicity, not necessarily the paradigm itself. The Marxists can claim a valid criticism – perhaps class consciousness is a better way of analysing certain kinds of society, especially modern capitalist society. However, it needs to be noted that people do not live simply by their interests but rather by their emotions as well.²⁴ The nationalist and globalisation critiques are merely lamenting the problems caused by ethnic identification. Ethnicity as a method of analysis is by no means flawed, and there is ample evidence to suggest it is a valid one. The fact is that ethnicity remains the single most potent form of association amongst a group of people. It has been so in the past and it remains so in the present.

 

There is another thread that emerges in the critiques. For instance, in the three critiques outlined earlier, the idea of outdated-ness seeps in. Marxism and nationalism indicate the decline of an old kind of identity and claim the arrival of a new kind – class-based in the Marxian case and a higher multi-ethnic grouping in the case of the latter perspective. Globalisation proponents go even further and claim global linkages because of interdependency. Again, it is hard to deny the logic of these positions as the modern world does bear witness to the types of identification that the three perspectives talk of. But the role of ethnicity in associative group behaviour and attitudes cannot be denied – it has not been phased out. To the contrary, ethnicity seems to be a powerful force in today’s world. A host of modern conflicts are ethnically driven. The ethnic paradigm is very much a valid paradigm of conflict analysis.

 

Ethno-Nationalism and Conflict

 

As in other forms of nationalism, conflict can also be defined in relation to ethno-nationalism. As Vayrynen puts it, “[an] ethnic group is about boundary maintenance; ethnicity is a way to structure interaction which allows the persistence of differences.”²⁵ So, in essence ethno-nationalism allows one group of people to distinguish themselves from another – to identify themselves as a distinct group in order to pool common interests and resources. What is important to note, however, is that this identification can become adversarial and eventually violent. The securitisation of an ethnic identity takes place when the survival of that identity is threatened and those who identify with that ethnicity may revert to violence in order to protect their identity.

 

At a broader level nationalism sees two perspectives – the integrative and the disintegrative. Ethnic conflict theory posits a few conditions that result in the outbreak of conflict by an ethnicity. One of these conditions is the desire of an ethnic group to access certain political and economic resources.²⁶ If an ethnicity is denied political and economic resources that it (or its leadership) requires or needs then it is likely to resort to violence to contest for the acquisition of those resources, without which their very survival is at stake.

 

Chechen Ethnic Identity

 

Applying these theories and paradigms to the Chechens’ self-perceptions is not an easy task. First we need to decide whether it is valid to label the Chechens as an ethnic group. Are the Chechens a unique enough group in the Caucasus to enable them to be termed an ethnicity?  If one looks through the insights of history, or even the Russian response, the answer is yes. As a North Caucasian group they are certainly quite unique. They have a separate and unique historical development and consequently shaping a unique ethnic identity. There are two elements that make the Chechens a distinct ethnic group – the indigenous links of the Chechens to their territory for centuries, and the role of Islam since the 15^th century.

 

The Chechens are part of a very unique linguistic group. The Chechen language is a distinctive member of the Nakh branch of the East Caucasian family.²⁷ The only other people whose language is related to the Chechens are their cousin tribe, the Ingush, and the tiny grouping of Batsbii (a 1926 census put their population at just over 2,000 individuals but the author is unaware of current estimations).²⁸ Even the Ingush language shares only 40% of the vocabulary of the Chechen tongue. So, the Chechens are linguistically a very unique group.

 

The Chechens have been resident in this part of the Caucasus for thousands of years. They were not conquered by the Arabs, Persians, Turks and Mongols, which most of the rest of Europe and Asia were.²⁹ They have developed in near isolation. The other Caucasian peoples have frequently been conquered and have been under the influence of various empires. The Caucasus by virtue of being at a cross roads of empire has typically been subject to conquest. But the Chechens have been relatively safe from this conquest – until the Russians made a serious bid for the Caucasus in the 18^th and 19^th century.

 

Finally, the Chechens have also evolved a less hierarchical social system than the rest of the Caucasus. The Chechens have a tribal set up that is still quite strong.³⁰ This system saw nine tukhumy (clans), each with its sub groups (called taipy), which are equals and thus free of the characteristics of feudalism. This again is fairly unique in the Caucasus. When the Russians invaded the Caucasus in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, one strategy they employed was making alliances with the nobilities of the lands being conquered. So, the societies with hierarchies were more easily conquered, like the Ossetians, Kabardians and the Kumyks.³¹ The Chechens, like the Daghestanis, did not have feudal relations, thus offered more resistance to the Russians.

 

The Chechens converted to Islam sometime in the 15^th century when Naqshbandi Sufis first made converts amongst the North Caucasians.³² The particular strand of Islam that took a hold in Chechnya was Sufi-guided. Thus, Sufi Imams led the establishment of Islam in the region.³³ The only other groups in the Caucasus that also adopted Islam are the Daghestanis and the Ingush. Islam has retained a very powerful role in Chechen history, beginning in the 19^th century. In fact this was and is a key factor – Sufi Islam was used to unite the Chechens and much of the Caucasus to fight the “holy” war against the Russian invaders. In the early 19^th century, the North Caucasians came under attack from the Russians and, as Lesley Blanch, who wrote the authoritative work Sabres of Paradise, put it, “[Islam] throve on Persecution [from the invading Russians]… around 1827, it sprang up, refreshed.”³⁴

 

Earlier the framework established to study ethnicity established a subjective and an objective experience of ethnic identity. This same strand allowed the Russians to differentiate themselves from the Chechens – to view their language and culture as inferior. In fact, as imperial conquerors of the Caucasus, they found it hard to understand why the Chechens should resist the greatness of Russian civilisation. In a similar vein, Islam allowed the Chechens to set themselves apart from the Russians (the subjective, internal interpretation of ethnicity) and concurrently it also allowed the Russians to identify their enemies in the Caucasus (the objective, exogenous interpretation of ethnicity). In fact, Islam allowed the Chechens to identify themselves as taking part in a greater Caucasian struggle for freedom.

 

Thus, these two broad strands define what it means to be ethnically Chechen. We can go one step further and deduce that the Chechens posses a national character, as they are an ethnic group linked to a territory. It is these two strands that are also the basis of the ethno-nationalist struggle that the Chechens have waged against the Russians, since first coming into contact with them. With regard to the first strand, the Chechens were looking to protect their heritage as a distinct linguistic group, to protect their territorial link and their social structure. The Chechens were and are distinct from the Russians, as they are from most of the rest of the Caucasus.

 

Chechen tribal law called adat is overlaid with Islamic law or sharia.³⁵ Islam came into the region and added another layer atop Chechen ethnic identity. Islam gave the Chechen identity more strength in the face of opposition. As Vanorra Bennett, a journalist who worked in the region, states, “Islam reinforced and dignified the mountain tribes’ already strong identity. It also gave them a moral framework in which they could interpret the Russian invasion as not only dangerous to their way of life but also wrong.”³⁶ Islam provided the moral reason for resistance to the Russians, at all stages of this conflict. It was morally wrong to give into the Russians, who were and are infidels and conquerors, thus must be opposed.

 

References

 

1. Robin Cohen, “The Making of Ethnicity: A Modest Defence of Primordialism” in People, Nation and State – The Meaning of Ethnicity and Nationalism, edited by Edward Mortimer, New York: I B Taurus, 1999,     p. 3.

2. Cohen, ibid, pp. 8 – 9.

3.  Tarja Vayrynen, “Securitised Ethnic and Communal Conflicts” in Peace and Conflict Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, December 1997, George Mason University, p. 2, at http://www.gmu.edu/academic/pcs/vayryn.html

4. Cohen, op.cit, p.7.

5. Walker Connor, “Nation Building or Nation Destroying?” in World Politics, Vol. 24, No. 3, April, 1972, Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 337.

6.  Ibid.

7. Connor, ibid, p. 341.

8. Sean Byrne and Neal Carter, “Social Cubism: Six Social Forces of Ethnoterritorial Politics in Northern Ireland and Quebec” in Peace and Conflict Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, December 1996, George Mason University, at http://www.gmu.edu/academic/pcs/bryce.htm

9. Terrence Ranger, “The Nature of Ethnicity: Lessons from Africa” in People, Nation and State – The Meaning of Ethnicity and Nationalism, edited by Edward Mortimer, New York: I B Taurus, 1999, p. 13.

10. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Pandaemonium – Ethnicity in International Politics, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 4.

11.  Ibid.

12. Anthony D Smith, “The Nation: Real or Imagined?” in People, Nation and State – The Meaning of Ethnicity and Nationalism, edited by Edward Mortimer, New York: I B Taurus, 1999, p. 37.

13. Smith, ibid. p. 37.

14. Smith, ibid. p. 38.

15. Smith, ibid. p. 41.

16. Cohen, op. cit. pp. 5 – 6.

17.  Ibid. p. 5.

18. Ibid. p. 6.

19. Ibid.

20.  Ibid.

21. Ibid.

22.  Ibid.

23. Ibid.

24. Vayrynen, op. cit. 3.

25. Chong-Do Hah and Jeffrey Martin, “Toward a Synthesis of Conflict and Integration Theories of Nationalism” in World Politics, Vol. 27, No. 3, April, 1975, Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 374.

26. Ben Fowkes, “Introduction” in Russia and Chechnia: The Permanent Crisis Essays on Russo-Chechen Relations, (ed), Hampshire and New York: Palgrave, 1998, p. 2.

27. Fowkes, ibid. p. 2.

28. Ibid.

29.  Ibid. p. 21 – see endnote 8.

30. Ibid. p. 3.

31. Bulent Gokay, “The Longstanding Russian and Soviet Debate over Sheikh Shamil: Anti-Imperialist Hero or Counter-Revolutionary Cleric” in Russia and Chechnia: The Permanent Crisis Essays on Russo-Chechen Relations, edited by Ben Fowkes, op. cit., Hampshire and New York: Palgrave, 1998, p. 27.

32. Lesley Blanch, The Sabres of Paradise, London: John Murray, 1960, p. 58.

33. Ibid. p. 58.

34. Vanora Bennett, Crying Wolf: The Return of War to Chechnya, London: Pan Macmillan, 1998, p. 191.

35. Ibid. p. 199.

 

 

CHAPTER 2

 

FIRST CONTACT: RUSSIAN

IMPERIAL AMBITIONS IN THE CAUCASUS

 

 

The Russian imperial ambitions of the 19^th century set the tone for the future conflict with the Chechens. Specifically, the Russians sought to integrate the Chechens into the Russian empire. The rest of the Caucasus had integrated with relative ease and indeed, the Russians could see no reason why the North Caucasus would not want to be a part of their great empire. But there were a few trouble spots, including the Chechens, who held out and fought. As argued in the previous chapter, the Chechens were indigenous to the region and the nature of their religion meant that they would resist the Russian invasion. The Christian parts of the Caucasus integrated relatively easily, like Christian Ossetia. But the Chechens fought for their independence. They were a fiercely independent set of people, who realised their separateness from the Russians. Moreover, their religion provided a moral framework for resisting the Russians.

 

A note to the reader: in this chapter, the terms North Caucasus, Daghestan and Chechnya are used rather loosely. The North Caucasus includes the Chechens and Daghestanis as the major nationalities, but numerous small nationalities also exist within this region (like the Kalmyks or the Ingush). The resistance that the North Caucasians put up was unified and mobilised under the banner of Islam – so Islam carried regional level influence. In all the resistance efforts, the Chechens maintained a high degree of involvement, unified with the Daghestanis on a religious basis.

 

Russian Motivation – Why Invade the Caucasus?

 

The point of first contact between the Russians and the Chechens was the result of Russian imperial expansion. Specifically, the Russians first came into contact with the Chechens as a deliberate state policy in the early 19^th century, with Russian armies and Chechen fighters coming into direct conflict with each other. Chechen raiders and bandits had attacked the frontier outposts of the Russian empire frequently since the time the Russians had first established a presence in the Caucasus in the 16^th century. But the Russians formally engaged the Chechens in the early 19^th century.

 

Most authors who look at the history of the conflict begin with Russian perceptions of the Chechens and the North Caucasians in general, as reflected in Russian literature at the time. Russian writers at the time – from Alexander Pushkin (see The prisoner of the Caucasus, Evgeny Onegin) to Leo Tolstoy (see Hadji Murat) – painted a very romantic picture of the region. The inhabitants of the North Caucasus were a barbaric and wildly free set of people. Their terrain is depicted as dramatic and so are the personalities of these wild mountain people. The North Caucasians were presented in a romanticised light, from an older more romantic period in human history. But this image was tempered by the fact that these people were still backward; they were the barbaric tribes from the mountains. They were famous as bandits and raiders. The Russians, with their more modern European ways of thinking, viewed the peoples of the North Caucasus as culturally inferior with their tribal laws, customs and loyalty. Perhaps this is where the idea of the civilising mission comes from – Russian literature. The North Caucasians were barbaric and needed to be civilised.

 

Related to this civilising mission is the idea of the conquest of Christianity over Islam. The North Caucasians were predominantly Muslim by faith. Many of the South Caucasians were, on the other hand, Christian, like the Georgians. As an illustrative example of the conquest of Christianity, George 7^th of Georgia requested that Georgia be assimilated in the Russian empire because “he believed that Russian rule would prove more enlightened; were they not co-religionists, too?”¹ More significantly, the peoples of the regions neighbouring Georgia were perceived as “fanatic Moslems.” Russia, of course, came to the rescue of their Christian brethren and in 1800 Emperor Paul of Russia accepted the Georgian Crown.² The Georgians supported their “Russian co-religionists,” fighting beside them in the Russo-Persian war of 1826 and “throughout their Long struggle against Shamyl and the Moslem Caucasian tribes”³ Georgia thus, became a protectorate of the Russians, being protected from the fanatic Muslims that surrounded her.

 

The more concrete motivation for invading the Caucasus lies in the idea of colonisation and strategic motives. Both motivations actually go hand in hand. By establishing Chechnya as a colonial protectorate the Russians hoped to achieve certain strategic benefits. The colonisation of the Caucasus had begun well before the 19^th century – in fact it goes back to the 17^th century.⁴ Russia had already acquired much of the Caucasus by the 19^th century. Russia's first two campaigns against the Caucasus took place in 1594 and in 1604.⁵ Ever since, the Russians had a tenuous hold on Daghestan and very close relations with Georgia, Daghestan, along with Chechnya, remained a trouble spot and continued to resist. Thus, the second Caucasian campaign began in 1801, as a quest to pacify the Caucasus once and for all and complete its transition into the Russian sphere of influence as a colony. The renowned Imam Shamyl became involved in a long and bitter struggle with the Russians. With regard to strategic motivation, the colonisation of the Caucasus was an important goal. The logic of Russian expansion was driven by the idea of buffer zones. These buffer zones would, in “the event of an attack… lie, like an outer bastion, a girdle of buffer states, between Russia proper and any enemy.”⁶ The reason for the Caucasian buffer zone came from the other regional powers, namely the Ottomans and the Persians. With the colonisation of the Caucasus, the Russians would have the necessary territory in the south to facilitate the fulfilment of their strategic requirement for a buffer zone at their frontiers.

 

In summary, the particular mix of motives to invade the Caucasus included some degree of practical motivation in the form of acquiring colonies with strategic implications. The motivation was also partially a civilising mission – to introduce a higher, Russian culture and language to the area and more importantly to Christianise the region. What this translated to was a policy that required the total submission of those in the region. However, the North Caucasians resisted the Russians. The Chechens (along with the Daghestanis) put up a great deal of resistance.

 

This resistance was unexpected for the Russians. A lot of the Caucasus had been relatively easy to conquer, like Georgia and Ossetia, in the previous bouts of Caucasian conquest. The fact that they were Christian nations meant that there was not the same strong moral opposition to invasion. So, the initial logic of colonisation and the civilising mission was soon lost in the logic of conquest, which is what overtook the initial drive to colonise. Soon the North Caucasus became more than simply an issue of colonisation and civilising – for the Russians it became a struggle to decimate the local nationalist fervour. This is discussed further in the section titled “Russian Methods – Bludgeoning Chechen Resistance” in this chapter.

 

Chechen Resistance

 

The mobilisation of Chechen resistance was based on the moral framework provided by Islam. The most famous case of mobilisation based on Islam is that of Imam Shamyl from Daghestan. However, the hold of religion and resistance based on religion was well under way by the time Imam Shamyl led the resistance.

 

Islam had made inroads in the North Caucasus in the 15^th century. Chechen Islam was based on Sufism and has been represented by two Sufi trends: the Naqshbandi and the Qadiriya. The best known of the Naqshbandi are the brotherhoods of Yusup-Hadji and Tashu-Hadji. The most numerous qadiriya brotherhood is the Kunta-Hadji Kishiev order.⁷ There was a strong emphasis on religious leaders and a strong tradition of religious leaders – Sufi Imams or Murids. So there was a strong element of leadership in the kind of Islam that the Chechens had converted to. This leadership was what became very prominent in the rebellions against the Russians. The first of these rebellions against the Russians came under the leadership of Sheikh Mansur, a Chechen shepherd, in 1785.⁸ Islam was gaining much popularity under Russian persecution by this point. With the coming of the 19^th century, when the Russians took up the banner of Caucasian conquest once again, three Imams raised the banner of Islamic Jihad against the Russians.

 

The first of these leaders was Khazi Mollah, who was declared Imam in 1830.⁹ Khazi Mollah’s Imamate resisted the Russian onslaught but had limited success. Khazi Mollah was followed by the treacherous Hamzad Beg.¹⁰ Hamzad Beg’s Imamate was characterised by vendettas and disunity.

 

The third Sufi Imam is Imam Shamyl, by far the most inspiring leader and one who inspired the longest lasting rebellion against the Russian invaders. It is clear though, that by the time Imam Shamyl became the third Imam the trend of religious leaders leading rebellions against the Russians was well established. Shamyl was different because he led a rebellion that lasted the better part of 25 years – easily the longest running rebellion against the Russians. Thus, it may be useful to study Imam Shamyl’s movement in order to understand the kind of ferocious, religiously based resistance the Chechens put up against the Russians, and also as an indication of the role of the Sufi Brotherhood.

 

Imam Shamyl was a shepherd from the Daghestani village of Ghimri in Daghestan, born in 1796.¹¹ Early on in his life he decided upon a path of religiously inclined study and soon after was well established in the Sufi brotherhood. He received most of his religious education and training within the Madrasas and schools located within Daghestan – one of the more famous ones being at Yaraghal under the auspices of Mullah Mohammad.¹² It is here that Shamyl was first exposed to the rejection of Russian invasion on the basis of Islamic morality – a more militant Muridism was taught and exhorted at Yaraghal. Yaraghal was a centre for the revival of Islam in the North Caucasus, led by the Sufi Brotherhood – Shamyl was just one of many who came to learn at Yaraghal. Sufi Islam, or Muridism as it was also known, made a comeback in the Caucasus after the Russian invasion. The invasion resulted in the persecution of the North Caucasians and provided the Sufi brotherhood the fuel with which to reignite Sufi Islam. As Lesley Blanch put it, Muridism “like most faiths, throve on persecution.”¹³ Shamyl took on minor leadership roles, like a number of his companions and led small sorties against the Russians. With considerable experience behind him, Shamyl became the third Imam of Daghestan by 1834 after the second Imam, Hamzad Beg, was murdered.¹⁴

 

Imam Shamyl imposed Shariat on the entire Caucasus. Shamyl’s Imamate lasted for 25 years, indicating its resilience and Shamyl’s ability to mobilise the Muslim tribes of the North Caucasus. Shamyl’s movement centred around four tenets: unification of the Caucasus; the constant harassing of Russian troops; establishment of Shariat in Daghestan and finally his recognition of his divine mission.¹⁵ His movement saw a great deal of success. However, eventually the brunt of Russian might was too much for Shamyl’s movement to bear. Three factors have been proposed as resulting in the eventual defeat of Shamyl’s movement: first, the “cumulative force of the Russian armies” which were concentrated in the Caucasus with the end of the Crimean war,¹⁶ second, the appointment of Prince Bariatinsky as supreme commander of the forces in the Caucasus;¹⁷ and third, internal dissensions that began to take their toll on Shamyl’s movement.¹⁸

After Shamyl’s surrender, the resistance to the Russians died down considerably. Many pockets continued resisting the Russian presence but not on the scale that Shamyl did. This dying down in the resistance is discussed in the section “After the Conquest” later in this chapter. Shamyl’s case indicates the seriousness with which the Chechens took the defence of their homeland. In fact, Shamyl was just one of the more successful Chechen warriors and his narrative provides a good estimation of the vigour with which the North Caucasians generally fought for their freedom.

 

Russian Methods – Bludgeoning Chechen Resistance

 

The way that the Russians perceived the Chechens showed in the way that the Russians dealt with them in their colonial expansion. Some have argued that the permanence of this conflict may have been avoidable had the Russians been more sensitive to local conditions. The Russians had a fairly blunt and brutal approach that crushed the locals completely – culturally, politically and economically: Russian colonisation sought complete integration. The Caucasian campaign was a long and protracted one, lasting near two centuries. Moreover, the Chechens showed a tremendous degree of resilience to the Russian advance. The Russian drive to colonise acquired a more brutal edge, looking to destroy the peoples of the North Caucasus as a nation (which is not to deny that colonisation cannot be a brutalisation of the concept of nationhood in the first place). The protracted nature of the conflict, both in terms of time and the resistance to the Russians, meant that the Russian campaign acquired a more desperate, anti-nation quality.

 

It is in General Yermelov that we find an example of this anti-nation campaign. Yermelov was one of the most successful Russian Generals in the Caucasus, becoming Commander in Chief of the Army of the South in 1816.¹⁹ His was a name that inspired fear and with good reason. Yermelov was perhaps that one Russian General who realised that the campaign in the Caucasus required escalation. The war that Yermelov waged was of unprecedented viciousness. Yermelov’s strategy was twofold. At one level he was playing out a more subtle and long term plan – a more gradual Russification of the conquered Caucasus. This essentially involved creating settlements of Russian soldiers and their families all over the Caucasus. It was system of cantonments where the “army of occupation was expected to live off the land and be entirely self supporting” and was “calculated to hold down the restless natives without necessarily resorting to arms.”²⁰

 

At another level, Yermelov used a more direct strategy – uncompromising violence in war. Yermelov himself admitted to the extreme nature of his methods, stating, “I desire that the terror of my name shall guard our frontiers more potently than chains or fortresses.”²¹ Yermelov was looking to terrorise the local population into submission. Another telling statement indicating Yermelov’s methods, states, “I am inflexibly severe out of motives of humanity. One execution saves hundreds of Russian lives.”²²

More indicative of Russian intentions is the mass deportation of various North Caucasian nations. With Imam Shamyl’s capture in 1859, the Russian government “expelled” 81,000 of his followers from the Russian Empire, followed by another 22,500 in 1865.²³ This mass deportation was repeated by Stalin, in 1944. However, Tsarist Russia’s execution of this deportation was not as “systematic” as Stalin’s. A lot of Chechens managed to stay on in the Empire – close to 80% of them according to some estimates.²⁴ Other Muslim Caucasian nationalities were not so fortunate, for instance the Ubykh – “most of whom were expelled between 1864 and 1866 because of their obstinate effort to continue Shamil’s fight after he himself had been defeated.”²⁵ What is important to note from this is the notion that the Russians viewed the more aggressively independent nationalities of the Caucasus as problematic and looked to solve the problem through a policy of deportation. This deportation has been labelled by some as an early example of successful ethnic-cleansing.²⁶

 

The extreme violence of the campaign against the Chechens coupled with the deportation is indicative of the lack of respect for the national independence of the North Caucasians, including the Chechens.

 

After the Conquest

 

After the pacification of the Chechens, a policy of divide and rule was applied to them. The various Chechen groups were physically separated – like the Terek Chechens were separated from other Chechen groups by inserting a “band of Cossack territory stretching from Vladikavkaz to Grozny.”²⁷ The loyal Cossack nationality was inserted into Chechen territory in order to disunite the Chechens as a national grouping.

 

Despite these tactics, Chechen resistance to the Russian occupation still continued, albeit in a less violent form. Sufi Islam was clamped down upon to some degree. The Naqshbandi order was suppressed by the Russians, who recognised the power of the Sufi Brotherhood.²⁸ With the suppression of the Naqshbandi order, the Qadiriya order made its presence felt in the North Caucasus. The Russian authorities tried to clamp down on the Qadiriya order as well but ended up provoking a revolt lasting from 1877–1878.²⁹ Despite the suppression, the two orders gained adherents and by 1917, almost all Chechens belonged to one of the two orders.³⁰ Thus, Sufi Islam retained a strong basis and a strong hold in Chechnya.

 

Putting the analysis together we note the following: we see that the Russians invaded the Caucasus in a drive to acquire colonies. (Colonisation does not necessarily imply a termination of the nationhood of the group being colonised.) The level of resistance the Russians meet within the North Caucasus, however, meant that they escalated their campaign and made it their mission to destroy the Chechens as a nation. The Chechens, along with other North Caucasian nationalities, primarily the Daghestanis, put up stiff resistance to Russian invasion, mobilised by the Sufi Brotherhood under the banner of Islam.  However, this resistance was crushed and the Russians completed their conquest of the Caucasus. After the conquest, Sufi Islam retained a strong presence in Chechnya, possibly even gaining in strength. However, the key point to note is that the Russian campaign became decidedly more directed against the Chechens as a national grouping.

 

References

 

1. Lesley Blanch, The Sabres of Paradise, London: John Murray, 1960, p. 28.

2. Ibid. p. 29.

3. Ibid. p. 28.

4. Ibid. p. 16.

5. Darlene L. Reddaway, “History of the 19th Century Chechen Conflict from the Russian Side” in Johnson’s Russia List, December 2002, at  http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6597-13.cfm

6. Blanch, op. cit., pp. 30 – 31.

7. Yavus Akhmadov, Stephen R. Bowers, Marion T. Doss, Jr., Yulii Kurnosov,  “Religion In the North Caucasus - Chechnya” in Islam in the North Caucasus: A People Divided, William R. Nelson Institute for Public Affairs, 2001, at http://www.jmu.edu/orgs/wrni/islam1.htm

8. Bulent Gokay, “The Longstanding Russian and Soviet Debate over Sheikh Shamil: Anti-Imperialist Hero or Counter-Revolutionary Cleric” in Russia and Chechnia: The Permanent Crisis Essays on Russo-Chechen Relations, edited by Ben Fowkes, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave, 1998, p. 27.

9. Blanch, op. cit., p. 59.

10. Ibid. p. 72.

11. Ibid. pp. 45 – 46.

12. Ibid. p. 55.

13. Ibid. p. 58.

14. Ibid. p. 59.

15. Ibid. p. 125.

16. Ibid. p. 390.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid. p. 23.

20. Ibid. p. 101.

21. Ibid. p. 24.

22. Ibid.

23. Ben Fowkes, “Introduction” in Russia and Chechnia: The Permanent Crisis Essays on Russo-Chechen Relations, edited by Fowkes, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave, 1998, p. 4.

24. Ibid. p. 4.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid. p. 5.

30. Ibid.

 

 

CHAPTER 3

 

CHECHNYA IN THE USSR

 

 

The break-up of the USSR allowed a number of the republics within it to break away. The Caucasus republics were no exception and Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan took the opportunity that the failure of the Soviet state provided them. Russian dominance in the region, in terms of its oil and strategic interests, weakened after the abortive coup of 1991. The chaos that ensued in post-Soviet Russia meant that the Russians were not able to significantly assert their interests in the region. This was particularly apparent in the case of Chechnya, which declared its independence from the Russian Federation yet did not receive any immediate retributive action.

 

The USSR set out as a model for uniting a multitude of different nations under the banner of communism – a composite nation. According to one source it was composed of some one hundred and four distinct nationalities and had up to two hundred different spoken languages – certainly a diverse entity.¹ But the unity of this entity can certainly be questioned. In fact it can be argued that this unity was imposed through the threat of violence and that the various nationalisms were purposely suppressed, including Chechen nationalism.

 

This chapter argues that the diversity of the USSR was maintained through force and that once the threat of force was removed certain elements within the union chose to break away. More specifically it is argued that Chechnya too was forcibly kept within the USSR and that once the USSR started to collapse, the Chechens saw an opportunity to reassert their national identity. First, the notion of the USSR as a composite nation is brought into question. Then, the analysis developed is applied to the Russo-Chechen relations. Finally, the events of the late 1980s and the early 1990s are looked at as an opportunity for the Chechens to assert their independent national identity.
 

The Soviet State – A Composite Nation?

 

Bennett reports a very telling statement by the academic Marie Bennigsen Broxup: “From Kalinin’s dream to give everyone in the USSR ‘the psychology and ideals of an industrial worker in Petrograd’ to the later hybrid the Homo Sovieticus, the Soviet nationalities have been expected to fit within a mould acceptable to Russia.”² Thus, the diversity of the USSR was acceptable as long as that diversity fit in with Russian needs and requirements – the term Homo Sovieticus being a reference to this standardisation in political thought. The internationalist communist doctrine of the friendship of peoples was a useful cover for what was really a highly centralised state imposing control over the entire USSR. Furthermore, according to Pearson, “nationalism represented the single biggest challenge and the most persistent rival authority to the Soviet establishment.”³ In order to maintain the “unity” of the USSR, the Soviet state had to combat the nationalism of the states that composed it.

 

The Russian dominance of the USSR has two levels of possible analysis – at the level of the Union Republics (i.e. the Soviet Socialist Republics or SSR) and at the level of the Russian Federation republics (i.e. the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics or ASSR). Union republics formed the USSR and were represented as such. The USSR included the Russian Federation with a total of fifteen union republics.  (To illustrate, the Ukrainian SSR and the Bulgarian SSR also form part of the USSR.) Russian Federation republics include regions like Chechnya – regions that were relatively autonomous but were represented at the level of the Russian Federation.

 

At both levels, the Russian state (or rather the Russian dominated Soviet state) was imposing its will through certain tools of intervention. These tools of intervention can be seen in the policies and actions of the Russian state, which were aimed at forcing unity and suppressing nationalism.

 

First we consider the substantial deployment of the military and the development of extensive state security apparatuses within all federation republics. To recount and highlight all events of military and state security suppression of nationalist tendencies would be a laborious undertaking. However, narrating a couple of such incidents would be enough to highlight the case. In the late 1980s when the peoples of the USSR had been given more of a chance to express themselves, nationalist sentiment came out strong in the form of demonstrations and protests. For instance Georgians were pushing for their independence by the late 1980s, articulated via mass demonstrations.⁴ But these demonstrations weren’t tolerated. Soviet troops used “poison gas and pick shovels to crush a peaceful demonstration in Tbilisi” in April of 1989, resulting in the death of sixteen demonstrators.⁵ Similarly, Gorbachev sent troops to “occupy” the city of Baku, Azerbaijan, in April 1990 – a repressive act that resulted in the death of a hundred civilians.⁶ And these are just cases in the “inner” empire (the USSR) – the “outer” empire (Warsaw Pact countries) saw many episodes of military based repression e.g. the Prague Spring 1968 or the Hungarian Uprising of 1956.⁷ The Soviet military was prepared to deploy at an instant to protect the sanctity of the Soviet state and to curb any expressions of nationalist sentiment.

 

Turning now to look at the extensive security apparatus setup across the union republics, we see that all union republics possessed a repressive state security agency. The principal example is of the KGB – the state security organ for the entire USSR. This organ was responsible for “protecting the establishment from attack and liquidating its enemies,” which it did ruthlessly.⁸ For instance, the KGB was directly involved in the suppression of the Latvian bid for independence. According to the renowned journalist Hedrick Smith the Latvian KGB, the “black berets,” had “turned to terrorising Latvians, arresting some nationalists, shooting others.”⁹ The NKVD, predecessor to the KGB, was responsible for the mass deportation of numerous minority nationalities (Volga Germans, Karachai, Kalmyks, Balkars, Crimean Tartars, Ingush and the Chechens) in 1944 from their home territories for resettlement elsewhere in the USSR.¹⁰ The brutality and efficiency with which these deportations were carried out is telling of the lengths that the Soviet state would go to in order to solve its ethnic questions, especially the fragmentation of the North Caucasus.¹¹ The case of the Chechen deportations shall be discussed further on in this chapter.

 

Another important factor to bear in mind is the single party nature of the USSR – only the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was legally allowed to run for elections. This ensured at a legal level the political monopoly of the CPSU and consequently the Soviet state. More than that, the autonomy of the republics in the USSR and the Russian Federation was limited – that of Federation republics being more limited. What is also important to note is the assimilation of local elites into the party ranks or their replacement by those appointed to powerful positions in the Communist Party. The local elites of the various regions within Russia and the Soviet Union were incorporated into the communist party cadre or were replaced by it. This allowed the centre a great deal of power over its various peripheral regions.

 

Religion is not necessarily a nationalist factor, but it can contribute to the national identity of certain groups (like the Chechens, as was discussed in Chapter 3). The USSR had no place for religion in its ideology or political make up. In fact, throughout most of the seventy years of the USSR’s existence, religion was suppressed. Although Gorbachev relaxed the restrictions on religion somewhat and allowed a revival of religion-for instance in 1988, Gorbachev held an important and symbolic public meeting with the Patriarch Pimen and other leaders of the Church – “Gorbachev gave his blessing to the reopening of hundreds of Orthodox churches… which had been seized by the state under Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev.”¹² Regardless it is important to note that prior to Gorbachev, the state did restrict religion.

 

Economic binding played a big role in the interdependence of union republics on each other. The union republics were bound to each other economically, making it difficult to contemplate independence. As such, Soviet economic policy did not aim to suppress nationalism, but this was a consequence of the economic policy. For instance, the Ukrainian SSR produced close to half of the USSR’s food. Therefore, the Ukrainian SSR would want to stay in the Union in order to take advantage of the guaranteed market of its agricultural produce, while the other union republics would encourage the Ukrainian SSR to stay within the Union. This extended to all kinds of other economic activity – from military and armaments (e.g. fighter aircraft production facility in Georgia) to industrial equipment (e.g. oil drilling equipment factories in Chechnya). The Soviet economic policy tied various parts of the Union to each other, spreading industry and agriculture, at the expense of efficiency and regional independence. Thus, the incentive to break away from the union had limited appeal, which would certainly check any bids for independence to a substantial extent.

 

Chechnya and the USSR – Russian Suppression and the Rebuilding of Chechen National Identity

 

Having studied the general case of Russian dominance in the USSR through their hegemonic policy and stance, we can now turn our attention to the case of Chechnya. In 1921, the Chechens rebelled against the imposition of a centralised authority on them. Within the framework of Soviet Russia, the Chechens again saw themselves being targeted by Russian policy.

 

As was highlighted in Chapter 2, the Chechens have been historically viewed as a problem for the Russians – the “irritatingly independent hinterland.”¹³ There were two counts of suppression of the Chechen national identity by the Soviet state. One was territorial deprivation vis-à-vis the deportation of the Chechen nation for resettlement in Central Asia and the concurrent dissolution of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR. Stalin ordered the deportation of the almost five hundred thousand Chechen and Ingush, commencing on February 23, 1944, and ending a mere eight days later on March 1, 1944. The deportation was meticulously planned and treated with the highest priority – Laurentii Beriia, head of the NKVD at the time, was himself present to oversee the operation.¹⁴ The dissolved Chechen-Ingush ASSR was incorporated into Russia, Daghestan, North Ossetia and Georgia and the deportees were loaded into cattle trains heading for Central Asia.¹⁵ The Chechens were transported in the most appalling conditions, many of them dying en route and at their destinations; the old and sick were massacred on their home territory in order to speed up the process.¹⁶ What is important to note here though is the reason for conducting the deportation. The official reason stated was that “many Chechens… under the instigation of the Germans, entered into volunteer detachments organised by the Germans, and together with the German military forces conducted an armed struggle against detachments of the Red Army.”¹⁷ The essence of this justification is that the Chechens collaborated with the Germans and fought against the Red Army during the period of WWII when the Germans had occupied the Caucasus, consequently the deportation was a retributive action. But this justification does not hold because “the German army hardly set foot in Checheno-Ingushetia” – it was impossible for the Chechens to have collaborated with the Germans.¹⁸ Interestingly, the Chechens revolted in 1929–30 and then again in 1940 and 1942. The deportation was really Stalin’s solution to the Chechen problem, a twentieth century echo of what Tsar Alexander II attempted in the 1860s. It is plain to see that the deportation was essentially meant to destroy the territorial roots of the Chechen nation.

 

The second count of suppression was along religious lines. As argued in Chapter 3, Islam formed a very important component of the Chechen identity. Initially, the Soviet government had a fairly tolerant policy toward Chechen religious institutions. Chechen religious (Muslim) leadership in the form of Sufis was cooperative with the Bolsheviks. This meant that the Bolsheviks then applied a policy of “respect for Caucasian religious institutions.”¹⁹ However, soon afterwards a policy to repress religious practice was adopted, even if it was not that effective. Mosques were closed down and Shari’a courts were abolished.²⁰ The Sufi brotherhoods survived, despite the policy. The role of the Sufi brotherhoods cannot be emphasised more, as they were an important bastion of religious leadership and one of the important ways in which the Chechen leadership mobilised the Chechen populace (the establishment of the Sufi brotherhoods has been discussed in some depth in Chapter 3). But, the official state line insisted on trying to rid the Chechens of the religious component of their identity.

 

In terms of the factors of forceful unification of the USSR brought up in the previous section, Chechnya too was subject to them. The Chechens were subjected (as was the rest of the Caucasus) to the cultural programmes of the era – known as “Yezhovshchina – after the name of Nokolai Yezhov.”²¹ The programme “shook the North Caucasus deeply” and included such moves as the liquidation of the national intelligentsia and the “translation” of the national script.²² The translation of the script is a fairly significant issue. In 1928 and 1929, the Muslim regions of the North Caucasus were “forced to undergo the Latinisation” of their script.²³ This was followed some years later with yet another conversion from Latin to Cyrillic script (the Russian script). This changing of the script had a dual role: firstly to facilitate the economic and political integration of the Chechens within the Russian Federation and secondly to distance the North Caucasians from Turkey.²⁴

 

Moreover, in 1929, Stalin’s government undertook the drive to collectivise all farming in the Soviet Union. The North Caucasus was chosen as the first region within the Soviet Union where the rural economy would be completely collectivised.²⁵ This drive was opposed by the Chechens, as “forcible collectivisation met with stubborn resistance.”²⁶ Significantly, this opposition assumed a religious character whereby collectivisation was viewed as “the work of the devil”, something against “which it was the duty of every Muslim to fight.”²⁷

 

As a region in the Russian Federation the CPSU was the only political party that was allowed to run for elections. Furthermore, as Chechnya was a region in the Russian Federation, rather than a union level republic, it did not enjoy the autonomy of a union republic. As an indication, the Chechen leadership under Dzhokar Dudayev (first president of the later breakaway republic of Chechnya) was, as early as November 1990, looking to change the status of the Chechen-Ingush Republic to that of a union republic.²⁸ Perhaps with the autonomy of a union republic Chechnya may not have been so quick to declare independence in 1991.

 

Economically, too, Chechnya was tied intimately to the rest of the USSR. Two important industrial products were manufactured in Chechnya – oil and oil drilling equipment. And the only market that Chechnya could export its two vital industrial products to was the rest of the USSR. Rail links and an established oil pipeline meant easy access to important markets. If, somehow, Chechnya had managed to secede, its economy would have crumbled – the USSR could have easily excluded it from any global economic interaction.