In the summer, Chechen gangs began to systematically carry out attacks on the Vladikavkazskaya section railway Grozny - Khasavyurt, and in September, after the withdrawal of regular units of the Russian army from Grozny, Chechen gangs began to attack oil fields and set them on fire. They also carried out systematic and devastating raids on German colonies, Russian economies, farms, villages, settlements of Khasavyurt and adjacent districts. On December 29 and 30, the villages of Kakhanovskaya and Ilyinskaya were completely devastated and burned.

In the fall of 1917, a real battle broke out in Grozny between units of the Chechen cavalry regiment of the Caucasian Native Division that had returned from the front and the Terek Cossacks, which escalated into a pogrom of the Chechens of Grozny. In response, the Chechen National Committee was formed, headed by Sheikh Denis Arsanov. Grozny turned into a besieged fortress, oil production completely ceased.

In December 1917, Chechen units of the Caucasian Native Division captured Grozny. In January 1918, Red Guard detachments from Vladikavkaz established control over Grozny and power in the city passed into the hands of the Military Revolutionary Committee. In March 1918, the Congress of the Chechen People in Goyty elected the Goyty People's Council (chaired by T. Eldarkhanov), which declared support for Soviet power. In May 1918, the Third Congress of the Peoples of the Terek was held in Grozny.

By mid-1918, during clashes between mountain peoples and the troops of General Denikin’s Volunteer Army, the unification of the mountain people around the Avar sheikh Uzun-Hadji began. Uzun-Khadzhi with a small detachment occupied the village of Vedeno, entrenched himself in it and declared war on Denikin. In September 1919, Uzun-Haji announced the creation of the North Caucasus Emirate

On August 11, 1918, troops of Terek White Cossacks numbering up to 12 thousand people under the command of L. Bicherakhov attempted to capture Grozny. The city garrison repelled the attack, but after that the siege of Grozny began. For defense, the Bolsheviks assembled a detachment of up to 3 thousand people, consisting of soldiers of the city garrison, highlanders of the surrounding villages and the poorest Cossacks, over whom the commander of the city garrison N.F. Gikalo took leadership. With the participation of G.K. Ordzhonikidze and M.K. Levandovsky, detachments of Red Cossacks with a total number of 7 thousand people under the command of A.Z. Dyakov were created, which from October began to strike at the White Cossack troops from the rear. On November 12, with a simultaneous attack by the besieged from the city and the Red Cossacks under the command of Dyakov, the resistance of the White Cossacks was broken and the siege of Grozny was lifted.

In February 1919, troops of the Caucasian Volunteer Army of General P. Wrangel entered Grozny. In the same month, a train of British troops from Port Petrovsk arrived in Grozny by rail. In March 1919, the Terek Great Cossack Circle began work in Grozny. In September 1919, Grozny attacked a detachment of Chechen pro-Soviet rebels under the command of A. Sheripov. In a battle near the village of Vozdvizhenskoye, A. Sheripov was killed, but in October 1919 the rebel “Army of Freedom” occupied Grozny.

Units of the Red Army entered Grozny in March 1920.

Uzun-Haji died and the “dissolution” of his government was announced.

Chechnya before 1936 Soviet Chechnya

In November 1920, the Congress of the Peoples of the Terek Region proclaimed the creation of the Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic with its capital in Vladikavkaz, consisting of six administrative districts, one of which was the Chechen National District. The Sunzha Cossack District was also formed as part of the Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

During the Civil War in Russia, several Russian settlements in large Chechen villages, as well as Cossack villages on the Sunzha, were destroyed by the Chechens and Ingush, their inhabitants were killed. The Soviet government, needing the support of the mountain peoples against Denikin’s Volunteer Army and the Cossacks allied to it, “rewarded” the Chechens by giving them part of the Terek-Sunzha interfluve.

In September 1920, an anti-Soviet uprising began in the mountainous regions of Chechnya and Northern Dagestan, led by Nazhmudin Gotsinsky and the grandson of Imam Shamil, Said Bey. The rebels were able to establish control over many areas within a few weeks. Soviet troops managed to liberate Chechnya from the rebels only in March 1921.

On November 30, 1922, the Chechen NO was transformed into the Chechen Autonomous Region. At the beginning of 1929, the Sunzha Cossack district and the city of Grozny, which previously had a special status, were annexed to the Chechen Autonomous Okrug.

In the spring of 1923, Chechens boycotted elections to local councils and destroyed polling stations in some populated areas, protesting against the desire of the central authorities to impose their representatives on them in the elections. An NKVD division, reinforced by detachments of local activists, was sent to quell the unrest.

The unrest was suppressed, but there were continuous attacks on the areas bordering Chechnya for the purpose of robbery and livestock theft. This was accompanied by hostage-taking and shelling of the Shatoy fortress. Therefore, in August-September 1925, another, larger-scale military operation was carried out to disarm the population. During this operation, Gotsinsky was arrested.

In 1929, many Chechens refused to supply bread to the state. They demanded the cessation of grain procurements, disarmament and removal of all grain procurement workers from the territory of Chechnya. In this regard, an operational group of troops and units of the OGPU, from December 8 to December 28, 1929, carried out a military operation, as a result of which armed groups in the villages of Goyty, Shali, Sambi, Benoy, Tsontoroy and others were neutralized.

But opponents of Soviet power intensified their terror against party and Soviet activists and launched an anti-Soviet movement on a wider scale. In this regard, in March-April 1930, a new military operation was carried out, which weakened the activity of opponents of Soviet power, but not for long.

At the beginning of 1932, in connection with collectivization, a large-scale uprising broke out in Chechnya, in which this time a significant part of the Russian population of the Nadterechny Cossack villages took part. It was suppressed in March 1932, and entire villages were deported from North Caucasus.

On January 15, 1934, the Chechen Autonomous Region was united with the Ingush Autonomous Region into the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Region. The authorities of the Chi ASSR were dominated by Russians due to the existence of large cities with a predominant Russian population (the cities of Grozny, Gudermes, etc.).

Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

Main article: Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

On December 5, 1936, the region was transformed into an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

Armed anti-Soviet protests continued in Chechnya until 1936, and in the mountainous regions until 1938. In total, from 1920 to 1941, 12 large armed uprisings (with the participation of 500 to 5 thousand militants) and more than 50 less significant ones took place on the territory of Chechnya and Ingushetia. Military units of the Red Army and internal troops from 1920 to 1939, 3,564 people were killed in battles with the rebels.

In January 1940, a new armed anti-Soviet uprising began in Chechnya under the leadership of Khasan Israilov.

Great Patriotic War[edit | edit wiki text]

Main article: Chechnya during the Great Patriotic War

Chechen Republic

"Chechen Revolution"

In the summer of 1990, a group of prominent representatives of the Chechen intelligentsia took the initiative to hold the Chechen National Congress to discuss the problems of reviving national culture, language, traditions, and historical memory. On November 23-25, the Chechen National Congress was held in Grozny, which elected an Executive Committee headed by Chairman Major General Dzhokhar Dudayev. On November 27, the Supreme Council of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, under pressure from the executive committee of the ChNS and mass actions, adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Chechen-Ingush Republic. On June 8-9, 1991, the 2nd session of the First Chechen National Congress took place, which declared itself the National Congress of the Chechen People (NCCHN). The session decided to overthrow the Supreme Council of the Chechen Republic and proclaimed the Chechen Republic of Nokhchi-cho, and declared the Executive Committee of the OKCHN, headed by D. Dudayev, to be the temporary authority.

The events of August 19-21, 1991 became a catalyst for the political situation in the republic. On August 19, at the initiative of the Vainakh Democratic Party, a rally in support of the Russian leadership began on the central square of Grozny, but after August 21 it began to be held under the slogans of the resignation of the Supreme Council along with its chairman for “aiding the putschists,” as well as re-elections of parliament. On September 1-2, the 3rd session of the OKCHN declared the Supreme Council of the Chechen-Ingush Republic deposed and transferred all power in the territory of Chechnya to the Executive Committee of the OKCHN. On September 4, the Grozny television center and the Radio House were seized. The chairman of the Grozny executive committee, Dzhokhar Dudayev, read out an appeal in which he called the leadership of the republic “criminals, bribe-takers, embezzlers” and announced that from “September 5 until the holding of democratic elections, power in the republic passes into the hands of the executive committee and other general democratic organizations.” In response, the Supreme Council declared a state of emergency in Grozny from 00:00 on September 5 until September 10, but six hours later the Presidium of the Supreme Council canceled the state of emergency. On September 6, the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Doku Zavgaev, resigned, and acting. O. Chairman of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR Ruslan Khasbulatov became the chairman. A few days later, on September 15, the last session of the Supreme Council of the Chechen-Ingush Republic took place, at which a decision was made to dissolve itself. As a transitional body, a Provisional Supreme Council (VSC) was formed, consisting of 32 deputies, the chairman of which was the deputy chairman of the OKCHN Executive Committee, Khusein Akhmadov. OKCHN created the National Guard, led by the leader of the Islamic Way party, Beslan Kantemirov.

By the beginning of October, a conflict arose between supporters of the OKCHN Executive Committee, led by Akhmadov, and his opponents, led by Yu. Chernov. On October 5, seven of the nine members of the Air Force decided to remove Akhmadov, but on the same day the National Guard seized the building of the House of Trade Unions, where the Air Force met, and the building of the Republican KGB. Then they arrested the republic's prosecutor, Alexander Pushkin. The next day, the OKChN Executive Committee “for subversive and provocative activities” announced the dissolution of the Air Force, assigning to itself the functions of “a revolutionary committee for the transition period with full power.” The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR demanded that the Dudayevites surrender their weapons by midnight on October 9. However, the Executive Committee of the OKChN called this demand “a provocation of an international scale aimed at perpetuating colonial rule” and declared gazavat, calling to arms all Chechens from 15 to 55 years old.

Dudayev's regime

On October 27, 1991, presidential elections were held in Chechnya, won by Dzhokhar Dudayev, who received 90.1% of the votes. Already on November 1, Dudayev’s decree “On declaring the sovereignty of the Chechen Republic” was issued, and on November 2, the Congress of People’s Deputies of the RSFSR declared the elections to the highest body of state power (the Supreme Council) and the President of the Republic illegal. On November 8, the President of the RSFSR Boris Yeltsin signed a decree introducing a state of emergency in the territory of Checheno-Ingushetia. On November 10, the executive committee of the OKCHN called for breaking off relations with Russia and turning Moscow into a “disaster zone,” and the next day the session of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR refused to approve the Decree introducing a state of emergency. Leaders of opposition parties and movements declared their support for President Dudayev and his government as a defender of the sovereignty of Chechnya. The Temporary Supreme Council ceased to exist.

Since November, supporters of Dudayev began seizing military camps, weapons and property of the Armed Forces and internal troops on the territory of Chechnya, and on November 27, General Dudayev issued a decree on the nationalization of weapons and equipment of military units located on the territory of the republic. During his reign, Russians were displaced in Chechnya, which took on the character of ethnic cleansing.

On March 12, 1992, the Parliament of Chechnya adopted the Constitution of the republic, according to which Chechnya was proclaimed “a sovereign democratic legal state created as a result of the self-determination of the Chechen people.” Meanwhile, during this period, opposition to the Dudayev administration formed again. The most radical representatives of the anti-Dudaev opposition created the Coordination Committee for the restoration of the constitutional order in the Chechen-Ingush Republic. On the morning of March 21, armed oppositionists numbering up to 150 people seized the television center and radio center and spoke on Chechen radio calling for the overthrow of the government and parliament of Chechnya. By the evening of the same day, the guards liberated the radio center and suppressed the attempted rebellion. The participants of the rebellion took refuge in the Nadterechny region of the Chechen Republic, whose authorities, since the fall of 1991, did not recognize the Dudayev regime and were not subordinate to the authorities of the Chechen Republic. On June 7, the only unit stationed there was withdrawn from Chechnya Russian army- Grozny garrison. In the summer of the same year

By February 1993, a constitutional crisis had arisen in Chechnya between the executive and legislative branches. On April 15, on Teatralnaya Square in Grozny, first under economic and then under political slogans, an opposition rally began, demanding the resignation of the president and government and the holding of new parliamentary elections. Taking advantage of this, on April 17, Dudayev issued decrees dissolving the Parliament, the Constitutional Court, the Grozny City Assembly, introduced presidential rule in the republic and curfew, disbanded the Ministry of Internal Affairs. On the same day, supporters of the president began their rally. On June 4, armed supporters of Dudayev under the command of Shamil Basayev seized the building of the Grozny City Assembly, where meetings of the Parliament and the Constitutional Court of the Chechen Republic were held, dispersing the Parliament, the Constitutional Court and the Grozny City Assembly.

"Civil War in Chechnya"

On January 14, 1994, the Chechen Republic of Nokhchi-cho (Chechen Republic) was renamed the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (CRI). In the same month, the formation of the National Salvation Committee (KNS) attempted to attack the positions of government troops near Grozny, but on February 9 its head, Ibragim Suleimenov, was captured by DGB officers, after which his group disintegrated. In the summer, the armed struggle against the Dudayev regime was led by the Provisional Council of the Chechen Republic (VCCR), headed by the mayor of the Nadterechny district, Umar Avturkhanov, which arose in December 1993. In July-August, the opposition group of the former mayor of Grozny, Bislan Gantamirov, established control over Urus-Martan and the main territory of the Urus-Martan district, and the group of the former head of Dudayev's security, Ruslan Labazanov, over Argun. On June 12-13, armed clashes occurred in Grozny between government troops and the group of Ruslan Labazanov. On August 2, the head of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation, Umar Avturkhanov, announced that the council was removing Dzhokhar Dudayev from power and taking upon itself “full power in the Chechen Republic.” On August 11, Dudayev signed a decree introducing martial law in Chechnya and declaring mobilization.

In the fall, the formation of the Provisional Council, created with the assistance of Russian security forces, launched military operations against the Dudayev regime. On September 1, government troops (Dudaevites) attacked the outskirts of Urus-Martan, on September 5 they defeated Ruslan Labazanov’s detachment in Argun, and on September 17 they surrounded the village of Tolstoy-Yurt. On September 27, government troops unsuccessfully attacked the opposition in the Nadterechny region, and at the same time opposition troops launched a raid on the Grozny suburb of Chernoreche from the direction of Urus-Martan. On October 13, Dudayev’s troops attacked the base of opposition units in the area of ​​​​the village of Gekhi. On October 15, opposition troops entered Grozny from two sides and, without encountering resistance, established control over several districts of the capital, finding themselves “400-500 meters” from the complex of government buildings. However, they soon left Grozny, returning to their positions 40 km from the city. In turn, Dudayev said that “special forces units of the Russian army” entered the city with armored vehicles and artillery, but government troops managed to “stop, surround and neutralize them.” On the morning of October 19, government troops, supported by armored vehicles and artillery, launched an attack on the Urus-Martan district and attacked the regional center of Urus-Martan, where the headquarters of the commander of the united armed forces of the opposition, Bislan Gantamirov, was located, and also advanced in the direction of the village of Tolstoy-Yurt.

Meanwhile, the Provisional Council Chechen Republic began preparations for his final attack on Grozny. On November 23, the Government of National Revival (GNR) was formed, headed by the former Minister of Petrochemical Industry of the USSR and leader of the Daimokhk movement, Salambek Khadzhiev. On November 26, the anti-Dudaev opposition, led by the Russian military, stormed Grozny, entering the capital from the northern and northeastern outskirts of the city. The Dudayevites repelled the assault, capturing several Russian servicemen. After the failure of the attempt to overthrow Dzhokhar Dudayev by the forces of the Chechen opposition, the Russian government decided to introduce a regular army into Chechnya. On November 29, the Russian Security Council decided on a military operation in Chechnya, and the next day Boris Yeltsin signed secret Decree No. 2137c “On measures to restore constitutional legality and order in the territory of the Chechen Republic.”

First Chechen War

Main article: First Chechen War

Fights around the building of the former Republican Committee of the Communist Party ("Presidential Palace") in Grozny, January 1995

On the morning of December 1, Russian aviation attacked the Kalinovskaya and Khankala airfields, and then the Grozny-Severny airfield, destroying all Chechen aviation. On December 11, Boris Yeltsin signed Decree No. 2169 “On measures to ensure law, order and public safety on the territory of the Chechen Republic.” On the same day, units of the United Group of Forces (OGV), consisting of units of the Ministry of Defense and Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, entered from the west (from North Ossetia through Ingushetia), northwest (from the Mozdok region of North Ossetia) and east (from the territory of Dagestan) to territory of Chechnya. By the end of December, fighting broke out on the approaches to Grozny. On December 20, the Mozdok group occupied the village of Dolinsky and blocked the Chechen capital from the north-west, and the Kizlyar group during the same period captured the crossing near the village of Petropavlovskaya and, having occupied it, blocked Grozny from the north-east. On the night of December 23, units that were part of this group bypassed the city from the east and occupied the capital village of Khankala. On December 31, the Russian army began its assault on Grozny. Heavy street fighting broke out in the city. On January 19, federal troops took the Presidential Palace, after which the main forces of the Dudayevites retreated to the southern regions of Chechnya. Finally, on March 6, 1995, Shamil Basayev’s battalion retreated from the capital’s suburb of Chernorechye, the last territory of Grozny held by Chechen militants. After the capture of Grozny, the fighting spread to the flat part of Western and Eastern Chechnya. On March 30, Gudermes was occupied, and the next day - Shali.

By the end of April, the Russian army occupied almost the entire flat territory of Chechnya, after which federal troops began preparing for a “mountain war.” The Russian side announced a suspension of hostilities from April 28 to May 11. On May 12, federal forces launched a broad offensive in the foothills, in the Vedensky, Shatoy and Agishtyn directions. On June 3, Vedeno and the dominant heights around Nozhai-Yurt were occupied, and on June 12, the regional centers of Shatoi and Nozhai-Yurt came under the control of federal troops. However, as federal troops advanced south, Chechen fighters transferred part of their forces to the plain. In addition, the number of terrorist operations directed against federal soldiers and Chechen leaders loyal to Russia has sharply increased. The largest of them were the seizure of a hospital in Budyonnovsk in the Stavropol Territory on June 14 by Chechen militants and the attack on January 9, 1996 by a detachment of militants on the Dagestan city of Kizlyar, which was accompanied by the taking of hostages.

After the capture of Grozny, republican authorities recognized by the Russian leadership began to operate on the territory of Chechnya: the Provisional Council and the Government of National Revival. A series of Russian-Chechen negotiations took place in the summer. At the beginning of October, the former chairman of the Supreme Council of the Chechen-Ingush Republic, Doku Zavgaev, became the chairman of the Government of National Revival. On December 16-17, elections for the Head of the Chechen Republic were held in Chechnya, which was won by Zavgaev, who received 96.4% of the votes. On March 6, 1996, militants attacked Grozny, capturing part of the city. After three days of fighting, militant groups left the city, taking with them supplies of food, medicine and ammunition. On April 21, Dzhokhar Dudayev was killed by a missile strike from two Russian Su-25 attack aircraft, after Russian intelligence services located the signal from his satellite phone. The next day, the State Defense Council of the ChRI announced... O. President Zelimkhan Yandarbiev. Despite some successes of the Russian Armed Forces, the war began to take a protracted character. On May 27, a meeting was held in Moscow between Boris Yeltsin and Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, which resulted in the signing of an Agreement on a ceasefire, hostilities and measures to resolve the armed conflict in Chechnya. On June 10 in Nazran, during the next round of negotiations, an agreement was reached on the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of Chechnya (with the exception of two brigades), the disarmament of separatist groups, and the holding of free democratic elections. Already on July 1, the Chechen side stated that the Russian command did not comply with the terms of the truce, since it did not eliminate the checkpoints, which was provided for by the Nazran agreements. A few days later, the Chechen side threatened to withdraw from the negotiation process. On July 8, General V. Tikhomirov demanded from Yandarbiev “explanations on all the facts” and the return of all prisoners held by the Chechen side by 18:00, and the next day the Russian army resumed military operations. On August 6, Chechen militants attacked Grozny. The Russian garrison under the command of General Pulikovsky, despite significant superiority in manpower and equipment, was unable to hold the city. At the same time, on August 6, the militants took control of the cities of Argun and Gudermes. On August 31, Chairman of the Russian Security Council Alexander Lebed and Chief of the Main Staff of the Armed Forces of the ChRI Aslan Maskhadov signed armistice agreements in Khasavyurt, ending the First Chechen War. The result of the agreement was the withdrawal of federal troops from Chechnya, and the question of the status of the republic was postponed until December 31, 2001.

Interwar crisis in Chechnya

Main article: Interwar crisis in Chechnya

After the death of Dzhokhar Dudayev, the influence of Islamic extremists began to increase in Chechnya, the idea of ​​​​creating an independent national republic was replaced by the construction of an Islamic state in the North Caucasus. Supporters of Wahhabism began to rapidly gain positions in the republic, which was facilitated by the politics of... O. President of the ChRI Zelimkhan Yandarbiev. Sharia courts began to operate throughout Chechnya, and the Sharia Guard was created. Camps were created on the territory of the republic to train militants - young people from Muslim regions of Russia. Criminal structures made business with impunity on mass kidnappings, hostage-taking, theft of oil from oil pipelines and oil wells, terrorist attacks and attacks on neighboring Russian regions.

On January 27, 1997, presidential elections were held in Chechnya, won by Aslan Maskhadov, who received 59.1% of the votes. In the face of intensifying contradictions between the field commanders, who have secured various territories, and the central government, Maskhadov is making attempts to achieve a compromise by including the most recognized opposition leaders in the government. In January 1998, field commander Shamil Basayev was appointed acting. O. Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers. Other field commanders went into open confrontation with the president. On June 20, field commander Salman Raduev spoke on local television, calling on Chechens to take active action against the leadership of the republic. The next day, his supporters attempted to seize television and the mayor's office, but the approaching government special forces clashed with them, as a result of which the director of the national security service, Lecha Khultygov, and the chief of staff of the Raduev detachment, Vakha Jafarov, were killed. On June 24, Maskhadov declared a state of emergency in Chechnya. On July 13, in Gudermes, a clash occurred between soldiers of the Islamic special forces regiment of field commander Arbi Barayev and the national guard battalion Sulim Yamadayev, and on July 15, Barayev’s armed group attacked the barracks of the Gudermes national guard battalion. On July 20, President Maskhadov, by decree, announced the disbandment of the Sharia Guard and the Islamic Regiment.

On September 23, Shamil Basayev and Salman Raduev demanded the resignation of the president, accusing him of usurping power, violating the Constitution and Sharia law, as well as pro-Russian foreign policy. In response, Maskhadov dismissed the government of Shamil Basayev. As a result of the standoff, the president lost control of most of the territory outside Grozny. On February 3, 1999, Maskhadov announced the introduction of “Sharia rule in Chechnya” in full" Parliament was deprived of legislative rights, and the Shura, the Islamic Council, became the highest legislative body. In response to this, Basayev announced the creation of an “opposition Shura,” which he himself headed. While there was a confrontation between supporters of Aslan Maskhadov’s course (“moderates”) and “radicals” (the opposition Shura led by Shamil Basayev), the situation on the Chechen-Dagestan border worsened. The leader of the Dagestani Wahhabis, Bagauddin Kebedov, who received refuge in Chechnya, with the material support of Chechen field commanders, created and armed autonomous military formations. In June-August, the first clashes occurred between the militants who had penetrated into Dagestan and the Dagestan police, and on August 7, the united Chechen-Dagestan group of Wahhabis under the command of Shamil Basayev and the Arab mercenary Khattab from Chechnya invaded the territory of Dagestan. On August 15, Maskhadov declared a state of emergency in Chechnya, and the next day, at a rally in Grozny, he accused the Russian leadership of destabilizing the situation in Dagestan.

Second Chechen War

Chechen Republic from ancient centuries to the 16th century.

In the early Middle Ages (IV-XII centuries), the Chechens had to repel the expansion of Rome, Sasanian Iran, the Arab Caliphate, and the Khazar Kaganate.
Part of their territory was subject to invasions by the Iranian-speaking Alans (ancestors of the Ossetians) in the 9th-12th centuries, the Golden Horde in the 13th-15th centuries, and later by the Russian Empire, which, in the struggle for dominance in the North Caucasus, which began in the 16th century, managed oust Ottoman and Persian rivals.
Translated from the Chechen language, the word “Vainakh” means “our people”. Already in the early Middle Ages, the Vainakh tribes, together with related peoples of the Caucasus, attempted to create statehood.
The ancestors of the Chechens took an active part in the political life of medieval Georgia, Serir, Alania, and Khazaria.
The constant threat posed by external enemies contributed to the specific process of consolidation of Chechen society.
The Vainakhs have preserved the institutions of tribal, military democracy, and communal democratic forms of governing the country longer than other peoples of the Caucasus.
The free societies of Chechnya did not tolerate individual power or dictatorship over themselves; the Chechens had a negative attitude towards admiration for their superiors, especially towards their exaltation.
The prevalence of honor, justice, equality, and collectivism is a feature of the Chechen mentality.
Russia came into direct contact with the North Caucasus after the capture of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates. Already in 1560, the first military campaign of governor Ivan Cheremisov to the North-Eastern Caucasus took place, Russian fortifications began to be built here.

Chechen Republic in the XVIII-XIX centuries.

Since the 18th century. Russian policy takes on a clearly defined character of colonial expansion. The seizure of land and the construction of a line of military fortifications and Cossack villages posed a barrier to the resettlement of the surplus population from the Chechen mountains to the plain.
In addition, the very nature of the economy of Chechen societies required the presence of free borders around them, open to wide exchange of goods.
Chechnya has traditionally exported grain, livestock products and other goods, and restrictions imposed by Russian authorities have undermined Chechen trade. Thus, in the second half of the 18th century, Russian-Chechen relations worsened.
The war, which lasted for several decades, produced such well-known leaders in Chechnya as the first imam of the Caucasian mountaineers, Sheikh Mansur (who led the movement from 1785 to 1791), the military leader and political figure Beibulat Taimiev (the peak of his activity was in the 20s of the 19th century) c.), naibs of Imam Shamil Shuaib-mullah, Talkhig and others. The state created by Shamil - the Imamate - united the most different peoples North-Eastern Caucasus, but its main economic and military base was Chechnya. It was this circumstance that became the reason that, starting from the 40s, the main efforts of the Russian Caucasian army were aimed at the complete ruin of Chechnya.
The war in the northeast Caucasus, extremely bloody for both sides, ended in 1859 with the capture of Shamil. The Chechens, in large part, were pushed back from the plains to the mountains, the population was reduced by half, and many moved to Turkey. The long war with the Christian power strengthened the influence of the Islamic clergy in Chechen society.
Landlessness and difficult living conditions were the cause of repeated unrest in Chechnya in the second half of the 19th century, the largest of which was the uprising of 1876-1878 led by Alibek-haji of Zandak. In subsequent years, the abrek movement became the main form of protest against colonial rule.
At the same time, new social strata are appearing in Chechnya, which arose as a result of gradual involvement in the all-Russian capitalist market. Already at the beginning of the 20th century. Chechen oil industrialists are very visible among Russian and foreign companies operating in the rapidly growing Grozny oil-industrial region.
Chechen officers, including generals, appear in the Russian army, and national regiments, staffed mainly by volunteers, have proven themselves in a number of wars, starting with Russian-Turkish war 1876-1878 and ending with the First World War.

Chechen Republic in the first half of the 20th century.

At the beginning of the revolutionary events of 1917, the overwhelming majority of Chechens supported the Bolsheviks, who promised the mountaineers the return of lands on the plain and broad internal autonomy after the end of the war. But as soon as questions about the alienation of land in favor of the highlanders were put on the agenda, the mood of the Cossack environment towards the Soviet regime became sharply hostile. The decisions of local Soviet authorities provoked a civil war on the Terek, which broke out in the summer of 1918.
On June 23, 1918, the Terek Cossacks rebelled against Soviet power. Not only the rich, but also the working layers of the Cossacks took part in it, who defended their property - the land, their way of life.
In August 1918, the Chechen Red Army was formed in Grozny under the command of Aslanbek Sheripov. There were about three thousand people in its ranks. It was thanks to the actions of the Chechen formations that the White Cossacks failed to capture the most important economic center of the North Caucasus - the city of Grozny.
In 1922, the Chechen Autonomous Okrug was formed, in 1924 - the Ingush Autonomous Okrug, which in 1934 were united into the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Okrug (from 1936 - ASSR). However, the national autonomy promised to the Chechens under the established totalitarian regime turned out to be a fiction, and forced collectivization, accompanied by mass repressions, led to a number of anti-Soviet armed uprisings in Chechnya.

Chechen Republic during the Great Patriotic War

1941 began the Great Patriotic War. Chechnya, which by that time had become the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, did not fall under occupation. Within a few months of 1941 alone, almost 30 thousand Chechens and Ingush went to the front. Chechens and Ingush fought on the fronts, took part in the partisan struggle against the fascist invaders, the oil industry of the region, providing the front with gasoline and lubricants, worked with great effort, agriculture was able to remain at pre-war levels and supplied the army with food. In the fall of 1942, Nazi troops invaded the western part of the republic, but already in January 1943 the territory of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was liberated.
Meanwhile, in the rear, the Beria-Stalin clique was preparing reprisals against the people.
On February 23, 1944, 200 thousand soldiers and officers of the NKVD and the Red Army carried out a military operation, as a result of which over half a million Chechens and Ingush were loaded into freight cars, which delivered the unfortunate captives to Kazakhstan and Central Asia after a month of winter travel. Cold, hunger, and typhus doomed the Nakh peoples to extinction. This crime of the Soviet state is legal definition- genocide. But unlike the fascist genocide, the Stalinist-Soviet genocide was not condemned, its perpetrators were not punished, and the consequences have not yet been eliminated.
In 1944, the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was liquidated and the population was forcibly evicted.

Chechen Republic in the post-war years

Checheno-Ingush autonomy was restored in February 1957. But the return to their homes did not at all mean the restoration of the traditional way of life. In addition, many were never able to return to their previous place of residence: residents of the high mountain areas were forcibly resettled either in Cossack villages or in old and new Chechen villages on the plain.
The Chechens found themselves, for the most part, excluded from the economic life of the restored republic: hidden unemployment covered up to 40% of working-age Chechens. The collapse of the Soviet economic system in the early 90s, he deprived most of Chechen society of their means of livelihood, which predetermined the explosive and radical nature of the “Chechen crisis.”
In September 1991, the National Congress of the Chechen People declared the state sovereignty of the Chechen Republic. In 1992, the post of president was established. These acts were not recognized by the Russian Federation.
In December 1994 - August 1996. hostilities took place between Chechen armed formations and federal troops brought into Chechnya to restore constitutional order.
In 1994, a new Chechen name was taken for the republic - Ichkeria, after the name of the mountainous part (its inhabitants have long been called Ichkerians).

On February 23, 1944, Operation Lentil began: the deportation of Chechens and Ingush “for aiding the fascist occupiers” from the territory of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (CIASSR) to Central Asia and Kazakhstan. The Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was abolished, from its composition 4 districts were transferred to the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, one district was transferred to the North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Grozny region was created on the rest of the territory.

Operation () was carried out under the leadership of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Lavrentiy Beria. The eviction of the Chechen-Ingush population was carried out without any problems. During the operation, 780 people were killed, 2,016 “anti-Soviet elements” were arrested, and more than 20 thousand firearms were confiscated. 180 trains were sent to Central Asia with a total of 493,269 people resettled. The operation was carried out very effectively and showed the high skill of the administrative apparatus of the Soviet Union.

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Lavrentiy Beria. He approved the “Instructions on the procedure for the eviction of Chechens and Ingush”, arrived in Grozny and personally supervised the operation

Prerequisites and reasons for punishment

It must be said that the situation in Chechnya was already difficult during the revolution and the Civil War. During this period, the Caucasus was engulfed in real bloody turmoil. The highlanders had the opportunity to return to their usual “craft” - robbery and banditry. The Whites and the Reds, busy at war with each other, could not restore order during this period.

The situation was also difficult in the 1920s. So, " Brief overview banditry in the North Caucasus Military District, as of September 1, 1925” reports: “The Chechen Autonomous Region is a hotbed of criminal banditry... For the most part, Chechens are prone to banditry as the main source of easy money, which is facilitated by the large availability of weapons. Nagorno-Chechnya is a refuge for the most inveterate enemies of Soviet power. Cases of banditry by Chechen gangs cannot be accurately accounted for” (Pykhalov I. Why Stalin evicted peoples. M., 2013).

In other documents, similar characteristics can be found. “A brief overview and characteristics of existing banditry on the territory of the IX Rifle Corps” dated May 28, 1924: “The Ingush and Chechens are most prone to banditry. They are less loyal to the Soviet regime; a highly developed national feeling, brought up by religious teachings, is especially hostile to Russians - infidels.” The authors of the review made correct conclusions. In their opinion, the main reasons for the development of banditry among the highlanders were: 1) cultural backwardness; 2) the semi-wild morals of the mountain people, prone to easy money; 3) economic backwardness of the mountain economy; 4) lack of firm local authority and political and educational work.

Information review by the headquarters of the IX Rifle Corps on the development of banditry in the areas where the corps was located in the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Okrug, Mountain SSR, Chechen Autonomous Okrug, Grozny Governorate and Dagestan SSR in July-September 1924: “Chechnya is a bouquet of banditry. The number of leaders and fickle gangs of bandits committing robberies, mainly in the territories neighboring the Chechen region, cannot be counted.”

To fight the bandits, a local military operation was carried out in 1923, but it was not enough. The situation became especially aggravated in 1925. It should be noted that banditry in Chechnya during this period was purely criminal in nature; there was no ideological confrontation under the slogans of radical Islam. The victims of the robbers were the Russian population from the regions adjacent to Chechnya. Dagestanis also suffered from Chechen bandits. But, unlike the Russian Cossacks, they have weapons Soviet power did not take it away, so the Dagestanis could fight off predatory raids. According to the old tradition, Georgia was also subjected to predatory raids.

In August 1925, a new large-scale operation began to clear Chechnya of gangs and confiscate weapons from local population. Accustomed to the weakness and softness of the Soviet authorities, the Chechens initially prepared for stubborn resistance. However, this time the authorities acted harshly and decisively. The Chechens were shocked when numerous military columns, reinforced with artillery and aviation, entered their territory. The operation took place according to standard scheme: hostile villages surrounded and demanded that the bandits and weapons be handed over. If they refused, they began machine-gun and artillery shelling and even air strikes. Sappers destroyed the houses of gang leaders. This caused a change in the mood of the local population. They no longer thought about resistance, even passive resistance. Village residents handed over their weapons. Therefore, casualties among the population were small. The operation was successful: all the major bandit leaders were captured (in total 309 bandits were arrested, 105 of them were shot), large number weapons, ammunition - more than 25 thousand rifles, more than 4 thousand revolvers, etc. (It should be noted that now all these bandits have been rehabilitated as “innocent victims” of Stalinism.) For some time, Chechnya was calmed down. Residents continued to hand over weapons after the operation was completed. However, the success of the 1925 operation was not consolidated. Obvious Russophobes with connections abroad continued to occupy key positions in the country: Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, etc. The policy of combating “Great Russian chauvinism” continued until the early 1930s. Suffice it to say that Malaya Soviet encyclopedia praised the “exploits” of Shamil. The Cossacks were deprived of their rights, the “rehabilitation” of the Cossacks began only in 1936, when Stalin was able to push the main groups of “Trotskyist internationalists” (then “fifth column” in the USSR) away from power.

In 1929, such purely Russian territories as the Sunzhensky district and the city of Grozny were included in Chechnya. According to the 1926 census, only about 2% of Chechens lived in Grozny; the rest of the city's residents were Russians, Little Russians and Armenians. There were even more Tatars in the city than Chechens - 3.2%.

Therefore, it is not surprising that as soon as pockets of instability arose in the USSR associated with “excesses” during collectivization (the local apparatus that carried out collectivization largely consisted of “Trotskyists” and deliberately incited unrest in the USSR), in 1929 a riot broke out in Chechnya. major uprising. The report of the commander of the North Caucasian Military District, Belov, and a member of the RVS of the district, Kozhevnikov, emphasized that they had to deal not with individual bandit uprisings, but with “a direct uprising of entire regions, in which almost the entire population took part in an armed uprising.” The uprising was suppressed. However, its roots were not eliminated, so in 1930 another military operation was carried out.

Chechnya did not calm down in the 1930s either. In the spring of 1932, a new major uprising broke out. The gangs were able to block several garrisons, but were soon defeated and dispersed by the approaching units of the Red Army. The next escalation of the situation occurred in 1937. From this it was necessary to intensify the fight against bandit and terrorist groups in the republic. In the period from October 1937 to February 1939, 80 groups with a total number of 400 people operated in the republic, and more than 1 thousand bandits were illegal. As a result of the measures taken, the gangster underground was cleared out. More than 1 thousand people were arrested and convicted, 5 machine guns, more than 8 thousand rifles and other weapons and ammunition were confiscated.

However, the calm did not last long. In 1940, banditry in the republic intensified again. Most of the gangs were replenished by runaway criminals and deserters of the Red Army. Thus, from the autumn of 1939 to the beginning of February 1941, 797 Chechens and Ingush deserted from the Red Army.

During the Great Patriotic War, Chechens and Ingush “distinguished themselves” by mass desertion and evasion of military service. Thus, in a memorandum addressed to People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs Lavrentiy Beria “On the situation in the regions of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic”, compiled by Deputy People’s Commissar of State Security, Commissar of State Security of the 2nd Rank Bogdan Kobulov dated November 9, 1943, it was reported that in January 1942, during recruitment the national division managed to recruit only 50% of its personnel. Due to the persistent reluctance of the indigenous inhabitants of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to go to the front, the formation of the Chechen-Ingush cavalry division was never completed; those who were able to be drafted were sent to reserve and training units.

In March 1942, out of 14,576 people, 13,560 people deserted and evaded service. They went underground, went to the mountains, and joined gangs. In 1943, out of 3 thousand volunteers, 1870 people deserted. To understand the enormity of this figure, it is worth saying that while in the ranks of the Red Army, 2.3 thousand Chechens and Ingush died or went missing during the war.

At the same time, during the war, banditry flourished in the republic. From June 22, 1941 to December 31, 1944, 421 gang incidents were recorded on the territory of the republic: attacks and murders on soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, NKVD, Soviet and party workers, attacks and robberies of state and collective farm institutions and enterprises, murders and robberies of ordinary citizens. In terms of the number of attacks and murders of commanders and soldiers of the Red Army, organs and troops of the NKVD, the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic during this period was slightly inferior only to Lithuania.

During the same period of time, 116 people were killed as a result of bandit activities, and 147 people died during operations against bandits. At the same time, 197 gangs were liquidated, 657 bandits were killed, 2,762 were captured, 1,113 turned themselves in. Thus, in the ranks of the gangs that fought against Soviet power, many more Chechens and Ingush died and were arrested than those who died and went missing at the front. We must also not forget the fact that in the conditions of the North Caucasus, banditry was impossible without the support of the local population. Therefore, a significant part of the republic’s population was the bandits’ accomplices.

What’s interesting is that during this period the Soviet government had to fight mainly with young gangsters - graduates Soviet schools and universities, Komsomol members and communists. By this time, the OGPU-NKVD had already knocked out the old cadres of bandits raised in the Russian Empire. However, young people followed in the footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers. One of these “young wolves” was Khasan Israilov (Terloev). In 1929, he joined the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and entered the Komvuz in Rostov-on-Don. In 1933 he was sent to Moscow to the Communist University of the Toilers of the East. Stalin. After the start of the Great Patriotic War, Israilov, together with his brother Hussein, went underground and began preparing a general uprising. The start of the uprising was planned for 1941, but then it was postponed to the beginning of 1942. However, due to the low level of discipline and lack of good communication between rebel cells, the situation got out of control. A coordinated, simultaneous uprising did not take place, resulting in protests by individual groups. Scattered protests were suppressed.

Israilov did not give up and began work on party building. The main link of the organization were aulkoms or troki-fives, which carried out anti-Soviet and rebel work on the ground. On January 28, 1942, Israilov held an illegal meeting in Ordzhonikidze (Vladikavkaz), which established the “Special Party of Caucasian Brothers.” The program provided for the establishment of a “free fraternal Federative Republic of the states of the fraternal peoples of the Caucasus under the mandate of German Empire" The party had to fight “Bolshevik barbarism and Russian despotism.” Later, in order to adapt to the Nazis, Israilov transformed the OPKB into the “National Socialist Party of the Caucasian Brothers.” Its number reached 5 thousand people.

In addition, in November 1941, the “Checheno-Mountain National Socialist Underground Organization” was established. Its leader was Mairbek Sheripov. The son of a tsarist officer and the younger brother of the Civil War hero Aslanbek Sheripov, Mairbek joined the CPSU (b), and in 1938 he was arrested for anti-Soviet propaganda, but in 1939 he was released for lack of proof of guilt. The Chairman of the Forest Industry Council of the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in the fall of 1941 went underground and began to unite around himself the leaders of gangs, deserters, fugitive criminals, and also established connections with religious and teip leaders, persuading them to revolt. Sheripov's main base was in the Shatoevsky district. After the front approached the borders of the republic, in August 1942, Sheripov raised a major uprising in the Itum-Kalinsky and Shatoevsky regions. On August 20, the rebels surrounded Itum-Kale, but were unable to take the village. A small garrison repelled the attacks of the bandits, and arriving reinforcements put the Chechens to flight. Sheripov tried to connect with Israilov, but was destroyed during a special operation.

In October 1942, the uprising was raised by the German non-commissioned officer Reckert, who was sent to Chechnya in August at the head of a reconnaissance and sabotage group. He established contact with Sahabov’s gang and, with the assistance of religious authorities, recruited up to 400 people. The detachment was supplied with weapons dropped from German aircraft. The saboteurs were able to raise some villages in the Vedensky and Cheberloyevsky districts to revolt. However, the authorities quickly suppressed this protest. Reckert was destroyed.

The mountaineers also made a feasible contribution to the military power of the Third Reich. In September 1942, the first three battalions of the North Caucasus Legion were formed in Poland - the 800th, 801st and 802nd. At the same time, the 800th battalion had a Chechen company, and the 802nd battalion had two companies. The number of Chechens in the German armed forces was small due to mass desertion and evasion of service; the number of Chechens and Ingush in the ranks of the Red Army was small. Therefore, there were few captured highlanders. Already at the end of 1942, the 800th and 802nd battalions were sent to the front.

Almost simultaneously, the 842nd, 843rd and 844th battalions of the North Caucasus Legion begin to be formed in Mirgorod, Poltava region. In February 1943, they were sent to the Leningrad region to fight the partisans. At the same time, in the town of Wesola, battalion 836-A was formed (the letter “A” meant “Einsatz” - destruction). The battalion specialized in punitive operations and left a long bloody trail in the Kirovograd, Kyiv regions and France. In May 1945, the remnants of the battalion were captured by the British in Denmark. The highlanders asked for British citizenship, but were extradited to the USSR. Of the 214 Chechens of the 1st company, 97 were prosecuted.

As the front approached the borders of the republic, the Germans began sending scouts and saboteurs into the territory of the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, who were supposed to prepare the ground for a large-scale uprising, commit sabotage and terrorist attacks. However, only Recker's group achieved the greatest success. The security officers and the army acted quickly and prevented the uprising. In particular, failure befell the group of Oberleutnant Lange, abandoned on August 25, 1942. Pursued by Soviet units, the chief lieutenant with the remnants of his group, with the help of Chechen guides, was forced to cross the front line back to their own. In total, the Germans abandoned 77 saboteurs. Of these, 43 were neutralized.

The Germans even prepared “the governor of the North Caucasus - Osman Gube (Osman Saidnurov). Osman in Civil War fought on the side of the whites, deserted, lived in Georgia, after its liberation by the Red Army, fled to Turkey. After the start of the war, he completed a course at a German intelligence school and entered the service of naval intelligence. To increase his authority among the local population, Guba-Saidnurov was even allowed to call himself a colonel. However, plans to incite an uprising among the highlanders failed - the security officers captured the Gube group. During the interrogation, the failed Caucasian Gauleiter made a very interesting confession: “Among the Chechens and Ingush, I easily found the right people who were ready to betray, go over to the side of the Germans and serve them.”

Another interesting fact is that the local leadership of internal affairs actually sabotaged the fight against banditry and went over to the side of the bandits. The head of the NKVD of the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, state security captain Sultan Albogachiev, an Ingush by nationality, sabotaged the activities of local security officers. Albogachiev acted in conjunction with Terloev (Israilov). Many other local security officers also turned out to be traitors. Thus, the traitors were the heads of the regional departments of the NKVD: Staro-Yurtovsky - Elmurzaev, Sharoevsky - Pashayev, Itum-Kalinsky - Mezhiev, Shatoevsky - Isaev, etc. Many traitors turned out to be among the rank and file of the NKVD.

There was a similar picture among the local party leadership. Thus, when the front approached, 16 leaders of district committees of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (the republic had 24 districts and the city of Grozny), 8 senior officials of district executive committees, 14 chairmen of collective farms and other party members quit their jobs and fled. Apparently, those who remained in their places were simply Russian or “Russian-speaking.” The party organization of the Itum-Kalinsky district became especially “famous”, where the entire leadership team became bandits.

As a result, during the years of the most difficult war, the republic was engulfed in an epidemic of mass betrayal. The Chechens and Ingush fully deserved their punishment. Moreover, it should be noted that according to wartime laws, Moscow could punish many thousands of bandits, traitors and their accomplices much more harshly, up to and including execution and long prison sentences. imprisonment. However, we are once again We see an example of humanism and generosity of the Stalinist government. Chechens and Ingush were evicted and sent for re-education.

Psychological feature of the problem

Many current citizens of the Western world, and indeed of Russia, are not able to understand how an entire people can be punished for the crimes of its individual groups and “individual representatives.” They proceed from their ideas about the world around them, when they are surrounded as a whole by the world of individualists, atomized individuals.

The Western world, and then Russia, after industrialization, lost the structure of a traditional society (essentially peasant, agrarian), connected by communal ties and mutual responsibility. The West and Russia have moved to a different level of civilization, when each person is responsible only for his crimes. However, at the same time, Europeans forget that there are still areas and regions on the planet where traditional, tribal relations prevail. Such a region is both the Caucasus and Central Asia.

There people are connected by family (including large patriarchal families), clan, tribal relations, as well as fraternity. Accordingly, if a person commits a crime, his local community is responsible and punished. In particular, this is why rape of local girls is rare in the North Caucasus; relatives, with the support of the local community, will simply “bury” the criminal. The police will turn a blind eye to this, since they consist of “their people.” However, this does not mean that “strangers” girls who are not behind strong family, community, safe. “Dzhigits” can behave freely on “foreign” territory.

Mutual responsibility is bright distinguishing feature any society at the tribal stage of development. In such a society there is no case that the entire local population does not know about. There is no hiding bandit, no killer whose location the locals do not know. The entire clan and generation bears responsibility for the criminal. Such views are very strong and persist from century to century.

Such relationships were characteristic of the era of tribal relations. During the period of the Russian Empire, and even more strongly during the years of the Soviet Union, the Caucasus and Central Asia were subject to strong civilizational and cultural influence of the Russian people. Urban culture, industrialization, powerful system upbringing and education had a strong influence on these regions; they began the transition from tribal relations to a more advanced urban industrial society. If the USSR had existed for a few more decades, the transition would have been completed. However, the USSR was destroyed. The North Caucasus and Central Asia did not have time to complete the transition to a more developed society, and a rapid rollback into the past began, the archaization of social relations. All this happened against the backdrop of degradation of the education system, upbringing, science and national economy. As a result, we got entire generations of “new barbarians”, welded together by family and tribal traditions, the waves of which are gradually sweeping Russian cities. Moreover, they merge with the local “new barbarians”, who are produced by the degraded (deliberately simplified) Russian education system.

Thus, it is necessary to clearly understand the fact that Stalin, who knew perfectly well the peculiarities of the ethnopsychology of mountain peoples with its principles of mutual responsibility and collective responsibility of the entire clan for a crime committed by its member, since he himself was from the Caucasus, completely correctly punished an entire people (several peoples). If local society had not supported Hitler’s collaborators and bandits, the first collaborators would have been crushed by the local residents themselves (or handed over to the authorities). However, the Chechens deliberately entered into conflict with the authorities, and Moscow punished them. Everything is reasonable and logical - crimes must be answered. The decision was fair and even mild in some respects.

The mountaineers themselves then knew why they were being punished. So, the following rumors circulated among the local population at that time: “The Soviet government will not forgive us. We don’t serve in the army, we don’t work on collective farms, we don’t help the front, we don’t pay taxes, banditry is all around. The Karachais were evicted for this - and we will be evicted.”

1957 . The return of Chechens to their homeland.

Life in the republic before the collapse of the USSR

Thirteen years have passed since the tragic events of February 1944. The cult of J.V. Stalin was debunked by N.S. Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the CPSU. The eviction of many peoples from their homeland was considered wrong, and in 1957 the USSR Government restored their right to live where they had lived for centuries. This Resolution was perceived by all the offended, including Chechens and Ingush, as recognition of the mistake that was made by the country's leadership, and brought them great joy. The return home has begun. But this fact was overshadowed by a tragic event in Grozny. In the village named after S.M. Kirov, one of the Chechens who returned home killed a demobilized Russian sailor. His funeral turned into a demonstration. The funeral procession, moving on foot behind the coffin, turned into a huge column, which, stopping at the Regional Party Committee on the square. V.I. Lenin, started a rally demanding that the Chechens be prohibited from returning back. With great difficulty and the efforts of NKVD workers and active party members, the spontaneous meeting was suppressed, and the procession moved to the cemetery. But this fact did not remain without a trace and remained in the memory of the city residents for a long time.

The deportation of thirteen peoples must be recognized as unjust. But, taking a closer look at the Chechens who returned to their homeland in 1957, we can conclude that they were already different people. Living separately in a foreign land, among Russians, Germans, and other peoples,
Chechens were forced to adopt the way and style of life that those around them lived. But it was very different from life in the mountains, and therefore they, like sponges, absorbed all the most useful things. Chechens and Ingush learned to live and think in Russian, studied in Russian schools, technical schools, institutes, worked in serious industrial enterprises, some began to occupy leadership positions. Many became friends with Russian families, adopted housekeeping methods, learned how to decorate an apartment’s interior in Russian, and much, much more.

What was it like before the eviction? I remember the year 1937. May 1st. All the neighbors of our barracks gathered at the apartment of one of the workers to celebrate this holiday. By some chance, an elderly Chechen was among the guests. For work company the table was set decently for those times, along with vodka and wine, they were sure to serve fried and boiled potatoes, and with these dishes - herring, pickles and tomatoes from barrels, meat (back then everyone kept various livestock), and, of course: onions, garlic, parsley, dill and other herbs. Bread in those days was usually black; there was not enough money for white. They ate, drank, sang songs. In general, we celebrated International Workers' Day. If that modern Chechen, brought up in exile, would have seen and scolded the woman with the “Ryazan muzzle”, like a guest of a workers’ company during the meal, he began to slowly drag from the table with his hand sauerkraut and put it in your pocket. He probably liked her very much, and he decided to please his relatives at home, or maybe he wanted to show them what Russians eat, or, perhaps, out of habit, he decided to scrabble for something (to steal, that is). His tablemates noticed his actions, but pretended that nothing was happening. When the owner of the apartment noticed that the guest had put a fork in his pocket, his nerves could not stand it, and he screamed: “Eh...! Eh...! When you carried the cabbage, I endured it, but the fork! I don’t have enough of them myself.” The unlucky thief had to part with his loot. They allowed him to take away the cabbage so that he could show what the Russians were “eating.” Before the above example from the past, we were talking about what the Chechens endured from life outside their homeland.

Let's continue. Once, around the seventies, I quite accidentally got into a conversation in the parking lot of the Grozny department store with a Chechen standing next to me. During our conversation, he unexpectedly declared: “Thank you to Stalin. He at least taught us how to live there, in Kazakhstan.” He did not develop his idea further, but I understood him. He probably wanted to say exactly what I wrote above.

From the above, we can conclude that the Chechens and Ingush returned from exile more adapted to life in society with other peoples. In Grozny, in the early seventies, a building was finally built and the Checheno-Ingush state university them. L.N. Tolstoy, which enrolled many young people of indigenous nationality. If to the forge of personnel in the oil industry, Groznensky oil institute, basically only Russian-speaking students enrolled, then after 1957, the number of students gradually began to include Chechens and Ingush who returned to their homeland.

Realizing the advantages of oil workers over other professions, local Chechen residents flocked to oil refineries and drilling rigs. This is how a layer of Chechen oil workers appeared, albeit a small one. But there were still qualified Russian personnel in the leadership of the oil industry of the republic. This began to irritate educated Chechens. I already wrote about this above. By 1991, there was a redistribution of personnel in both light industry and trade. Over thirty-four years, the workforce in trade has completely changed. Now almost 90% of Chechen women stood behind store counters. Quite a lot of jobs at construction sites, in the oil, oil refining, metallurgical and especially in light industry were occupied by Chechens and Ingush. Many residents of nearby villages and villages began to travel to work in the city by bus. Another part of the Chechens, having not found work in the city and in the village, created construction teams, mainly from relatives, and began to travel outside the republic to earn money (“for the sabbath,” as they called it). Going out for the whole summer, brigades of cohab workers entered into agreements with collective farms, state farms and other enterprises for the construction of cowsheds, schools, kindergartens, housing and other facilities. Having finished the work and received the money they earned, the builders returned home for the winter to repeat it all over again the next year. And so on from year to year. The third group of local residents became speculators (as they say now - “shuttles”). The Grozny-Moscow train contributed very well to this. From Moscow, future shuttles brought modern things for that time, televisions, carpets and other shortages. Chechens in Grozny have become trendsetters.

I won’t look far for an example. From 1966 to 1995, my wife worked at the Grozny Department Store as a women's dress cutter and was friends with many Chechen saleswomen. One day she told me the contents of a conversation with a young saleswoman. The girl told her: “Oh, Aunt Emma, ​​you don’t know us Chechens. For example, if my friend bought a dress I liked, then I won’t eat for a week or two, but I will definitely buy the same one for myself.” You see, her pride does not allow her to look worse than her friend. This is the Chechen character.

By the time of collapse Soviet Union in Chechnya a large layer of Chechens has long appeared in all regions production activities, there were engineers, and technicians, and scientists, teachers, and doctors, in short, all the professions necessary to ensure the normal functioning of enterprises and institutions appeared. In the oil industry, site foremen and heads of installations and workshops appeared. In oil production, especially in the Directorates of Malgobekneft, Goragorskneft, Starogrozneft, Oktyabrneft, the number of ordinary Chechen drillers grew much faster than management personnel, and this is the ultimate dream of many.

Recently, at the beginning of 2006, President Putin, in a conversation with a group of leaders from Chechnya, asked them the question: “Who could given time become President of the Republic? On asked question The President responded to Ramzan Kadyrov: “If you go out into the street now and ask this question to any Chechen you meet, you will hear the only answer: “I.” Here is a portrait of a real Chechen. They really love leadership positions.

Once, in 1976, when recruiting personnel for the position of The head of the security, consisting of ten people, was hired as a Chechen. He dressed to the nines, walked around the circus, no, he didn’t walk, but moved sedately, slowly, looking around “his possessions” with a master’s gaze. Sometimes he was even confused with the director of the circus himself, by the way, also a Chechen, Yunus Yakubovich Gazaloev, who later became an Honored Worker of Culture of the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The number of Chechens at the Krasny Molot plant also grew. The plant was expanding, and there was no longer an influx of Russians, as in the old days. At this point I would like to note that it was during that period that a young Chechen girl, Sazhi Umalatova, appeared at the plant. Having started working as a welder's apprentice, she rose to become a foreman. She was elected as a deputy Supreme Soviet of the USSR. And what a deputy she became! Probably, few people remember that she was the first to criticize the policy pursued by M.S. Gorbachev in the field of state restructuring. At that time, few would have dared to criticize the head of state. Now Sazhi is the leader of one of the socialist parties.

A large cement plant was built in Chiri-Yurt, which was fully serviced by workers from this and surrounding villages. The Republic has risen to its feet. The Grozny proletariat received the first Order of the Red Banner in 1924 for the restoration of the oil industry, and in 1931, for the great successes achieved by the selfless labor of workers, the Grozny oil industry was awarded the Order of Lenin, and in 1942 the second field, Malgobekneft, was awarded the same order. And in 1971, the NGNPZ named after him was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. Anisimov, and the Order of the October Revolution to Starogrozneft and the Red Hammer plant. The entire Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1965, in 1972 - the Order of the October Revolution and the Order of Friendship of Peoples, and in 1982, it was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. It turns out that during the years of Soviet power, the peoples living in the republic and devoting all their strength to ensuring its prosperity were awarded ten orders in total. This is even more than the famous Komsomol, which was awarded only six.

“Friendship of peoples is forever flowering tree, the roots of which go far into the past, but its crown blossomed after the Aurora salvo, as the Chechen poet Magomet Sulayev said.

The following lines were written by the Ingush poet Salman Oziev:

“And the shoots of lasting friendship grow stronger

From year to year, from century to century

In a country where brother is people to people

And to man is man.”

For thirty-four years, from 1957 to 1991, the republic changed beyond recognition for the better. In addition to Grozny, four more cities appeared: Malgobek, Gudermes, Argun, Nazran. A little more time would have passed and Shali, Achkhoy Martan, and Urus Martan would also have turned into cities. Based on the number of residents, they can already claim this status. Grozny became the third largest city in the Caucasus after Rostov and Krasnodar. It turned into a large industrial and cultural center. From a dirty, uncomfortable town, in which in 1913 the only Vokzalnaya (Komsomolskaya) street was paved with cobblestones, the city turned into blooming garden, where not just trees, but also fruit trees grew on the streets, there were very few unpaved streets left. Until 1991, the city could be proudly shown to all visitors. Not all TV viewers notice that now, when it comes to Grozny, they never show a panorama of the streets, the city as a whole, but only individual houses, with difficulty restored after bombing and shelling by the Russians. Because it’s a shame to show what the builder of the new “capitalist society” has done. I don’t even want to remind him of his name once again.

Here I will repeat myself again and say: yes, I am a native resident of Grozny and remember it with nostalgia. Well, how can you forget that before the collapse of the country, you could move freely around the republic without fear that someone would take you prisoner and turn you into a slave. On Sundays, many residents of the republic flocked to spontaneous clothing markets in Grozny, Shaly, Urus-Martan, Kurchaloy and other settlements. Everything from the latest cars to antiques was sold there, and the sellers and buyers were people of all nationalities.

Without fear, you could go into the forest to pick mushrooms, not because Chechens don’t eat mushrooms, but because no one thought about the danger. My family and friends often went mushroom hunting in the forest behind Duba-Yurt, in the Alkhazurovsky forest. One day, having arrived outside Vedeno, we came across a huge clearing dotted with young honey mushrooms. We collected a full car trunk. I also visited the famous Gunib, where Shamil was captured by Russian troops at one time. And I got there for the simplest of everyday needs. A good friend of mine suggested that in Gunib they sell the most delicious Dagestan potatoes. “Not knowing the ford, I plunged into the water.” On the way from Khasavyurt, several Chechens who needed to go to Leninaul asked me to be passengers. I knew from the map that this was on the way to Gunib, but I didn’t realize that this road was constantly going steeply uphill, and motorists know what it’s like to drive uphill, and even with a full complement of passengers. Having reached Leninaul and disembarked the passengers, I, in first gear, with an overheated engine and a burned-out clutch, finally reached my goal. Having wandered along the mountain road inside the village, I bought the ill-fated potatoes and, in the hope that now I would have to go downhill, I set off on the way back. On the way home, I thought about how difficult it was for the Russian soldiers to storm Gunib, and never at that time would the thought have occurred to me that the descendants of the old Russian soldiers, a hundred and fifty years later, would have to crawl along these impregnable rocks, fulfilling the will of the narrow-minded leaders of Russia. But they crawled. Remember Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi in the Kadori zone of Dagestan in 1999? I think that I have given enough examples that proved that it was possible to live in Chechnya in friendship and harmony. All that was needed was the will of smart leaders.

Soviet power brought new orders to the North Caucasus, and not all of them were perceived with hostility. During the years of the USSR, the image of a Caucasian was presented not only as friendly, but also symbolizing Soviet power.

New country, new rules

In the early years of Soviet rule, Sharia courts existed throughout the North Caucasus. Depending on their autonomy, they had different powers.

For example, in Chechnya and Ingushetia, only the Supreme Court of the RSFSR could challenge the decision of the Sharia court.

Starting from the second half of the 20s, the Soviet government began a gradual attack on sharsuds and Islamic traditions in general, since they did not fit into the new concept social structure, and already in 1928, a chapter “On crimes constituting remnants of tribal life” was added to the criminal code of the RSFSR.

According to the new law, most mountain traditions were equated with serious criminal offenses and were punishable by a year in a camp. This led to uprisings, which were brutally suppressed by Red Army soldiers throughout the North Caucasus. The persecution of “Shariaists” and supporters of Muslim customs continued until the mid-40s. Then the war began.

Fathers and sons

If we do not take into account collaborationism and deportation processes, we can say that the Great Patriotic War became the factor that allowed Caucasians to organically fit into a friendly family Soviet peoples. This is primarily noticeable in the changes in the attitude of fathers and children.

Before the war, in Caucasian families, fathers tried to keep their distance from their children, especially their sons.

They never held them in their arms or spoke words of approval to them. Even when the child was in danger, the father called his mother or other women. But the war, according to Soviet ethnographers, radically changed the psychology of Caucasian men.

The book “Culture and Life of the Peoples of the North Caucasus” says the following about this: “the action of these processes was a significant factor in the withering away of outdated views and customs... In many families there was a softening of house-building orders.”

In the 70s, a new generation of Caucasian men walked with their children in parks and accompanied them to schools without embarrassment. But this did not mean that the mountaineers began to coddle with their offspring. Praising your child in public was still considered indecent. Even very young boys were taught to behave like adults. To this day, the attitude within a Caucasian family and in public are two different behaviors.

New look of the Caucasus

The second half of the 40s and the beginning of the 50s were marked for the highlanders by the appearance of a new detail in the urban landscape - four- and five-story houses, and large administrative buildings in the style of neoclassicism.

Communication houses, hotels, universities - all this was supposed to show the Caucasians the inviolability of the new social system.

In the early 60s, a focus on standardizing everyday life appeared. Uninhabited areas were transformed into residential areas with a mandatory set of buildings: a department store, a cinema, a park, kindergarten, stadium, school, club. All this also provided jobs.

All cities of the North Caucasus have acquired water supply, asphalt roads, sewerage, centralized heating, etc. The villages have also changed. Trees were planted along the central roads, and the roads themselves were leveled. Pompous village council buildings, pharmacies, hairdressers, clubs, libraries and shops appeared. New houses were built of brick and had wooden floors, glass windows and slate roofs.

Since the late 60s, the interior of new mountain houses consisted of purchased furniture. The walls were decorated family photos and carpets that were laid on the floor only when guests arrived.

In the period from the 70s to the 80s, imported walls in which clothes, dishes and books were stored became part of the typical interior. The home library was a separate source of pride for the apartment owners. It was not necessary to read books, but their presence was very important element. During the period of standardization of life, the homes of the mountaineers were no longer much different from the apartments of any other resident of the USSR. This was another milestone towards the integration of the highlanders into Soviet society.

Wedding

The Caucasian wedding is probably one of the few traditions that the Soviet government was unable to completely eradicate. The first Komsomol wedding took place here only in the late 50s. But, despite all the efforts of activists, the newlyweds, after the “Soviet” wedding, went to their relatives’ house and held another ceremony there - a traditional one.

There were also precedents when newlyweds from remote villages signed at the registry office several years after the wedding.

In the 60s, for the first time, flowers began to be given to the bride at weddings. Such an act was a truly revolutionary innovation for the Caucasus. During these years, the following were also considered especially chic: a wedding procession decorated with greenery and a red ribbon, as well as registration of marriage by some local official, for example, a deputy of the village council.

A man should be an athlete

Martial arts sections are probably the most beloved innovation of the Soviet regime among the highlanders. Dzhigits showed interest in wrestling back in the 20s, and after the mass opening of sports sections began in the 50s, only a bad father did not take his son there.

For Caucasian parents, sport became an excellent counterbalance to the bad influence of the streets and it fostered those qualities that in the Caucasus have always been considered truly masculine.

In any even the most remote village there were one or two wrestling sections. For mountain boys, practicing martial arts was comparable to initiation into men. This gave a certain goal, discipline and taught how to protect yourself and your loved ones. For Soviet society as a whole, this also had positive effects. In addition to producing a number of Olympic medalists, the North Caucasus sections also made the streets safer. After all, now young people could splash out their hot temper in the ring or tatami, and not on a random passerby.