1940-1944 insurgency in Chechnya
Encyclopedia
The 1940-1944 Chechnya insurgency was a revolt against the Soviet
authorities in the mountainous Chechnya
. Beginning as early as in June 1941 under Khasan Israilov
, it peaked in 1942 during the German invasion of North Caucasus
and ended in the beginning of 1944 with the deportation
of the Chechens and the Ingush people
.
However, the resistance in the mountains lasted until autumn 1947 and the last rebel was killed only in 1976 at the age of 70.
During the insurgency rebels had no control over the plains of Chechnya and its capital Grozny
.
and his brother Hussein had established a guerrilla base in the mountains of south-eastern Chechnya, where they worked to organize a unified guerrilla movement to prepare an armed insurrection against the Soviets. In February 1940 Israilov's rebel army took Galanchozh, Sayasan, Chaberloi and a part of Shatoysky District
. The rebel government was established in Galanchozh.
Israilov described his position on why they were fighting numerous times:
After the German invasion in the USSR in June 1941
, the brothers convened 41 different meetings in summer 1941 to recruit local supporters under the name "Provisional People’s Revolutionary State of Checheno-Ingushetia", and by the end of midsummer of that year they had over 5,000 guerrillas and at least 25,000 sympathizers organized into five military districts encompassing Grozny
, Gudermes
, and Malgobek
.
In some areas, up to 80% of men were involved in the insurrection. It is known that the Soviet Union used bomber
s against the rebels, causing losses primarily to the civilian population.
Khasan had planned the insurrection to begin on January 10, 1942, but a stalled German advance
, combined with poor communication between the hundreds of guerrilla units spread throughout the region, aborted his plans. Soviet counter-insurgency efforts were also stymied by the mountainous terrain - Soviet bombing raids twice attacked suspected mountain hideouts of Chechen guerrillas in spring of 1942, but the mountain guerrillas escaped the sustained attacks virtually unscathed.
By January 28, 1942, Khasan had decided to extend the uprising from Chechens and Ingush to eleven of the dominant ethnic groups in the Caucasus by forming the Special Party of Caucasus Brothers (OKPB), with the aim of an 'armed struggle with Bolshevik
barbarism and Russian despotism'. Khasan also developed a code
among the guerrilla fighters to maintain order and discipline, which stated:
In February 1942 Mairbek Sheripov
organized rebellion in Shatoi, Khimokhk and tried to take Itum-Kale. His forces united with Israilov's army relying on the expected arrival of the German Wehrmacht
. In neighbouring Dagestan rebels also took the neighbourhoods of Novolakskaya and Dylym.
The insurrection provoked many Chechen and Ingush soldiers of the Red Army
to desert
. Some sources claim that total number of deserted mountaineer soldiers reached 62,750, exceeding the number of mountaineer fighters in the Red Army.
's Nordkaukasische Sonderkommando Schamil
landed in several points in Chechnya, coordinating strikes with rebels. On 25 September 1942, German paratroopers landed in Dachu-Borzoi and Duba-Yurt and took the Grozny petroleum refinery, to prevent its destruction by the Red Army
in case of its retreat. Then they united with the rebels, trying to hold the refinery until the German First Panzer Army arrives. However, the German offensive stalled, and so the saboteurs
were forced to retreat.
The Germans made concerted efforts to coordinate with Khasan, but Khasan's refusal to cede control of his revolutionary movement to the Germans, and his continued insistence on German recognition of Chechen independence
, led many Germans to consider Khasan Israilov as unreliable, and his plans unrealistic. Although the Germans were able to undertake covert operations in Chechnyasuch as the sabotage
of Grozny
oil fieldsattempts at a German-Chechen alliance floundered.
That the Chechens actually were allied to the Germans is highly questionable and usually dismissed as false. They did have contact with the Germans. However, there were profound ideological differences between the Chechens and the Nazis (self-determination versus imperialism), neither trusted the other; there was an influential Jewish clan among the Chechens (who were not "Aryan" to begin with according to Hitlerian theory); the German courting of the Cossacks was not pleasing at all to the Chechens (their traditional enemies which with they still had numerous land disputes and other conflicts); and Khasan Israilov
certainly had a strong dislike for Hitler. Mairbek Sheripov reportedly gave the Ostministerium a sharp warning that "if the liberation of the Caucasus meant only the exchange of one colonizer for another, the Caucasians would consider this [a theoretical fight pitting Chechens and other Caucasians against Germans] only a new stage in the national liberation war."
, the mountain guerrillas saw their fortunes change as many former rebels defected
to the Soviets in exchange of amnesty
. On December 6, 1943, German involvement in Chechnya ended when Soviet spies
infiltrated and arrested the remaining German operatives in Chechnya.
After the German retreat from the Caucasus, almost 500,000 of Chechen and Ingush people were forcibly resettled to Kazakhstan
en masse, resulting in a large number of deaths among the deportees. Those who were not deported were simply massacred on spot. In the mountainous part, some war crime
s, such as the Khaibakh massacre
, took place.
By the next summer, Checheno-Ingushetia was dissolved; a number of Chechen and Ingush placenames were replaced with Russian ones; mosques and graveyards were destroyed, and a massive campaign of burning numerous historical Chechen texts was near complete Throughout the North Caucasus, about 700.000 (according to Dalkhat Ediev, 724.297 , of which the majority, 479.478, were Chechens, along with 96.327 Ingush, 104.146 Kalmyks, 39.407 Balkars and 71.869 Karachais). Many died along the trip, and the extremely harsh environment of Siberia (especially considering the amount of exposure) killed many more.
The NKVD, supplying the Russian perspective, gives the statistic of 144.704 people killed in 1944-1948 alone (death rate of 23.5% per all groups), though this is dismissed by many authors such as Tony Wood, John Dunlop, Moshe Gammer and others as a far understatement . Estimates for deaths of the Chechens alone (excluding the NKVD statistic), range from about 170.000 to 200.000 , thus ranging from over a third of the total Chechen population to nearly half being killed in those 4 years alone (rates for other groups for those four years hover around 20%). Although the Council of Europe has recognized it as a "genocidal act", no country except the self-declared, unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
officially recognizes the act as a genocide.
However, some rebel groups stayed in the mountains, continuing the resistance. Rebel groups were also formed in Kazakhstan.
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
authorities in the mountainous Chechnya
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...
. Beginning as early as in June 1941 under Khasan Israilov
Khasan Israilov
Khasan Israilov was a Chechen nationalist, guerrilla fighter, journalist, and poet who led a Chechen and Ingush rebellion against the Soviet Union from 1940 until his death in 1944....
, it peaked in 1942 during the German invasion of North Caucasus
Battle of the Caucasus
The Battle of Caucasus is a name given to a series of German and Soviet operations in the Caucasus area during the Soviet-German War.-1941 operations:...
and ended in the beginning of 1944 with the deportation
Operation Lentil (Caucasus)
Operation Lentil was the Soviet expulsion of the whole of the native Chechen and Ingush populations of the North Caucasus to Siberia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan during World War II....
of the Chechens and the Ingush people
Ingush people
The Ingush are a native ethnic group of the North Caucasus, mostly inhabiting the Russian republic of Ingushetia. They refer to themselves as Ghalghai . The Ingush are predominantly Sunni Muslims and speak the Ingush language...
.
However, the resistance in the mountains lasted until autumn 1947 and the last rebel was killed only in 1976 at the age of 70.
During the insurgency rebels had no control over the plains of Chechnya and its capital Grozny
Grozny
Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census. but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989...
.
Beginning of the Insurgency
By February 1940, Khasan IsrailovKhasan Israilov
Khasan Israilov was a Chechen nationalist, guerrilla fighter, journalist, and poet who led a Chechen and Ingush rebellion against the Soviet Union from 1940 until his death in 1944....
and his brother Hussein had established a guerrilla base in the mountains of south-eastern Chechnya, where they worked to organize a unified guerrilla movement to prepare an armed insurrection against the Soviets. In February 1940 Israilov's rebel army took Galanchozh, Sayasan, Chaberloi and a part of Shatoysky District
Shatoysky District
Shatoysky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the fifteen in the Chechen Republic, Russia. Its administrative center is the rural locality of Shatoy. District's population: 13,155 . Population of Shatoy accounts for 13.5% of the district's population....
. The rebel government was established in Galanchozh.
Israilov described his position on why they were fighting numerous times:
"I have decided to become the leader of a war of liberation of my own people. I understand all too well that not only in Checheno-Ingushetia, but in all nations of the CaucasusCaucasusThe Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
it will be difficult to win freedom from the heavy yoke of RedCommunismCommunism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
imperialism. But our fervent belief in justice and our faith in the support of the freedom-loving peoples of the Caucasus and of the entire world inspire me toward this deed, in your eyes impertinent and pointless, but in my conviction, the sole correct historical step. The valiant Finns are now proving that the Great Enslaver Empire is powerless against a small but freedom-loving people. In the Caucasus you will find your second Finland, and after us will follow other oppressed peoples."
"For twenty years now, the Soviet authorities have been fighting my people, aiming to destroy them group by group: first the kulaks, then the mullahs and the 'bandits', then the bourgeois-nationalists. I am sure now that the real object of this war is the annihilation of our nation as a whole. That is why I have decided to assume the leadership of my people in their struggle for liberation."
After the German invasion in the USSR in June 1941
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, the brothers convened 41 different meetings in summer 1941 to recruit local supporters under the name "Provisional People’s Revolutionary State of Checheno-Ingushetia", and by the end of midsummer of that year they had over 5,000 guerrillas and at least 25,000 sympathizers organized into five military districts encompassing Grozny
Grozny
Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census. but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989...
, Gudermes
Gudermes
Gudermes is a town in the Chechen Republic, Russia, located on the Sunzha River east of Grozny. Population: 32,000 .Gudermes had a rural locality status until 1941. Later, it became a railroad junction between Rostov-on-Don, Baku, Astrakhan, and Mozdok. Gudermes is home for oil extraction...
, and Malgobek
Malgobek
Malgobek is a town in the Republic of Ingushetia, Russia, located northwest of the republic's capital Magas. Population: Malgobek was founded in 1935 as a settlement for workers at then recently discovered oilfields, on the territory of former Ingush villages of Malgobek-Balka and Chechen-Balka...
.
In some areas, up to 80% of men were involved in the insurrection. It is known that the Soviet Union used bomber
Bomber
A bomber is a military aircraft designed to attack ground and sea targets, by dropping bombs on them, or – in recent years – by launching cruise missiles at them.-Classifications of bombers:...
s against the rebels, causing losses primarily to the civilian population.
Khasan had planned the insurrection to begin on January 10, 1942, but a stalled German advance
Battle of the Caucasus
The Battle of Caucasus is a name given to a series of German and Soviet operations in the Caucasus area during the Soviet-German War.-1941 operations:...
, combined with poor communication between the hundreds of guerrilla units spread throughout the region, aborted his plans. Soviet counter-insurgency efforts were also stymied by the mountainous terrain - Soviet bombing raids twice attacked suspected mountain hideouts of Chechen guerrillas in spring of 1942, but the mountain guerrillas escaped the sustained attacks virtually unscathed.
By January 28, 1942, Khasan had decided to extend the uprising from Chechens and Ingush to eleven of the dominant ethnic groups in the Caucasus by forming the Special Party of Caucasus Brothers (OKPB), with the aim of an 'armed struggle with Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
barbarism and Russian despotism'. Khasan also developed a code
Code
A code is a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation , not necessarily of the same type....
among the guerrilla fighters to maintain order and discipline, which stated:
• Brutally avenge the enemies for the blood of our native brothers, the best sons of the Caucasus;
• Mercilessly annihilate seksoty [secret agents], agents and other informants of the NKVD;
• Categorically forbid [guerrillas] to spend the night in homes or villages without the security of reliable guards.
In February 1942 Mairbek Sheripov
Mairbek Sheripov
Mairbek Sheripov was one of the leaders of Chechen insurgency against the Soviet Union in the 1940s.Mairbek Sheripov was a younger brother of Aslanbek Sheripov, a Bolshevik revolutionary killed in a battle with the Denikinites in 1919. A jurist by profession, he worked for the Soviet government in...
organized rebellion in Shatoi, Khimokhk and tried to take Itum-Kale. His forces united with Israilov's army relying on the expected arrival of the German Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
. In neighbouring Dagestan rebels also took the neighbourhoods of Novolakskaya and Dylym.
The insurrection provoked many Chechen and Ingush soldiers of the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
to desert
Desertion
In military terminology, desertion is the abandonment of a "duty" or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning...
. Some sources claim that total number of deserted mountaineer soldiers reached 62,750, exceeding the number of mountaineer fighters in the Red Army.
German support
AbwehrAbwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
's Nordkaukasische Sonderkommando Schamil
Operation Schamil
Operation Schamil was a plan for a German army operation to drop special operations forces ahead of the main attacking force against the Soviet towns of Maykop and Grozny...
landed in several points in Chechnya, coordinating strikes with rebels. On 25 September 1942, German paratroopers landed in Dachu-Borzoi and Duba-Yurt and took the Grozny petroleum refinery, to prevent its destruction by the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
in case of its retreat. Then they united with the rebels, trying to hold the refinery until the German First Panzer Army arrives. However, the German offensive stalled, and so the saboteurs
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
were forced to retreat.
The Germans made concerted efforts to coordinate with Khasan, but Khasan's refusal to cede control of his revolutionary movement to the Germans, and his continued insistence on German recognition of Chechen independence
Independence
Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state in which its residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory....
, led many Germans to consider Khasan Israilov as unreliable, and his plans unrealistic. Although the Germans were able to undertake covert operations in Chechnyasuch as the sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
of Grozny
Grozny
Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census. but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989...
oil fieldsattempts at a German-Chechen alliance floundered.
That the Chechens actually were allied to the Germans is highly questionable and usually dismissed as false. They did have contact with the Germans. However, there were profound ideological differences between the Chechens and the Nazis (self-determination versus imperialism), neither trusted the other; there was an influential Jewish clan among the Chechens (who were not "Aryan" to begin with according to Hitlerian theory); the German courting of the Cossacks was not pleasing at all to the Chechens (their traditional enemies which with they still had numerous land disputes and other conflicts); and Khasan Israilov
Khasan Israilov
Khasan Israilov was a Chechen nationalist, guerrilla fighter, journalist, and poet who led a Chechen and Ingush rebellion against the Soviet Union from 1940 until his death in 1944....
certainly had a strong dislike for Hitler. Mairbek Sheripov reportedly gave the Ostministerium a sharp warning that "if the liberation of the Caucasus meant only the exchange of one colonizer for another, the Caucasians would consider this [a theoretical fight pitting Chechens and other Caucasians against Germans] only a new stage in the national liberation war."
Deportation
By 1943, as the Germans began to retreat in the Eastern FrontEastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, the mountain guerrillas saw their fortunes change as many former rebels defected
Defection
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state or political entity in exchange for allegiance to another. More broadly, it involves abandoning a person, cause or doctrine to whom or to which one is bound by some tie, as of allegiance or duty.This term is also applied,...
to the Soviets in exchange of amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
. On December 6, 1943, German involvement in Chechnya ended when Soviet spies
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
infiltrated and arrested the remaining German operatives in Chechnya.
After the German retreat from the Caucasus, almost 500,000 of Chechen and Ingush people were forcibly resettled to Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
en masse, resulting in a large number of deaths among the deportees. Those who were not deported were simply massacred on spot. In the mountainous part, some war crime
War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
s, such as the Khaibakh massacre
Khaibakh massacre
The Khaibakh massacre refers to a report of mass execution of the ethnically Chechen population of the aul of Khaibakh, in the mountaineous part of Chechnya, by Soviet forces under a NKVD colonel Mikhail Gveshiani....
, took place.
By the next summer, Checheno-Ingushetia was dissolved; a number of Chechen and Ingush placenames were replaced with Russian ones; mosques and graveyards were destroyed, and a massive campaign of burning numerous historical Chechen texts was near complete Throughout the North Caucasus, about 700.000 (according to Dalkhat Ediev, 724.297 , of which the majority, 479.478, were Chechens, along with 96.327 Ingush, 104.146 Kalmyks, 39.407 Balkars and 71.869 Karachais). Many died along the trip, and the extremely harsh environment of Siberia (especially considering the amount of exposure) killed many more.
The NKVD, supplying the Russian perspective, gives the statistic of 144.704 people killed in 1944-1948 alone (death rate of 23.5% per all groups), though this is dismissed by many authors such as Tony Wood, John Dunlop, Moshe Gammer and others as a far understatement . Estimates for deaths of the Chechens alone (excluding the NKVD statistic), range from about 170.000 to 200.000 , thus ranging from over a third of the total Chechen population to nearly half being killed in those 4 years alone (rates for other groups for those four years hover around 20%). Although the Council of Europe has recognized it as a "genocidal act", no country except the self-declared, unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria is the unrecognized secessionist government of Chechnya. The republic was proclaimed in late 1991 by Dzokhar Dudayev, and fought two devastating wars between separatists and the Russian Federation which denounced secession...
officially recognizes the act as a genocide.
However, some rebel groups stayed in the mountains, continuing the resistance. Rebel groups were also formed in Kazakhstan.