by Joseph Green
(from Communist Voice #23, February
4, 2000)
Several thousand years ago:
The ancestors of the Chechens arrive in the North Caucasus.
1550s to 1604:
The Russian state begins serious attempts to enter the North
Caucasus, which however had to be
given up until 1722
1722:
There is the first major battle between Chechens and the
encroaching Russian state. Russian
cavalry sent by Tsar Peter the Great to occupy a village in eastern
Chechnya is defeated. Peter the
Great dies in 1725, and tsarist expansionism in the region slows until
the latter part of the
century.
1783:
The treaty of Georgievsk puts mainly Christian Georgia under
Russian protection: the Georgian
monarchy had appealed to Russia as protection against Persia, the
Ottoman Empire and the
Islamic peoples in the Caucasus. However, Russia was
for some time incapable of providing
military help to Georgia.
1785-1791:
Chechens, and also Dagestanis and some other Caucasian groups,
fight Russian expansionism.
They were led by a Chechen Imam, Sheikh Mansur, who also sought to
impose a much stricter
allegiance to Islam among the Chechens then they had previously
practiced. The Russian empire
emerged victorious.
1801:
Georgia is annexed by Russia, and the monarchy is deposed.
There are several revolts against
Russian rule later in the century.
1816-27:
Russian General Alexei Yermolov is given command over tsarist
troops in the Caucasus. He
undertakes a savage policy of massacres, leveling of villages,
destruction of crops, and forcible
removal of Chechens from the fertile Chechen lowlands (thus blocking
the previous migration of
Chechens from the mountains to the lowlands). His
policies provoke new resistance, and to this
day his name is still an object of hatred among Chechens.
Sometime after the mass deportation of
the Chechens from Chechnya in 1944, the Soviet state-capitalists under
Stalin honored this tsarist
criminal with a statue in Grozny, which the Chechens attempted to blow
up in 1969 and finally
tore down in 1991.
1817-64:
These are the years of the fierce series of rebellions and conflicts called the Caucasian War, in which the Chechens play a major role. Ultimately Russia subjugates the Caucasus through devastating many of its peoples. A substantial part of the Chechen population are killed, while many Chechens and other Caucasian mountaineers are deported from their regions to elsewhere in the Caucasus, or forced to leave the Caucasus entirely and settle in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). The tsarist forces could not achieve victory over the Chechens so long as the forests provided cover for ambushes and guerrilla tactics, so the Russian army systematically cuts down the main Chechen forests. The Chechen landscape is permanently altered.
Some of the classic Russian authors of this time picture the brutality of this war. The most fervent example is Leo Tolstoy's novel Hadji Murat, which is a fictionalized account of one of the most daring commanders of the Caucasian rebels. Its spirit is illustrated by the following passage from a preliminary draft:
"Russian military commanders, seeking to win distinction for themselves and appropriate the spoils of war, invaded peaceful lands, ravaged villages, killed hundreds of people, raped women, rustled thousands of cattle and then blamed the tribesmen for their attacks on Russian possessions." (Cited in Susan Layton, Russian Literature and Empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy, p. 285)
The most successful leader of the Chechen and Dagestani forces is the legendary Imam Shamil. He is an Avar, which is one of the peoples in Dagestan; indeed, the three main leaders of the Caucasian revolt are all Avars from Dagestan (and so is Hadji Murat). He also seeks to impose a strict Islamic law, with less success among the Chechens than in Dagestan. One historical account of the Caucasian war points out that: "the religious revival in Daghestan coincided with the Russian conquest; the infidel neighbour became the foreign oppressor, and to the desire for spiritual reformation was added the yet stronger desire for temporal liberty. " (John F. Baddeley, The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus, p.237)
Shamil also seeks to build up state or governmental institutions
among the Chechens,
something which the Chechen tribes had not previously had.
Contrary to romanticized pictures of
such revolts, he doesn't shrink from harsh, dictatorial measures to
enforce his decrees and
preserve unity against the Russians.
1877-8:
On the occasion of a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire,
there is a new anti-Russian
uprising in the North Caucasus, led by Haji Mohammed in Chechnya and
Ali-Bek Haji in
Dagestan.
1890s:
Oil is discovered in Grozny, Chechnya's main city, which by 1900
becomes second only to
Baku (presently the capital of Azerbaijan) as an oil city in the
tsarist empire. Later, Chechnya
will be important both for oil extraction and refining in the Soviet
Union. Still later, oil
extraction will decline quite far by 1980, being less than half the
output of 1911, but Chechnya
will retain its significance for the Soviet Union as a producer of
special aviation oils, as a major
refining center, and as part of a major network of oil pipelines.
1917:
The Bolshevik revolution overthrows the tsarist empire.
The Chechens fight such
counter-revolutionary forces as the white armies of General Denikin.
But the different social
forces among the Chechens take different attitudes to the new regime;
there are stormy relations
between Chechnya and the Soviet Union; and certain sections of the
population revolt at certain
times. As well, the revolutionary forces themselves
are feeling their way to new policies; there
are different views about the relation of the national question to
socialism; and this too
complicates matters. Two major trends stand out.
On one hand, based on Lenin's theories about
the importance of the right to national self-determination, not just
under capitalism but in a
countries that have overthrown the old capitalist regime, for the first
time the rights of the
Chechen nationality and the Chechen common people receive serious
attention from Russia. But
on the other hand, as the revolution dies away, and the Soviet Union
degenerates into a Stalinist,
state-capitalist regime, anti-Chechen chauvinism is revived, and by
1944 Stalin condemns the
entire nationality.
1920s:
An alphabet is devised for the Chechen language:
previously documents were written in Arabic,
and less than 2% of Chechens could read or write. A
number of books and magazines appear in
the Chechen language, and there is a dramatic spread of literacy.
There is a policy of bringing
Chechens into the local administration. At the same
time, the degeneration of the Russian
revolution, which that leads to its death and the establishment of a
state-capitalist regime, affects
the North Caucasus as elsewhere in the Soviet Union.
1930s:
Stalin's forced collectivization makes a mockery of the Leninist plan of voluntary collectivization. As well, no account was made of the particular social and class conditions in Chechnya. As a result, there was serious unrest in 1929-1930, and army troops are sent in to suppress it. After that, there is some readjustment of Soviet policy, but tension and repression remain, sometimes dying down and sometimes flaring up. The Stalinist purges of the 1930s are reflected in mass arrests of Chechens.
At the same time, the rapid economic development in the Soviet
Union presumably draws
numbers of Chechens into modern economic life.
1936:
The Ingush and Chechen autonomous regions are merged into a single
Autonomous Republic of
Chechnya and Ingushetia. The USSR was officially the
"Union of Soviet Socialist Republics",
with each of the "union republics" supposed to have the right to
self-determination. But the
Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic was not a "union republic" of the
Soviet Union, but an
autonomous republic inside the Russian "union republic", and thus
without the right of
self-determination with respect to either the USSR or Russia.
This is the legal pretext for Russia's
present denial of the right to self-determination to Chechnya, and this
pretext is also upheld today
by the U.S. government and the
European Union. This is somewhat analogous to Kosovo.Kosovo
was not one of the six constituent republics of now-dissolved Titoist
Yugoslavia, each of which
was supposed to have the right to self-determination, but only an
autonomous region within the
Serbian republic. This is the basis on which the UN to
this day refuses to grant the right to
self-determination to Kosovo.
1937:
The major Soviet purges of this year eliminate many of the
Chechens who work in
administrative or leading conditions. This and other
purges, by undermining the secular Chechen
leadership that was developing, may well have helped pave the way for
the later religious revival.
.
February 1944 (in the latter part of World War II):
Essentially all Chechens and Ingush, then about half a million people, are deported to Soviet Central Asia, mainly to Kazakhstan. This includes not just residents of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic, but Chechens and Ingush no matter where they lived. The autonomous republic is eliminated, and all traces of the Chechen and Ingush peoples are removed from the area. This is a reactionary, criminal act of ethnic cleansing, done on the basis of a secret decree. It is carried out in a savage way, and accompanied with several massacres of Chechens.
The Chechens are arbitrarily resettled into different villages and localities; they are denied freedom of movement among these localities; they are subject to police supervision; and they are basically restricted to laboring jobs. In the first years, they suffer particularly badly from lack of sufficient food and shelter, resulting in the death of many deportees.
Aside from the Chechens and Ingush, there are other mass
deportations between October 1943
and June 1944, such as the Karachays, the Balkars, the Kalmyks, and the
Crimean Tatars. The
Volga Germans had met this fate in August 1941.
June 25, 1946:
A public decree of the Stalinist regime finally mentions the
deportation of the Chechens and
Ingush, attempting to justify it as punishment for fighting on the side
of the Nazis. Such an
attempt to eliminate a nationality altogether as collective punishment
is fascistic in any case, but
the rationale given is actually a mere pretext. The
Nazis had tried to woo various of the peoples
in the Caucasus, particularly the Islamic peoples, but they hadn't
achieved too much in this
regard, especially when considered in light of the considerable unrest
in the Caucasus prior to the
war. For that matter, the Nazis had also sought to woo
the other Soviet nationalities, including
the Russians. The Soviet army did have a problem with
Chechen desertions, but mainly because
it put Chechens into Russian-speaking units where they couldn't
understand the language and
where they were forced to eat pork. On the other hand,
there were 30,000 Chechen and Ingush
soldiers in the Soviet army; many had won Soviet decorations for their
valor in World War II,
and a few had become "Heroes of the Soviet Union"; and Chechen soldiers
took part in the
famous defense of the Citadel at Brest-Litovsk where a small Soviet
unit, surrounded in the
German blitzkrieg of the early days of the war, held out for over a
month against overwhelming
odds. Far from the deportations helping the war
against the Nazis, they were a major crime that
undermined the moral legitimacy of the Soviet regime, which was why
they were originally kept
secret. Indeed, such was the savage logic of the
deportations that Chechen soldiers had been
stripped from the Soviet Army during the war in order to send them as
deportees to Central
Asia.Meanwhile there had been problems maintaining oil
production in the Grozny area because
Chechen workers had been deported.
1953:
In the years following Stalin's death in 1953, travel restrictions and police supervision on the Chechens gradually ease, and other conditions of the exile improve. There is eventually a Chechen weekly newspaper, a Chechen-Ingush Art Theater, books published again in the Chechen language, etc. Meanwhile, by 1955, and especially after the 20th CPSU Party Congress in 1956 where Khrushchev denounced Stalin, tens of thousands of Chechens illegally return to Chechnya and demand the return of their old dwellings.
At the same time, the regime tries to have Chechens sign
statements that they would not seek
"the return of property confiscated at the time of their deportation
and that they would not return
to those places from which they had been deported."
1957:
A decree removes the charge of fascist collaboration from the Chechens and Ingush and allows their return. (The Balkars, Karachia and Kalmyks also were able to return to their homelands. On the other hand, while the collective condemnation of the Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars and Meskhetian Turks is rescinded, they are not allowed to return to their former areas.) The Chechen return is supposed to take place gradually over four years until 1960, but the Chechens and Ingush rush back to their homelands. A Chechen-Ingush republic is re-established, although Russian-speakers are for some time a majority in this area and dominate the republic. There is friction over the status and conditions for the returnees, the attitude of the republic towards them, etc.
The exile undoubtedly left strong marks on the Chechen people,
providing a strong long-term
reinforcement for nationalist and religious feelings.
It also spread them throughout Kazakhstan
and other areas of the Soviet Union (not all of them returned).
It affected the class structure of the
Chechen population, no doubt considerably proletarianizing them.
This, and their additional
contacts around the Soviet Union, no doubt facilitated the later
large-scale development of
Chechen migrant labor: large numbers of Chechen young
men, facing unemployment, became
seasonal workers who sought summer work outside Chechnya and returned
to their families in
winter.
.
1960s-80s:
Chechens and Ingush gain greatly in number by comparison to
Russians and other ethnic groups
in the Chechen-Ingush republic, eventually becoming a majority again,
and gradually gain more
influence. But their economic situation deteriorates,
leading large numbers of Chechen youth to
become seasonal workers, searching for work elsewhere in the Soviet
Union during the summer.
1982:
The Soviet regime in the Chechen-Ingush republic organizes a
celebration of the 200th
anniversary of the supposedly voluntary union of Chechnya and Russia.
This is a travesty of
history, and it is an example of how the state-capitalist regime
appealed to tsarist oppression of
the subject peoples to justify its own denial of national rights to
these peoples.
.
Late 1980s:
There are protests in Chechnya with regard to cultural, religious
and language issues and, on
environmental grounds, against the plan to build a biochemical plant in
the Chechen city of
Gudermes. A Popular Front is formed, dominated by
old-line party officials who want, however,
to replace the Russian First Secretary of the local CP with a Chechen.
June 1989:
Doku Zavgayev becomes the first Chechen since the exile to become
First Secretary of the
"Communist" (actually, state-capitalist) Party of the Chechen-Ingush
Republic. Zavgayev wants
to maintain the old state-capitalist system, albeit with top posts
staffed with more Chechens, and
his supporters sweep the seats from Chechnya in elections to the
Supreme Soviet of the USSR
that year, except for the election of a Chechen, Ruslan Khasbulatov,
who is then a supporter of
Boris Yeltsin.
1990:
Protests sweep Chechnya; many ethnic Russians and other unpopular
officials resign.
1990-1:
In the bitter fight between Russian leader Yeltsin and Soviet
leader Gorbachev, both sides
appeal to the various regions in Russia, or even to Russia as a whole,
with the promise of more
national rights. On April 26, 1990 a Soviet decree
from the Gorbachev government declares that
all the autonomous republics inside Russia were "subjects of the USSR"
(as opposed to simply
being "subjects of Russia"), thus bypassing Russia's control.
For his part, Yeltsin declares the
"sovereignty" of the Russian Federation on June 12, 1990.
Moreover, Yeltsin tours various
regions of Russia in 1990-91 declaring "take as much sovereignty as you
can swallow". And in
April 1991 the Russian Federation decrees "The Law on the
Rehabilitation of All Repressed
Peoples". Meanwhile a draft treaty redefining the
basis of the Soviet Union is circulated by the
Soviet leadership in November 1990, and it places the autonomous
republics in Russia more on a
par with the union republics of the Soviet Union.
Later, in 1991, Gorbachev would invite such
figures as the Chechen Doku Zavgayev to take part in the negotiation of
a new treaty defining the
basis of the Soviet Union.
November 23-25, 1990:
The National Congress of the Chechen People is formed at a meeting
in Grozny with over 1,000
delegates. Only Chechens, not Ingush, are invited.
Various political forces are involved, both
supporters of Zavgayev and more nationalistic elements.
Jokhar Dudayev, the first Chechen
general in the Soviet armed forces since the exile and the commander of
an air force division of
long-range nuclear bombers, is elected the chairman of the Executive
Committee set up by the
Congress. This may well be due to the desire to find a
figurehead leader who is above the
factions; after all, Major-General Dudayev is stationed in Estonia,
quite far from Chechnya, and
hence might be expected to play little role in Chechen politics.
But Dudayev leaves the Soviet air
force in March 1991 and assumes an active role as head of the Executive
Committee in
Grozny.He becomes the head of the independence
movement in Chechnya until his death in
1996.
November 1990 - July 1991:
The day after the Chechen Congress closes, the official government
body, the local Supreme
Soviet, imitating the sovereignty declaration of the Russian
Federation, declares the
Chechen-Ingush Republic a "sovereign state". The
declaration doesn't mean that the Soviet is
actually seeking to leave Russia or the Soviet Union, but it is trying
to coopt the nationalist mass
movement. Meanwhile, in 1991, after Dudayev moves to
Grozny, he reshapes the Chechen
National Congress into a militant independence movement.
In June it declares the formation of
an Chechen state independent of Russia or the Soviet Union, and a
number of the founders of the
Chechen National Congress abandon it. The Executive
Committee of the Chechen National
Congress calls for dissolving the local Supreme Soviet, while the
official party and state
leadership seek to suppress public opposition from the independence
movement.
August 1991:
The old-guard in the CP leadership stages a coup against Gorbachev, seeking to seize power throughout the Soviet Union. This reactionary attempt to restore the old regime by force accelerates secessionist tendencies everywhere in the USSR and sparks "the Chechen revolution". The official party and state officials in Chechnya are irrevocably discredited by their actions. Although some denounce the coup, others support it and try to suppress opposition with military force, while key leaders like Zavgayev wait to see which way the wind is blowing before taking a public stand. Dudayev and the Chechen National Congress denounce the coup immediately, organize demonstrations and a general strike against it, and call again for the dissolution of the official government apparatus, exposed by its stand towards the coup. More and more areas in Chechnya back the Chechen National Congress and send people to Grozny to overthrow the old apparatus.
Yeltsin holds back the armed forces loyal to it from restraining
the Chechens. He now opposes
Zavgayev due to his stand on the coup, and temporarily backs the
Chechen militants, who have
been supporting him. Khasbulatov as well, at this
point allied closely to Yeltsin, welcomes the
pressure on Zavgayev. Later Zavgayev will be back in
favor with Yeltsin, and even a Yeltsin
advisor, as a Chechen who backs Russian measures against Chechnya.
September 1991:
The struggle between the Chechen National Congress and the
official apparatus intensifies and
results in the successful storming of the parliament in Grozny.
Eventually there is the forced
dissolution of the Supreme Soviet, all this to the applause of
Khasbulatov, who visits Chechnya
and chairs the last meeting of its Supreme Soviet, when it hands over
power to a Provisional
Supreme Council. But later in September and October,
when it appears that Dudayev is pressing
for full independence, going beyond what Yeltsin and Khasbulatov want,
refusing to recognize
the Provisional Supreme Council, and setting up an apparatus
independent of Moscow, Moscow
begins to turn against Dudayev and the Chechen movement.
At the same time, Dudayev always
claims--right up to his death--that Chechnya should be independent of
Russia, but associated. He
holds that Russia and Chechnya should be equal as separate republics
inside the Soviet Union, or
later, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
September 15, 1991:
An Ingush Congress declares that Ingushetia is separate from
Chechnya, and is its own
autonomous republic within the Russian Federation.
October 1991:
The Chechen independence movement consolidates its power, despite
hostile resolutions of the
Russian Duma and harsh threats from Russian President Yeltsin,
Vice-president Rutskoi, and
Khasbulatov, the latter two later being prominent leaders of the
parliamentary opposition to
Yeltsin. (Rutskoi, notably, is particularly virulent
in his demands for simply suppressing the
Chechens by force.) Despite this, parliamentary and
presidential elections are held on October 27
in Chechnya, with Dudayev elected as president.
October 19, 1991:
Yeltsin denounces and threatens the Chechen movement in his first
televised statement on
Chechnya.
November 2, 1991:
Khasbulatov is confirmed as speaker of the Russian Duma and
sponsors a resolution
denouncing the Chechen elections. This is the formal
resolution accompanying the beginning of
protracted Russian efforts to forcibly resubjugate Chechnya.
November 7, 1991:
Yeltsin declares a state of emergency in Chechnya, orders
Dudayev's arrest, and prepares to
subdue Chechnya by force.
November 9, 1991:
Russian troops from the Interior Ministry fly into Khankala Airport outside Grozny. They are immediately blockaded by a new Chechen national guard, while a huge mass meeting in Freedom Square in Grozny rallies around the Dudayev government. Meanwhile, with the rivalry between Yeltsin and Gorbachev still proceeding, Gorbachev issues orders that Russian and Soviet troops should stay neutral. By evening, the Russian troops surrender their weapons to the Chechens and are bused out of the airport and back to Russian positions. Thus ends the first Russian attempt to retake Grozny.
Russian military base are, however, still all over Chechnya.
Over the coming months, Chechens
surround them, seeking to force the troops out but have them leave
their weapons behind. Russia
in fact loses most of these weapons, and all Russian troops are forced
out by Chechnya by June 8,
1992.
December 1991:
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
dissolves. Russia, the Ukraine and Belarus
join together in a loose Commonwealth of Independent States,
which quickly grows to include a
number of other republics of the former USSR.
January 1992:
The bourgeois nationalist Zviad Gamsakhurdia becomes president of Georgia in May 1991.Russia provides strong backing for a coup, which finally overthrows him seven months later, at the beginning of 1992. The result is several years of warfare. As a result of the unstable situation arising from this coup, and from a Russian-backed insurgency in Abhazia, Georgian president Shevardnadze has to welcome Russian troop presence. Also notable is that both Gamsakhurdia and then, for a time, Shevardnadze had rejected Georgian membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States, but as part of the price for Russian assistance Shevardnadze takes Georgia into the CIS in December 1993.
The overthrow of Gamsakhurdia helps Russia isolate Chechnya, while
Gamsakhurdia is given
refuge in 1992-3 by Chechen President Dudayev.
March 31, 1992:
Chechen opposition forces, backed and armed by Russia, attempt an
armed coup in Grozny, but
are driven out by the evening.
June 1992:
The former Soviet republic of Moldova, located between Ukraine and Romania, isn't part of the Caucasus, but is closer to the Balkans. However, the events here illustrate Russia's manipulation of national conflicts outside its borders in order to preserve its influence. The Russian 14th Army, still present despite Moldovan independence in 1991, helps arm a separatist movement in the small Transdniester region of Moldova, a movement particularly worried by the prospect that Moldova might join Romania. Then, under a new commander, General Alexander Lebed, the 14th Army intervenes in June 1992 to prevent Moldova from defeating the secessionists, but without removing Transdniester from Moldova, and Lebed also stops further Russian arming of the secessionists. (It can be noted that the secessionists are mainly led by old-guard forces from the old CP, friendly to the opposition to Yeltsin, and besides, union with Russia is unlikely as Transdniester doesn't border Russia, and ethnic Russians in Transdniester are outnumbered both by ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Moldovans.) Since then, the dispute has calmed down, in part because nationalists committed to uniting Moldova to Romania have lost much ground and also because Moldova grants Transdniestria a certain autonomy. But Russian military forces remain, acting for the time being somewhat like UN peacekeeping forces in the former Yugoslavia, and Moldova's fate is tied with the policy of the Russian commander.
Such Russian influence, combined with the pressure of a Russian
agricultural tariff imposed to
punish Moldova for its parliament refusing to ratify Moldova's
membership in the CIS, results in
ratification of CIS membership in April 1994.
1992:
This year marks the beginning of the secessionist revolt of
Abkhazia against Georgia. Many
fighters come from other Islamic mountaineer peoples of the Caucasus to
join the fight against
mainly Christian Georgia. The Abkhaz nationality
suffers greatly from Georgian chauvinism, and
perhaps so does some of the non-Abkhaz nationalities in the area.
At the same time, large
numbers of ethnic non-Abkhaz people, who are a substantial majority in
the area, eventually flee
Abkhazia. Russia provides strong military backing for
the revolt, with the ironic result that it
helps supply the war in which many Chechen militants, such as Shamil
Basayev, get their
military training. Russia's interest is in
destabilizing Georgia enough that it will turn to Russia for
troops and support, as Georgian President Shevardnadze in fact does.
September 6-7, 1992:
Russian special forces and other armed units enter a Dagestan
village bordering Chechnya,
preparing to enter Chechnya. They are blocked by the
local population, and are forced to retreat.
November 1992:
There is a bloody clash between the Ingush Republic and Ossetia over the Prigorodny district, which had originally belonged to the Chechen-Ingush autonomous republic but had been handed over by the Stalin government of the Soviet Union to North Ossetia after the mass deportations of 1944. Russia basically sides with Ossetia, but the Ingush Republic continues to cherish hopes that Yeltsin may make good on his promises and that Russia may aid it in getting the region back. This is one of the reasons that Ingushetia did not join Chechnya in demanding full independence from Russia.
In connection with these events, Russian troops in Ingushetia move
toward a still unsettled
border with Chechnya, and Russian and Chechen armored forces confront
each other. But an
agreement is reached between Russia and Chechnya to end the crisis.
December 1992:
The Yeltsin administration decides to step up its support of
forces in Chechnya opposed to the
Dudayev government.
April 17, 1993:
Dudayev's one-time friendly relations with the Chechen parliament
have vanished. He declares
presidential rule and the dissolution of the Chechen parliament and the
Town Council of Grozny.
On April 18 Parliament, defying Dudayev's order of
dissolution, begins impeachment
proceedings against Dudayev, and on the 19th the Constitutional Court
invalidates the
dissolution of Parliament. Grozny becomes the scene of
two daily streams of demonstrations,
those for and against Dudayev. Dudayev dissolves the
Constitutional Court on June 3.
June 4, 1993:
Dudayev suppresses the opposition with armed force, thus
consolidating control in Grozny (but
not all over Chechnya) and fending off an opposition-organized
referendum scheduled for June 5.
June 1993:
The bourgeois nationalist Azerbaijani president Abulfaz Elchibey
is overthrown by an armed
coup with substantial Russian help. This too helps
isolate Chechnya. It also clears the way for
Azerbaijan to rejoin the CIS (it had joined in 1991 but left after the
Azerbaijani parliament
wouldn't ratify CIS membership).
October 1993:
The sad results of the free-market reforms in Russia had led to
increasingly conflict between
Yeltsin and the Russian parliament ("Duma") led by Khasbulatov.
This reaches a climax, and
President Yeltsin, backed by the armed forces, defeats the rebellion of
the Russian parliament
and has the parliament building shelled and occupied.
He replaces the Russian constitution by a
new one which gives the president sweeping powers (this is later
ratified in a referendum). There
is an eerie parallel between the struggles between the President and
Parliament in Russia and
Chechnya.
May 27, 1994:
There is an attempt to assassinate Dudayev with a
remote-controlled car bomb. The second car
in a procession of official cars--the spot usually used by Dudayev--is
blown up, murdering two
high Chechen officials, but this time Dudayev was in the third car.
The high-tech nature of the
attack leads to the belief that it was organized by the Russian secret
services.
Summer 1994:
Russia puts more emphasis on the "half-force" option (something
like American "low-intensity
conflict", which gained notoriety in Central America) to overthrow the
Chechen government.
This means overthrowing Dudayev through a covert operation with Chechen
front-men and
Russian personnel disguised as Chechens. The Yeltsin
government steps up the military and
financial support to the Russian-backed "Provisional Council of the
Chechen Republic" which
had been founded in December 1993.
August 1, 1994:
The Russian-backed "Provisional Council" declares that it has
taken power in Chechnya. This
indicates its intention, not the reality, and serves as a request for
more Russian aid. On August
25, a secret resolution of the Yeltsin government recognizes the
"Provisional Council". On
August 30, fighting intensifies between the Russian-backed forced
"Provisional Council" and the
Dudayev-government of Chechnya.
October 15, 1994:
Armed forces under the command of some elements of the
Russian-backed opposition stage a
surprise attack on Grozny and, without much fighting, occupy some
administrative
buildings.They leave Grozny on the same day,
apparently due in large part to contradictions
among the different factions of the opposition and between the Yeltsin
government and
Khasbulatov. Khasbulatov, the former leader of the
Russian parliament who was a Chechen, had
been jailed after Yeltsin's suppression of the parliamentary revolt in
1993. He is released from
jail in 1994 and goes to Chechnya, where he has some popularity (no
doubt enhanced by his
imprisonment by Yeltsin), and intrigues to replace the Dudayev
government with his own rule of
a Chechnya restored to Russia. The Yeltsin government
may well fear that any success on
October 15 would rebound of the advantage of their current bitter
rival, Khasbulatov, and prefer
to overthrow Dudayev on their own. In any case, the
fiasco on October 15 shows that the
"half-force" option isn't working.
November 24, 1994:
The Russian-backed "Provisional Council" of Chechnya creates a
Government of National
Rebirth.
November 26, 1994:
A substantial Russian armored force, in the guise of Chechen
oppositionists, attempts to install
a "Government of National Rebirth" in Grozny. Russian
television announces that the Dudayev
government has fled the Presidential Palace, but the attack is, in
fact, another fiasco. It is not only
beaten back, but 21 Russian soldiers are taken prisoner, exposing the
real force behind the
attack.So much for the "half-force" option.
December 11, 1994:
A large Russian force, vastly outnumbering the forces at the
disposal of the Dudayev
government, invades Chechnya from three directions.
December 31, 1994:
The Russian forces bombard Grozny, and push into the city with a
strong armored force. The
city suffers massive destruction, but the invading forces suffer a
bloody defeat. Large numbers of
Russian armored vehicles are destroyed; some units face virtual
annihilation; and the Russian
forces are pushed out of the city center. In the
following days, the Russian army begins a
systematic destruction of Grozny and resumes a more systematic attack
on the city.
March 7, 1995:
Russian forces finally occupy all of Grozny.
April 21, 1996:
Chechen President Dudayev is killed by a Russian rocket, which
homes in on the signal from a
satellite telephone that Dudayev is using while seeking to arrange
negotiations with Russia. In
March, Yeltsin had ordered his assassination.
Vice-president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev becomes
president.
May 28, 1996:
Yeltsin visits Chechnya and declares that Russia had destroyed all
the "bandit groups" and won
the war.
August 6, 1996:
The Chechens begin their successful attempt to retake Grozny from
the Russian armed forces.
August 12, 1996:
On behalf of the Yeltsin government, General Lebed begins serious
negotiations with the
Chechens at the border town of Khasavyurt in Dagestan.
August 31, 1996:
All Russian troops have left Grozny, and an agreement is signed by
Lebed and Chechen Chief
of Staff Maskhadov at Khasavyurt. A final settlement
concerning the political independence of
Chechnya, however, is left for future determination in five years, by
December 31, 2001. A joint
Russian-Chechen commission is to run the economy of Chechnya, but in
practice it does little
and quickly meets its demise. Chechnya continues to
insist it is independent, but Russia
continues to make economic difficulties for it.
October 17, 1996:
Lebed is fired from the Yeltsin government.
November 23, 1996:
Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and Maskhadov reach agreement
on the withdrawal of
Russian troops prior to Chechen presidential elections at the end of
January 1997. In fact, the
troops leave in six weeks. The first Chechen war is
over.
1997-1999:
Chechnya, in desperate straits before the war, is left devastated
by the war. Cities and villages
were ravaged; there are few resources for rebuilding; there is little
employment; and there is no
stable state authority. As well, Russia continues to
harass Chechnya economically. The Chechen
government and economy is in a state of disarray. A
large number of kidnappings of foreigners,
including aid workers, engineers and others, eventually contributes to
isolating Chechnya
January 27, 1997:
One of the two main military leaders of the fight against Russia,
Chief of Staff Aslan
Maskhadov, is elected president of Chechnya, his main opponent being
the other key military
leader, Shamil Basayev. Maskhadov is supposed to be
the guy who Russia is able to make deals
with.
Autumn 1998:
President Maskhadov had brought Basayev into his government, but
Basayev eventually leaves,
takes part in oppositional groupings, and demands the removal of
Maskhadov. There are several
other commanders from the Chechen war in the same grouping as Basayev,
the most prominent
being Salman Raduyev, who was a rival to Basayev during the war, and
"Khattab", a Jordanian
who had been with the Mujahedin in Afghanistan. The
opposition presses Maskhadov to abolish
the secular state established by the Chechen constitution and instead
establish Islamic law in
Chechnya, which Maskhadov concedes to in early 1999.
December 1998:
Four telecom engineers from Britain and New Zealand are kidnapped.
This is just one of many
kidnappings taking place. In this case, Maskhadov's
government tries and fails to free them, and
they are beheaded. This is alleged to be the act of
the Islamic extremist "Wahabi" group. Such
groups are spreading in Chechnya and Dagestan.
July-August 1999:
Chechen rebels associated with Shamil Basayev are the main force
in raids by Islamic militants
on Russian forces in Dagestan in the name of Dagestani independence and
creating a greater
Islamic state in the North Caucasus. Dagestan is a
North Caucasian region which is still part of
the Russian federation. There are many different
nationalities in Dagestan, and it seems that the
Islamic fundamentalist and independence forces do not have much support
in Dagestan at this
time.
September 1999:
The struggle in Dagestan heats up further.
Russian forces retaliate against the rebels, who suffer
defeat in Dagestan, but Russian forces go on to stage attacks on
Chechnya in the name of
attacking rebel bases. By now, there are tens of
thousands of Dagestani refugees. Several
mysterious terrorist bomb attacks occur in Moscow, killing and injuring
hundreds of ordinary
Russians. It is not clear who set these bombs; no one
takes any credit for them; and the fact that
they are politically advantageous to the Yeltsin government does not go
without notice. Without
any evidence, the Yeltsin government blames them on Chechens, and steps
up its attacks on
Chechnya. There is also hysteria organized against
Chechens and other darker-skinner peoples
living in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia.
October 2, 1999:
After over a week of bombing Chechnya, Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin withdraws
recognition of the Chechen government and declares that a puppet
Chechen parliament set up
under Russian occupation of Chechnya in 1996 is the real government
(this parliament is now
based in Moscow). The Russian government has thus
renounced the Khasavyurt accords that
ended the first Chechen war.
October 1999 to January 2000:
Russia invades Chechnya with large forces, taking the plains, but
suffering repeated setbacks
and heavy casualties in its attempt to take Grozny, and also facing
heavy fighting in the Chechen
highlands. More than 200,000 Chechen refugees flee to
neighboring Ingushetia. Russia demands
that all civilians leave Grozny, so that it can bomb the city to hell,
which it is doing anyway.
Meanwhile, in order to resist Russia, the Chechen government
led by Aslan Maskhadov and the
Islamic rebels led by Shamil Basayev join together.
December 1999:
Russian looting throughout Chechnya is so bad that even Malik
Saidullayev, a businessmen
who is head of a pro-Russian puppet committee, the so-called "State
Council of Chechnya",
denounces the Russian looting of his home village, Alkan-Yurt, and the
murder of 41 civilians
there. He produces videotape to back his claim.
Meanwhile Russian forces suffer repeated
setbacks in their attempt to take Grozny.
December 19, 1999:
The Yeltsin government rides a wave of chauvinism over the Chechen
war into Russian
parliamentary elections. The newly-formed political
bloc "Unity", backed by Russian Prime
Minister Putin, does extremely well, finishing just behind the largest
party, Zyuganov's so-called
"Communist Party of the Russian Federation (which is actually a
state-capitalist and Stalinist
party), which falls to merely a fifth of the parliament.
This cuts down the parliamentary
opposition to the Yeltsin government, an opposition which had plagued
it for years.
January 1, 2000:
Boris Yeltsin having resigned, Vladimir Putin becomes the acting
president of Russia, and
Russian presidential elections have to be pushed forward to March 26,
2000. Putin is associated
with the hard-line policy of military suppression of the Chechens.
Yeltsin's hope is that Putin
may win the next election for the Russian presidency on the basis of a
wave of chauvinism over
fighting Chechnya.
Early January, 2000:
Chechen forces attack behind Russian lines, and temporarily occupy
several cities and villages
supposedly securely under Russian control. The Russian
army announces that it will not regard
any fleeing Chechen male between 10 and 60 as a refugee, but will
intern all of them in
"filtration camps" to see if they are rebels. The
savagery of the "filtration camps" became known
in the first Chechen war. Under criticism, the Russian
army claims to modify this order, perhaps
by exempting males under the age of 15.
January 18, 2000:
A massive new Russian offensive in Grozny begins.
There is heavy Chechen resistance, and
over the next days the Russians end up fighting repeatedly over
territory they say they have
already captured. Originally the Russian command
claims that Grozny will fall in three of four
days, but at the end of that time, fighting still continues.
There are heavy casualties on both sides.
Major General Mikhail Malofeyev, deputy commander of the
Northern Group of Russian forces
in Chechnya and a key commander of the Russian assault on Grozny, is
killed on the first day of
the new offensive. Meanwhile, while officially only
about 800 Russian soldiers have died in the
second Chechen war, a Russian group, the Union of Committees of
Soldiers' Mothers, claims the
real figure is about 3,000. This would mean that the
Russian military is well on the way to losing
as many soldiers as in the first Chechen war. And the
devastation of Chechnya is also just as
heavy this time as last time.
March 26, 2000:
Russian presidential elections are scheduled for this day.
Acting President Putin wants to ensure
that Chechnya is subjugated by then, in order to ensure his election as
President.
Last changed on August 2, 2004.
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