I have long wanted to write my vision of such an event as the forced eviction (deportation) of some peoples of the North Caucasus. Moreover, tomorrow will be just the next 72nd anniversary of the deportation of the Chechen people.
Almost everyone knows about the fact of resettlement of Chechens, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Karachais and Ingush, but the real reason for this deportation is practically unknown. But everyone has seen such pictures ...
So, why in 1943-44. Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachais, Crimean Tatars and Kalmyks were deported and taken out of their homes. And why did this not affect the Ossetians and the peoples of Dagestan?
Why Stalin evicted the Chechens
Strange, but often there is such an opinion that the bloodthirsty tyrant Stalin decided to take revenge on the highlanders, for their hospitable meeting of the Germans and after the liberation of the Caucasus from Nazi troops, he gave an order to evict the Caucasians and Kalmyks by force.
Oral stories persist about how the Chechen elders allegedly presented Hitler with a handsome white stallion. In my childhood, I myself heard a lot of similar stories about how Chechens rejoiced at the arrival of the Germans, for which they paid by eviction.
Like, the bloodthirsty despot Stalin ordered his no less bloodthirsty henchman Larentiy Beria to drive everyone into cattle cars and take them to Siberia and Kazakhstan.
And these mythical justifications are quite suitable for contemporaries who did not live in that era and do not understand the situation, as well as people with a disturbed cause-and-effect part.
Those who have not forgotten how to think with their own heads and know at least a little the history and situation of those years will not argue that Stalin was a very practical statesman.
And he wanted to end the war as quickly as possible, not only because he was tired of it, but because. that at any moment the alignment of forces could change, he knew 100% that the Germans were one step away (!!) from creating an atomic bomb (just like the Americans), Germany had already started production of jet fighters ...
In 1943 - 1944. there were stubborn bloody battles in the territory of Ukraine and Belarus .. every soldier was counted! Every carriage that brought replenishment and ammunition to the front, so really, Stalin, out of personal revenge, pulled an army of 100,000 people from the fronts, including 19,000 SMERShevites, put them in cars and sent them to the North Caucasus to amuse his pride and to "take revenge" on the Chechens and Karachais ?!
This can only be invented by the children and grandchildren of the Trotskyists, whom Stalin destroyed without pity in the 30s and who still take revenge on him when he was dead and compose fables about his illiteracy and incompetence!
By the way, can you imagine how many wagons were required for such a number of soldiers with all the weapons ?! And then it took about two hundred trains with deported citizens, who were transported not 100 kilometers, but thousands of kilometers to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Komi !!
And this is just for revenge? Bullshit!
And this nonsense was believed by the duped citizens who were subjected to mass processing by liberal writers and historians, those who, since the time of the scoundrel Khrushchev, destroyed and forged documents in the archives in order to accuse Stalin of all mortal sins.
Yes. He was not an angel. But he really wanted to win that terrible war as quickly as possible, so the sending of 100,000 soldiers and officers to the Caucasus should be viewed exclusively from this logic.
Deportation of the Chechen people
So why was it necessary to disrupt the army, and not only with rifles and machine guns, but also with machine guns and cannons .. was there a logical basis for such a special operation called "Lentils"?
Yes. Unfortunately, there were good reasons for such a forced migration of peoples. Even not just weighty, but reinforced concrete!
After all, in the rear, an operation was planned to destroy the Grozny oil fields, and if the Baku ones were lucky, as a result, the army would have completely lost fuel, which means tanks with planes would be immobilized! Then there was nowhere to take gasoline and diesel fuel!
And how, for their part, our British "allies" deprived us of the oil fields of Romania, bombing Ploiesti as soon as the Red Army approached him, so this is generally a classic of cynicism and betrayal.
How the operation was prepared for the anti-Soviet uprising and the destruction of oil production, as well as about German saboteurs and gangs in Chechnya here
How Chechen gangs collaborated with the Nazis
http: //www..html
But let's try to figure out why, he was not a Russian himself, the Caucasian Stalin deported Chechens, Ingush in 1944 (“the population bordering on Chechen-Ingushetia reacted approvingly to the eviction of Chechens and Ingush”, Dagestanis and Ossetians were involved in the eviction) and Crimean Tatars ( “It is characteristic that the Crimean Slavs perceived this fact with understanding and approval”)? Why did more than 100 nations and nationalities live in the USSR and only these were deported en masse?
On this score, a myth is widely spread today, launched back in the days of Khrushchev and happily picked up by the current liberals, there were no objective reasons for eviction at all. Chechens, Yingushi and Red Tatars fought bravely at the front and worked hard in the rear, but as a result they became innocent victims of Stalin's tyranny: "Stalin hoped to curb small peoples in order to finally break their desire for independence and strengthen his empire."
For some reason, all these liberals keep silent about such a fact as, for example, the deportation of the Japanese to the United States - the forced transfer of about 120 thousand people to special camps. (of which 62% had American citizenship) from the US West Coast during World War II. About 10 thousand were able to move to other parts of the country, the remaining 110 thousand were imprisoned in camps, officially called "military centers of displacement." In many publications, these camps are called concentration camps.
NORTH CAUCASIAN LEGION
A few words should be said about the Chechens and Ingush who were evicted by the Soviet government in 1944. The highlanders greeted the German troops with joy, presented Hitler with a golden harness - "Allah is above us - Hitler is with us."
When the Germans approached the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, these peoples began to behave openly treacherously - mass desertions from the Red Army began, draft evasion - In total, 49 362 Chechens and Ingush deserted from the ranks of the Red Army over the three years of war, another 13 389 brave sons of the mountains evaded from the call, which in total is 62,751 people.
And how many Chechens and Ingush fought at the front? Defenders of the "repressed peoples" compose various fables on this score. For example, Doctor of Historical Sciences Hadji Murad Ibrahimbeyli states: “More than 30 thousand Chechens and Ingush fought on the fronts. In the first weeks of the war, more than 12 thousand communists and Komsomol members - Chechens and Ingush joined the army, most of whom died in the fighting.
The reality looks much more modest. While in the ranks of the Red Army, 2.3 thousand Chechens and Ingush were killed and missing. Is it a lot or a little? The Buryat people, half the size of the population, who were not threatened by the German occupation, lost 13 thousand people at the front, Ossetians were one and a half times inferior to the Chechens and Ingush - 10.7 thousand
In addition, the mentality of these highlanders manifested itself - deserters created gangs engaged in outright robbery, and local uprisings began, with traces of obvious German influence. From July 1941 to 1944, only on that territory of the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which was later transformed into the Grozny region, 197 gangs were destroyed by the state security bodies. At the same time, the total irrecoverable losses of the bandits amounted to 4532 people: 657 killed, 2762 captured, 1113 confessed. Thus, in the ranks of the bandit formations that fought against the Red Army, almost twice as many Chechens and Ingush were killed and taken prisoner than at the front. And this is not counting the losses of the Vainakhs who fought on the side of the Wehrmacht in the so-called "eastern battalions"! And since banditry is impossible without the support of the local population in the local conditions, many "peaceful Chechens" can also be regarded with a clear conscience as traitors.
By that time, the old "cadres" of abreks and local religious authorities, through the efforts of the OGPU, and then the NKVD, were mostly knocked out. They were replaced by a young gangster growth - Komsomol members and communists brought up by the Soviet authorities, who studied in Soviet universities, who clearly showed the validity of the proverb "No matter how much a wolf you feed, he always looks into the forest"
The most unfavorable moment for the Soviet regime was the period of the Battle of the Caucasus in 1942. The actions of the Chechen-Ingush in the region intensified in connection with the advance of the Germans. The highlanders even created the Chechen-Gorsk National Socialist Party! During the year, 43 special operations were carried out by units of the internal troops (excluding the operations of the Red Army), 2342 bandits were eliminated. One of the largest groups consisted of about 600 rebels.
These losses in killed and captured against the Soviet regime were greater than the losses suffered by the Chechens and Ingush in the ranks of the Red Army against the Germans! 2300 people died fighting on the side of the Red Army, there were 5 Heroes of the Soviet Union, for the sake of justice, here are their names: Khanpasha Nuradilov, Hansultan Dachiev, Abukhazhi Idrisov, Irbaikhan Beibulatov, Mavlid Visaitov.
Chechens and Ingush were especially warm towards German saboteurs. Osman (Saydnurov), the commander of the saboteurs, an Avar emigrant by nationality, taken prisoner with his group, told Guba during interrogation:
“Among the Chechens and Ingush, I easily found the right people, ready to betray, to go over to the side of the Germans and serve them. I was surprised: what are these people unhappy with? Under Soviet rule, Chechens and Ingush lived prosperously, in prosperity, much better than in pre-revolutionary times, as I was personally convinced after more than four months of being on the territory of Chechen-Ingushetia ... I could not find any other explanation, except that these people Chechens and Ingush, treacherous moods in relation to their homeland, were guided by selfish considerations, the desire under the Germans to preserve at least the remnants of their well-being, to provide a service, in return for which the invaders left them at least part of the available livestock and food, land and dwellings.
Fortunately, the Germans did not occupy the Chechen-Ingush ASSR. Otherwise, many anti-Soviet units could have been created from Chechens and Ingush, who are strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Russian. The small number of them in the "eastern" battalions is explained by the fact that they simply deserted from the Red Army to their native places and were waiting for the Germans. Soviet troops had to repel the attacks of the Germans in the Caucasus and still sort out in their rear against these highlanders. The country's leadership perceived such an attitude of the highlanders to the war as an unequivocal betrayal, a consumerist attitude towards the rest of the peoples of the USSR, and therefore it was decided to deport. The eviction was forced and justified.
On February 23, the resettlement of the Caucasian peoples began. Operation Lentil was well prepared and successful. By its beginning, the motives of the eviction - treason - were brought to the entire population. Leading workers, religious leaders of Chechnya, Ingushetia and other ethnic groups took a personal part in explaining the reasons for the resettlement. The agitation reached its goal. Out of 873,000 people evicted, only 842 people resisted and were arrested, only 50 people were killed while resisting or trying to escape.
The "warlike highlanders" did not offer any real resistance. As soon as Moscow demonstrated its strength and firmness, the highlanders obediently went to the assembly points, they knew their guilt.
CRIMEAN TATARS ON THE SERVICE OF THE VERMACHT
They really served the enemy faithfully.
On the territory of the occupied multinational Crimea, the German leadership decided to rely on the Crimean Tatars who were anti-Bolshevik and historically anti-Russian. Crimean Tatars, with the rapid approach of the front, began to defect in large numbers from the Red Army and partisan detachments, expressing anti-Russian sentiments. “... All those called up to the Red Army numbered 90 thousand people, including 20 thousand Crimean Tatars ... 20 thousand Crimean Tatars deserted in 1941 from the 51st Army when it retreated from the Crimea ...” Thus, the desertion of the Crimean Tatars from the Red Army was almost universal.
The Tatars sought to curry favor with the invaders, show their loyalty, and quickly take money places in the new occupied Crimea. The Russians (49.6% of the Crimean population) became the most deprived of rights on the peninsula, and the Crimean Tatars (19.8%) became the owners. The latter were given the best houses, collective farm plots and equipment, special stores were opened for them, religious life was established, and some self-government was allowed. It was constantly emphasized that they were the chosen ones. True, after the war, the Crimea had to be completely Germanized (the Fuehrer announced this already on July 16, 1941), but the Tatars were not informed about this.
But while Crimea remained as a close rear area of \u200b\u200bthe active army, and after a combat zone, the Germans temporarily needed order in this territory and reliance on part of the local population. With the resettlement, we decided to wait.
Crimean Tatars easily made contact with the Germans, and already in October-November 1941, the Germans formed the first detachments of collaborationists from the Crimean Tatars. And these were not only Tatars - Khivi from prisoners of war in the active army, of whom there were 9 thousand people. These were police self-defense units to protect villages from partisans, carry out German policy and maintain order on the ground. These units numbered 50 - 170 fighters and were led by German officers. The personnel consisted of Tatar deserters from the Red Army and peasants. The fact that the Tatars enjoyed a special disposition is evidenced by the fact that 1/3 of the self-defense police wore German military uniforms (albeit without insignia) and even helmets. At the same time, Belarusian self-defense police units (the status of the Slavs was the lowest) wore rags - civilian mismatched clothing or Soviet uniforms that had passed the camp.
Crimean Tatars took an active part in the anti-Soviet struggle. According to German data, from 15 to 20 thousand Crimean Tatars served in the German armed forces and police, which is about 6-9% of the total number of Crimean Tatars (in 1939). At the same time, in 1941 there were only 10 thousand Tatars in the Red Army, many of whom deserted and later served the Germans. Also, about 1.2 thousand Crimean Tatars were red partisans and underground fighters (177 deserted from partisan detachments)
The zeal of the Tatars to serve the new masters was noted by the Fuhrer himself. The Tatars were provided with small pleasant services - free meals in special canteens for families, monthly or one-time benefits, etc. I must say that active national anti-Russian propaganda was carried out in the Tatar police units.
Crimean Tatars, accomplices of the Germans, did not just fight and serve the Germans - for some reason they were especially cruel to their opponents. Perhaps, the majority of Tatars have a bad attitude towards the enemy and extreme cruelty.
So, in the Sudak region in 1942, the Tatars destroyed the reconnaissance landing of the Red Army. They captured twelve of our paratroopers and burned them alive.
On February 4, 1943, Tatar volunteers from the villages of Beshuy and Koush took four partisans prisoner. All of them were brutally killed: stabbed with bayonets, and then they were still alive, laid on fires and burned. Particularly disfigured was the corpse of partisan Khasan Kiyamov, a Kazan Tatar, whom the chastisers apparently took for their fellow countryman.
The attitude towards the civilian population was no less brutal. Throughout the entire occupation on the territory of the Krasny state farm, where the Crimean Tatars lived, there was a concentration camp of death, in which at least eight thousand Crimean citizens, suspected of sympathizing with the partisans, were brutally tortured and killed. The camp was guarded by Tatars from the 152nd auxiliary police battalion. According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, the head of the camp, SS Oberscharfuehrer Speckman, attracted guards to carry out the dirtiest work.
It got to the point that, fleeing the Tatar massacre, the local Russian and Ukrainian population was forced to seek protection ... to the German authorities! And quite often German soldiers and officers, shocked by the actions of their "allies", provided the Russians with such assistance ...
Intoxicated by the power, the pro-German leaders of the Bakhchisarai and Alushta Muslim committees (the creation of such bodies is another German indulgence), as a personal initiative, suggested that the Germans simply destroy all Russians in Crimea (before the war, Russians were 49.6% of all Crimean residents). Such ethnic cleansing was carried out in two villages of the Bakhchisarai region by the Tatar self-defense forces. However, the Germans did not support the initiative - the war was not over yet, and there were too many Russians.
Because of their attitude to the Soviet regime, the Crimean Tatars were evicted from the Crimea. Of course, today it is easy to condemn Stalin, who, in a military way, radically resolved the issue with the Crimean Tatar traitors. But let's look at this story not from the position of today, but from the point of view of that time.
Many punishers did not have time to leave with the Nazis, hiding with numerous relatives who were not going to betray their relatives, the executioners. In addition, it turned out that the "Muslim committees" created by the Germans in the Tatar villages did not disappear anywhere, but went underground.
In addition, the Tatar population had many weapons in their hands. Only on May 7, 1944, as a result of a special raid by the NKVD troops, 5395 rifles, 337 machine guns, 250 machine guns, 31 mortars, a huge amount of grenades and cartridges were seized.
The country's leadership realized that in the face of the Crimean Tatars they faced the "fifth column", welded together by strong family ties ... and very dangerous for the rear of the Red Army.
GENOCIDE?
You can find many stories of how front-line soldiers - Crimean Tatars and Caucasians, who have many Soviet awards, were repressed along with everyone. Such was the reckoning for some for betraying others.
These peoples deserve eviction in full. Nevertheless, in spite of the facts, the current guardians of the "repressed peoples" continue to repeat how inhumane it was to punish the entire nation for the crimes of its "individual representatives". One of the favorite arguments of this public is the reference to the illegality of such collective punishment.
Strictly speaking, this is true: no Soviet laws provided for the mass eviction of Chechens, Ingush and Tatars. However, let's see what would have happened if the authorities tried to act in 1944 according to the law.
As we have already found out, the majority of Chechens, Ingush and kr. draft-age Tatars evaded military service or deserted. What is due in wartime for desertion? Shooting or a penalty company. Have these measures been applied to deserters of other nationalities? Yes, they did. Banditry, organizing uprisings, cooperation with the enemy during the war were also punished to the fullest extent. As well as less serious crimes, such as membership in an anti-Soviet underground organization or possession of weapons. Aiding in the commission of crimes, harboring criminals, and finally, failure to report were also punishable by the Criminal Code. And almost all adult Chechens, Ingush and Red Tatars were involved in this.
It turns out that the accusers of Stalin's arbitrariness, in fact, regret that several tens of thousands of men were not legally put up against the wall! However, most likely, they simply believe that the law was written only for Russians and other citizens of the "lowest class", and it does not apply to the proud inhabitants of the Caucasus and Crimea. Judging by the current amnesties for Chechen fighters, this is so.
So, from the point of view of formal legality, the punishment that befell the Chechens, Ingush and Crimean Tatars in 1944 was much softer than the one that was due to them under the Criminal Code. Because in this case, almost the entire adult population should have been shot or sent to camps.
Maybe it was worth "forgiving" the traitorous peoples? But what would the millions of families of the dead soldiers think at the same time, looking at the prisoners in the rear?
At 2 a.m. on February 23, 1944, the most famous ethnic deportation operation began - the resettlement of the inhabitants of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, formed ten years earlier by the unification of the Chechen and Ingush Autonomous Regions.
There were deportations of the "punished peoples" before that - Germans and Finns, Kalmyks and Karachais, and after - Balkars, Crimean Tatars and Greeks, Bulgarians and Armenians living in Crimea, as well as Meskhetian Turks from Georgia. But the operation "Lentils" to evict almost half a million Vainakhs - Chechens and Ingush - became the largest.
The decision to deport Chechens and Ingush was motivated by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR by the fact that “during the Great Patriotic War, especially during the actions of the Nazi troops in the Caucasus, many Chechens and Ingush betrayed their Motherland, went over to the side of the Nazi invaders, joined the ranks of saboteurs and scouts , thrown by the Germans into the rear of the Red Army, created, at the behest of the Germans, armed gangs to fight against Soviet power, and also taking into account that many Chechens and Ingush participated in armed uprisings against Soviet power for a number of years and for a long time, without being honest with labor, they carry out bandit raids on collective farms of neighboring regions, rob and kill Soviet people. "
The complicated relations of these two peoples with the authorities existed even before the war. Until 1938 there was not even a systematic conscription of Chechens and Ingush into the Red Army - no more than 300-400 people were conscripted annually.
Then the conscription was significantly increased, and in 1940-1941 it was carried out in full accordance with the law on universal conscription.
“The attitude of the Chechens and Ingush to the Soviet regime was clearly expressed in desertion and evasion of conscription into the ranks of the Red Army. During the first mobilization in August 1941, out of 8,000 people to be drafted, 719 people deserted. In October 1941, out of 4,733 people, 362 dodged the draft. In January 1942, during the formation of the national division, only 50 percent of the personnel were drafted. In March 1942, out of 14,576 people deserted and evaded service, 13,560 people went into an illegal position, went to the mountains and joined the gangs. In 1943, out of 3,000 volunteers, the number of deserters was 1,870, ”wrote L.P. Beria, Deputy People's Commissar, State Security Commissioner of the 2nd rank B.Z. Kobulov.
According to him, there were 38 sects in the republic, numbering over 20 thousand people. These were mostly hierarchical, organized Muslim religious brotherhoods of the murids.
“They are active anti-Soviet work, sheltering bandits, German parachutists. When the front line approached in August-September 1942, 80 members of the AUCP (b) quit their jobs and fled, including 16 leaders of the district committees of the AUCP (b), 8 leaders of the district executive committees and 14 chairmen of collective farms, ”wrote Bogdan Kobulov.
After the outbreak of the war, the mobilization of Chechens and Ingush was actually thwarted - “believing and hoping that the USSR would lose the war, many mullahs and teip authorities campaigned for evasion of military service or desertion,” says the collection of documents prepared by the international fund “Democracy”, “Stalin's deportations. 1928-1953 ".
Due to mass desertion and evasion from service in the spring of 1942, by order of the NKO of the USSR, the conscription of Chechens and Ingush into the army was canceled.
In 1943, about 3,000 volunteers were allowed to be recruited, but two-thirds of them deserted.
Because of this, it was not possible to form the 114th Chechen-Ingush Cavalry Division - it had to be reorganized into a regiment, but even after that desertion was massive.
As of November 20, 1942, all 90 Chechens and Ingush were in the Northern group of the Transcaucasian Front - 0.04%.
War heroes
At the same time, many Vainakhs who came to the front showed themselves from the best side and made a contribution to the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War in 1941-1945.
The names of three Chechens and one Ingush are immortalized in the Memorial Complex of the Defenders of the Brest Fortress. But in the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress, which has become a symbol of fortitude and courage, participated, according to various sources, from 250 to 400 people from Checheno-Ingushetia. Together with other units of the Red Army, the 255th Chechen-Ingush regiment and a separate cavalry division fought in Brest.
One of the last and staunch defenders of the Brest Fortress was Magomed Uzuev, but only in 1996, by the decree of the President of the Russian Federation, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation. In Brest, the brother of Magomed Visa Uzuev also fought.
Until now, two defenders of the Brest Fortress live in Chechnya - Akhmed Khasiev and Adam Malaev
Sniper Abukhadzhi Idrisov killed 349 fascists - a whole battalion. Sergeant Idrisov was awarded the Orders of the Red Banner and the Red Star, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The Chechen sniper Akhmat Magomadov became famous in the battles near Leningrad, where he was called "the fighter of the German invaders." There are 90 Germans on it.
Khanpasha Nuradilov at the fronts destroyed 920 fascists, captured 7 enemy machine guns and personally took 12 fascists prisoner. For military exploits Nuradilov was awarded the Orders of the Red Star and the Red Banner. In April 1943 he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
During the war years, 10 Vainakhs became Heroes of the Soviet Union. The war killed 2,300 Chechens and Ingush.
Anti-Soviet speeches
With the outbreak of the war, bandit formations in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR became more active. In October 1941, two separate uprisings took place, engulfing the Shatoevsky, Itum-Kalinsky, Vedensky, Cheberloevsky and Galanchozhsky districts of the republic. In early 1942, the leaders of the uprisings, Khasan Israilov and Mairbek Sheripov, united to form the "Provisional People's Revolutionary Government of Checheno-Ingushetia." In their statements, this "government" of the rebels viewed Hitler as an ally in the fight against Stalin.
As the front line approached the border of the republic in 1942, anti-Soviet forces began to act more actively. In August-September 1942, collective farms were disbanded in almost all mountainous regions of Chechnya, and several thousand people, including dozens of Soviet functionaries, joined the Israilov and Sheripov uprising.
After the appearance of German landing forces in Chechnya in the fall of 1942, the NKVD accused Israilov and Sheripov of creating the pro-fascist parties of the National Socialist Party of the Caucasian Brothers and the Chechen Mountain National Socialist Underground Organization.
In the eight teams of fascist paratroopers dropped on the territory of the republic, a total of 77 people were recruited Chechens and Ingush. But there was no universal participation of Chechens and Ingush in anti-Soviet gangs. The NKVD registered 150-200 gangs of 2-3 thousand bandits on the territory of Checheno-Ingushetia. This is approximately 0.5% of the population of Chechnya. From the beginning of the war to January 1944, 55 gangs and 973 bandits were liquidated in the republic, 1901 bandits, a fascist and their accomplices were arrested.
"Lentils"
Operation "Lentil" began to be prepared in October-November 1943. Initially, it was planned to relocate to the Novosibirsk and Omsk regions, to the Altai and Krasnoyarsk regions. But then it was decided to resettle the Chechens and Ingush to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
On January 29, 1944, the head of the NKVD, Lavrenty Beria, approved the "Instruction on the procedure for the eviction of Chechens and Ingush." On February 1, the issue was discussed by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). Disagreements arose only on the timing of the start of the operation.
Beria personally supervised the operation. On February 17, 1944, he reported from Grozny that preparations were nearing completion, 459,486 people were to be evicted. The operation was designed for eight days, and 19 thousand operatives of the NKVD, NKGB and SMERSH and about 100 thousand officers and soldiers of the NKVD troops were involved in it.
On February 22, Beria met with the top leadership of the republic and the highest clergy and told them about the decision of the governments and “the motives that formed the basis of this decision. After this message, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Mollaev "shed tears, but promised to pull himself together and promised to complete all the tasks that would be given to him in connection with the eviction," Beria reported to Stalin.
Beria suggested to the highest clerics of Checheno-Ingushetia "to carry out the necessary work among the population through the mullahs and other local" authorities "associated with them.
The influence of the mullahs was enormous. Their preaching, wrote the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR N.P. Dundorov in the mid-1950s, could improve labor discipline and even double labor productivity.
“Both the party-Soviet and the clergy we use were promised some benefits for resettlement (the rate of things allowed for export will be slightly increased),” Beria said.
The operation, according to him, began successfully - 333,739 people were taken out of the settlements in a day, of which 176,950 were loaded onto echelons. A more rapid eviction was prevented by the heavy snow that fell on the afternoon of February 23rd.
Nevertheless, by February 29 (1944 was a leap year) 478,479 people were evicted and loaded into wagons, including 91,250 Ingush and 387,229 Chechens.
"177 echelons were loaded, of which 159 echelons have already been sent to the place of the new settlement," Beria reported on the results of the operation.
During the operation, 2016 “a man of an anti-Soviet element” were arrested, more than 20 thousand firearms were seized.
"The population bordering on Chechen-Ingushetia reacted approvingly to the eviction of Chechens and Ingush," the head of the NKVD said.
Residents of the republic were allowed to take with them 500 kilograms of cargo per family. The special settlers had to hand over their livestock and grain - in exchange they received livestock and grain from the local authorities at their new place of residence.
There were 45 people in each carriage (for comparison, the Germans were allowed to take a ton of property during deportation, and there were 40 people in the carriage without personal belongings). The party nomenklatura and the Muslim elite rode in the last echelon, which consisted of normal carriages.
And just months later, in the summer of 1944, several spiritual leaders of the Chechens were summoned to the republic in order to help persuade the gangs and the Chechens who evaded deportation to end their resistance.
Incidents
The deportation took place not without excesses - according to various sources, from 27 to 780 people were killed, 6544 residents of the republic managed to evade deportation. The People's Commissariat of State Security reported on "a number of ugly facts of violation of revolutionary legality, arbitrary executions of old Chechen women who remained after the resettlement, sick, crippled people who could not follow."
According to a document published by the Democracy Foundation, three people were killed in one of the villages, including an eight-year-old boy, in another - "five old women", in the third - "according to unspecified data" "arbitrary shooting of the sick and crippled up to 60 people ".
In recent years, there have been reports of 200 to 600-700 people being burnt in the Galanchozh district. To investigate the operation in this area, two commissions were created - in 1956 and 1990, but the criminal case was never completed. The official report of the 3rd rank state security commissar M. Gvishiani, who was in charge of the operation in the area, mentioned only a few dozen killed or died on the way.
As for the mortality rate of immigrants, according to the leadership of the NKVD convoy troops, 56 people were born on the way to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, “1272 people died, which is 2.6 people per 1000 transported. According to the Statistical Department of the RSFSR, the mortality rate in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1943 was 13.2 people per 1000 inhabitants. " The causes of death were the "advanced and early age of the resettled," the presence of chronic diseases among the resettled, and the presence of the physically weak.
Toponymic repression
On March 7, 1944, the Chechen-Ingush ASSR itself was liquidated. In place of the regions inhabited by Chechens, the Grozny District was created as part of the Stavropol Territory.
Part of the republic's territory was divided between Georgia and North Ossetia. All Ingush place names were repressed - they were replaced by Russian and Ossetian names.
Historians' opinion
Despite a number of incidents, on the whole, the eviction of the whole proceeded calmly and did not push the Chechens and Ingush to a terrorist war, although, according to historians, there were all opportunities for this.
Some historians explain this by the fact that severe punishment was at the same time careful in relation to the people. According to the laws of wartime, desertion and evasion from military service deserved a cruel punishment. But the authorities did not shoot the men, “cut the roots of the people,” but evicted everyone. At the same time, party and Komsomol organizations were not disbanded, admission to the army was not stopped.
However, most historians consider it unacceptable to punish the entire people for the crime of some of its representatives. The deportations of peoples as repressions were extrajudicial in nature and were directed not at a specific person, but at a whole group of people, moreover, a very large one. Masses of people were torn out of their usual habitat, deprived of their homeland, and placed in a new environment, thousands of kilometers from the previous one. Representatives of these peoples were evicted not only from their historical homeland, but also from all other cities and regions, demobilized from the army.
Rehabilitation and return
The ban on returning home for Chechens and Ingush was canceled on January 9, 1957 by a decree of the Presidiums of the Supreme Soviets of the USSR and the RSFSR. These decrees restored the Chechen-Ingush autonomy, and an Organizing Committee was created to organize the repatriation.
Immediately after the decree, tens of thousands of Chechens and Ingush in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan quit their jobs, sold their property and began to seek leave to their former place of residence. The authorities were forced in the summer of 1957 to temporarily suspend the return of Chechens and Ingush to their homeland.
One of the reasons was the tense situation emerging in the North Caucasus - the local authorities were not ready for a massive return and conflicts between the Vainakhs and settlers from Central Russia and land-poor regions of the North Caucasus who occupied their homes and lands in 1944.
The restoration of autonomy provided for a new complex redrawing of the administrative-territorial division of the region. The Prigorodny District, which remained part of the North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and at the end of the 1980s, turned into a hotbed of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict, found itself outside the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
The authorities planned to return 17 thousand families to the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1957, but there were twice as many of them, and many sought placement in those villages and houses in which they lived before deportation. This led to ethnic confrontation. In particular, in August 1958, after a murder on domestic grounds, riots broke out, about a thousand people were seized by the regional party committee in Grozny and pogrom there. 32 people were injured, including four employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, two civilians died and 10 were hospitalized, almost 60 people were arrested.
Most of the Chechens and Ingush returned to their homeland only by the spring of 1959.
The Chechens and Ingush were completely rehabilitated according to the RSFSR law of April 26, 1991 "On the rehabilitation of repressed peoples." The law provided for "the recognition and implementation of their right to restore territorial integrity that existed before the anti-constitutional policy of forcible redrawing of borders, to restore national-state formations that had formed before their abolition, as well as to compensate for damage caused by the state."
At the same time, the law provided that the rehabilitation process should not infringe on the rights and legitimate interests of citizens currently living in these territories.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the deportation of the Chechen and Ingush peoples. The unprecedented in history mass forcible resettlement of peoples has long been recognized as a crime, peoples have been rehabilitated, the creators of such punishment have gone through historical condemnation.
There are no guilty peoples. In confirmation of the invariability of this political position, soon after the annexation of Crimea to Russia, a presidential decree appeared on the rehabilitation of repressed peoples - Crimean Tatars, Greeks, Bulgarians ... But the historical tragedy is being actualized for other purposes as well. Such an unexpected actualization was the frequent citation of one terrible document that explodes all ideas about humanity. It also formed the basis for the plot of the film "Ashes", filmed, as its creators explained, taking into account the screening at European film festivals. Archival investigation shows that we are dealing with a fake.
FEBRUARY 2014 marked the 70th anniversary of the deportation of the Chechen and Ingush peoples. History has never known such a massive forced resettlement. In the course of this operation, only for the period from 23 to 29 February 1944, 478,479 people were evicted and loaded into wagons, including 91,250 Ingush and 387,229 Chechens. On 177 trains the "special contingent" was sent to settle in Central Asia and Kazakhstan.
In order to restore historical justice, the Law "On the rehabilitation of repressed peoples" was adopted in 1991.
The "For Your Eyes Only" stamp is still used in classified US military documents.
Historians and archivists are doing a lot to ensure that the tragedy of the Chechen and Ingush peoples ceases to be a "blank spot" in national history. Many documents on this subject, which were previously in secret storage, are now declassified. Dozens of articles and monographs have been published on the events of February 1944 in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR.
However, in the press and on the Internet, documents are constantly being published, the authenticity of which is questionable. On their basis, films are created that distortedly interpret the events of the past. One of these "documents" is a certain "report of Colonel Gvishiani" with the following content: "Top secret. To the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Comrade L. P. Beria. For your eyes only. "was forced to liquidate more than 700 residents in the town of Khaibakh. Colonel Gvishiani."
This "report" has been published several times. However, in the publications there was never a reference to the place of its storage, which raises doubts about its authenticity. The search for this document in the state archives of Russia did not give positive results.
The text of the "Gvishiani report" gives rise to questions among experts that make it possible to assume that this is a forged document. In the operational correspondence between the NKVD and the NKGB of the USSR, there was no stamp "Top secret. Only for your eyes." In the Soviet Union, there were stamps: "Secret", "Top secret", "Top secret, of special importance." The documents could have been stamped: "Copying is prohibited", but the stamp "for your eyes only" is not found in the original documents of the power departments of the Soviet Union. However, the stamp "For Your Eyes Only" is still used in classified documents of the US military.
A place of memory of the tragic events of deportation. A photo: RIA News
The settlement of Khaibakh is named in the "report of Gvishiani" "a place". In fact, in operational documentation, Chechen settlements have always been called auls, farmsteads, villages, in some cases they are mentioned without specifying the nature of the settlement.
In the "report" the operation to evict the Chechens and Ingush appears as Operation "Mountains", in fact it bore the code name "Operation" Lentils ".
The "report" contains neither the date of its signing, nor the clerical number. For the documentation of the NKVD troops, this is incredible! Even a copy of the document was stamped with the outgoing number and the date of signing. The rule was mandatory for all documentation of the NKVD of the USSR, without exception.
The "report" was signed by "Colonel Gvishiani". In fact, M. M. Gvishiani has never been a colonel. In the period from February 1943 to July 1945. the real Gvishiani had the title of "State Security Commissioner of the 3rd rank". It is absolutely incredible that in the report to his superiors he could "forget" his rank.
It should also dwell on the content of the arguments of "Colonel Gvishiani" about the reasons for the mass execution of residents in the village. Haybach. The "report" speaks of their "non-transportability", which is not entirely true. The difficulties in carrying out the operation in the Galanchezhsky region are mentioned in the actually existing report of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L. Beria addressed to I. Stalin on the completion of the operation to evict the Chechens and Ingush on February 29, 1944. The report, in particular, says: of the high-mountain Galanchezhsky region, 6 thousand Chechens remained not exported due to heavy snowfall and impassable roads, the export and loading of which will be completed in 2 days. " We are talking about carrying out an operation in the high-mountain villages of this region. The settlement of Khaibakh was located 5 km east of the regional center Galanchezh. Approximately 1 km north of Khaibakh was the village of Testeroy, and then the valley of the Gekhi River began. There was no road connecting the regional center with Grozny in 1944. The entire path of 60 - 70 km, of course, was not short, but it could be overcome partly along the bed of the Gekhi River, partly along the road starting from the settlement of Gekhi.
How and when did the deportation of the population of the Galanchezh region actually take place? The answer to this question is contained in a genuine memorandum of the State Security Commissioner of the 3rd rank M. M. Gvishiani addressed to the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Colonel-General A. N. Apollonov "On the results of the operation to resettle the Chechens and Ingush in the Galanchezhsky District of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic "dated March 5, 1944.
The "Gvishiani Report" raises questions among specialists that make it possible to assume that this is a fake document
The note is distinguished by a scrupulous calculation of the population of the entire Galanchezhsky district (7026 people) and each of its nine village councils. Source - census data verified by operational workers. The last census took place in 1939. Almost 5 years have passed, and much in the socio-demographic situation of the district has changed, so the employees of the NKVD regional department carried out a reconciliation to establish the exact population on January 1, 1944.
According to the so-called report, 10% of the entire population of the region was destroyed in the small village of Khaibakh. In fact, the figure mentioned there - 700 people - exceeds the total population of the Galanchezhsky village council at the beginning of 1944.
In a real memorandum, the names of those who were absent from the villages during the operation were named. In 5 village councils (out of 9) 52 people were absent. The NKVD authorities took measures to arrest them. Why does Gvishiani, reporting to the deputy commissar, stop at this? The success of the operation was determined not only by the timing of its completion, but also by the number of resettled people.
According to Gvishiani's memorandum, the number of special settlers in the region was 7163 people. In 6 out of 9 village councils, more people were evicted than originally planned. In three village councils (Yalkhoroi, Akkiy and Melkhestinsky) the number of immigrants is lower than planned (by 80 - 100 people). It should be noted that the total number of special settlers in the district (7163 people) was not verified with the data for each village council separately (7255 people). It is possible that a mistake was made by the compiler of the note, or the document did not take into account the losses during the transportation of people to the places of loading (those who died on the way, fled and were killed while trying to escape).
The memorandum of M. M. Gvishiani, like other documents on the preparation and conduct of the deportation operation, is kept in the Russian State Military Archive (RGVA). We present to the readers' judgment some of them.
Authentic documents
Instructions for escorting a special contingent resettled according to special instructions of the NKVD of the USSR
1. For escorting echelons with special settlers, the Convoy Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR is assigned a platoon of soldiers of the escort troops (36-40 people) for each echelon.
2. Responsibility for the organization of reliable protection of the resettled at the place of their loading at railway stations, on the way and during unloading in the places of resettlement is assigned to the commandant of the echelon, allocated from among the officers of the NKVD convoy troops. A non-commissioned officer is assigned to help the commandant of the echelon.
3. One NKVD or NKGB operative is allocated for each echelon for operational and agent services for those resettled along the route. The operative is obliged to establish contact with agents and informants from among the special contingent and promptly inform the commandant of the echelon about this in order to take the necessary measures against possible attempts on the part of the evicted to anti-Soviet actions and organized escape.
4. The commander of the echelon, before loading the special contingent into the wagons, is obliged to carefully check their serviceability in order to exclude the possibility of the displaced persons escaping during loading and along the route.
5. With the arrival of the special contingent from the areas of eviction to the echelon, the commandant of the echelon immediately cordons off the echelon and does not release any of the resettled people outside the cordon zone. The echelon commandant is responsible for organizing the security of the special contingent during the loading period.
6. If it is necessary to use a special contingent to deliver water, fuel, food, etc. to the wagons, the commandant of the echelon assigns a separate convoy to escort them.
7. The commandant of the echelon accepts the special contingent from the operational staff in accordance with family cards drawn up for the head of the family. The operator hands over one copy of the family card to the commandant of the train against receipt.
8. In each two-axle wagon, board at least 40 special contingent people. The echelon must have 63 human carriages, which must accommodate at least 2,500 people. In addition, one [car] for the convoy and one ambulance are allocated. If necessary, a punishment cell is organized in one of the carriages for persons who violate the order of movement.
9. After the special contingent has boarded the carriages, the commandant of the train or on his behalf by persons from the convoy carefully fill in the carriage lists, in which all persons loaded into the carriage, including infants, are recorded.
10. In each carriage, a senior carriage is appointed from among the special settlers, whose duties include the responsibility for order in the carriage, accounting and checking at least once a day of all special settlers accommodated in the carriage, distribution of food, etc. About all incidents in the carriage (escape , death, etc.), the head of the carriage must immediately report to the commandant of the train. In the event of an escape while the train is moving, the echelon commandant at the very first stop informs the installation data of the escaped or straggler to the transport authorities of the NKGB or the police for taking appropriate measures for the search.
11. For every 8 - 10 wagons, a senior officer is appointed from among the sergeants of the escort troops, whose duties include monitoring the behavior of the migrants of this group of wagons. Persons who violate the established procedure for movement, the head of the echelon may transfer to a punishment cell car.
12. The echelon commandant places a convoy at the head and tail of the echelon and organizes communication between them both at stops and along the route in such a way as to exclude the possibility of group escapes and to successfully repel possible attempts by bandit elements to attack the train.
13. On the movement, the location of the echelon and its condition, the commandant of the echelon is obliged to inform the transportation department of the NKVD of the USSR on a daily basis. For example: "Echelon N ... proceeded to station" K "on January 5 of this year, Signature".
14. The organization of meals for the resettled en route is carried out by the commandant of the train at the designated points. Payment for meals is made by the commandant of the echelon in the prescribed manner. The train commandant receives money for food from a representative of the NKVD of the USSR in charge of monetary issues. 8-10 hours before the arrival of the train at the station, where meals should be prepared, the commandant of the train makes a request by phone or telegraph.
15. All documents received by the commandant of the echelon in connection with the expenses for the resettled must be certified at the places of their expenditure by the local NKVD bodies. It is prohibited to give money to migrants in their hands, except for the purchase of milk for children.
16. For medical care of the resettled by the organs of the People's Commissariat of Health one doctor and two nurses are allocated. One carriage is allocated for the medical staff and patients. The doctor must have the required amount of medicines with him. In the event of a serious illness of the migrants on the way, the commandant of the train transfers the patients through the local transport authorities of the NKVD for treatment to the nearest health centers and reports this to the Transportation Department of the NKVD of the USSR.
17. Upon arrival of the displaced persons at the unloading station, the commandant of the echelon hands over the displaced persons to representatives of local NKVD bodies and the authorities according to the carriage lists. An act of surrender is drawn up, one copy of which [the commandant] keeps.
Convoy troops accompany the special settlers up to the place of their resettlement.
The [present] instruction should be entered as an addition to PKV-39.
Chief of the Convoy Troops of the NKVD of the USSR, Major General Bochkov
Russian State Military Archives (RGVA). F.38660. Op. 1. D.3. L.285 - 288. Certified copy.
From the combat log of the 145th rifle regiment of the Internal Troops of the NKVD of the USSR for the period from May 1, 1942 to December 31, 1946
/.../ February 24, 1944. At 1.00 am the regiment received the task: at 6.00 am by car to throw itself out to V. Alkun, from there in marching order to the Galanchezhsky region to carry out an operation in the mountainous regions. By the end of the day on February 24, 1944, the regiment arrived in Verkhniy Alkun by motor vehicles, where an overnight stay was made, and in the morning of February 25, 1944, at 4.00, it set out for Verkhniy Yalkhora - 49 km along a mountain road.
February 25, 1944 The whole day the regiment was marching, the path was very difficult, a mountain road with great ups and downs, snow and frost with wind. At 24.00 we arrived in V. Yalkhora, the personnel settled down to rest. (to be specified where - ed.) During the march there were cases of frostbite of personnel.
On February 26, 1944, the regiment was divided into 4 groups (the groups and their commanders are listed - editor's note). All groups left for the mountains to carry out an operation to evict the Chechen-Ingush population from mountain villages at a distance of 40-50 km. The regiment's headquarters was in V. Kiy.
On February 29, 1944, the divisions of the regiment began to evict them in the indicated villages and escort the evicted to assembly points. The eviction and escort of the special contingent was carried out successfully.
On March 4, 1944, the divisions of the regiment escorted the special contingent from the mountain villages to Nizhniy Al /.../ and here [they handed it over] to the assembly point [and] in cars went to the new place of deployment - st. Assinovskaya.
Russian State Military Archives (RGVA). F. 38771. Item 1. D.1. L.27ob. Script.
Memorandum of the 3rd Rank State Security Commissioner M.M. Gvishiani
Galanchezhsky district is administratively divided into nine village councils, which unite from 8 to 22 farms each. On January 1, 1944, the number of farmsteads was 123. The population census and the verification of the opera census data were carried out. the workers found that 7026 residents - Chechens - live in the district.
At the direction of the leadership, the operation to resettle the residents of the district began on February 28, and in six village councils on February 29.
Operation results. According to the Yalkharoi village council, 1073 people [sheep], 213 households were subject to resettlement (according to the population census); 902 people [sheep], 203 households were relocated. According to the Meredzhoi village council, 712 people, 155 farms were to be resettled; 819 people, 168 households were relocated. According to the Nikaroi village council, 629 people, 107 households were to be resettled; 796 people, 121 households were relocated. According to the Nashkhoi Village Council, 1501 people, 257 households were to be resettled, 1508 people, 267 households were resettled. According to the Peshkhoi Village Council, 441 people [sheep], 84 farms were to be relocated, 482 people, 93 farms were relocated. According to the Galanchezhsky village council, 581 people, 120 households were subject to resettlement, 635 people, 179 households were resettled. According to the Kiysky village council, 710 people, 126 households were to be resettled; 820 people, 150 households were relocated. According to the Akki village council, 769 people, 166 households were to be resettled, 699 people, 142 households were resettled. According to the Melkhestin village council, 610 people, 101 households were subject to resettlement, 594 people, 92 households were resettled.
Thus, 7026 people, 1330 households were to be resettled in the district, 7163 people, 1406 households were resettled.
In a number of village councils, some residents, mainly from among the legalized bandits and participants in the uprisings, fled, while the other part left for the adjacent areas before the start of the operation in the area.
So, according to the Nashkhoi village council, 15 people were absent on the day of the operation, 5 of them were men, 8 women and 2 children. Of the men were absent (5 names are listed - editor's note).
According to the Kiysk village council, 8 people were absent (names are listed - ed.)
Most of those listed were subject to arrest on certificates. According to the Akki village council, 16 people were absent (names are listed - editor's note). 6 of these people were detained and resettled in other areas. According to the Yalkharoi village council, 4 people [ovek] were absent (names are listed - editor's note). According to the Melkhestinsky village council, 9 people were absent (names are listed - editor's note). According to the certificates and instructions of the NKVD - NKGB of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, 30 people were arrested, 18 people (subject to arrest) were killed Saigov Magomed, Mamaev Kortani and others. The remaining 10 people, subject to arrest on the basis of certificates, disappeared on the day of the operation.
During the operation of the task force from November 1, 1943, 197 weapons were seized in the area: Rifles - 139. PPSh - 4. Pistols and revolvers - 24. Smoothbore guns - 29. Large-caliber machine gun - 1.
During the operation, weapons were withdrawn in the area: Rifles - 29. PPSh - 1. Pistols and revolvers - 23. RGD grenades - 1933 - 16. Live cartridges - 964. Smoothbore guns - 7. Cold weapons - 276.
There were 621 operative workers, of whom 486 took part in the operation in the village councils, the rest were employed at collection points.
Before the operation and during it, there were several skirmishes between our troops and the gangs in the area. As a result, 18 bandits were killed, 4 people were killed on our side (the average commander and 3 privates), one Red Army soldier was wounded - all from the 137th joint venture. Of those resettled on the way, 19 people died and were killed.
State Security Commissioner 3rd Rank Gvishiani.
Russian State Military Archives (RGVA). F.38660. Op. 1. D.1. L.1 - 5. Original.
The documents are shortened for layout reasons.
Why did Stalin deported the Chechens and Ingush in 1944? On this score, two myths are widespread today. According to the first of them, launched back in the days of Khrushchev and happily picked up by the current liberals, there were no objective reasons for eviction at all. The Chechens and Ingush fought bravely at the front and worked hard in the rear, but as a result they became innocent victims of Stalin's tyranny: "Stalin hoped to pull the small peoples in order to finally break their desire for independence and strengthen his empire."
The second myth, nationalistic, was put into circulation by the professor of the Institute of Language and Literature Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov. This pundit, when the German troops approached the borders of Chechnya, went over to the enemy's side, organized a detachment to fight the partisans, and after the end of the war he lived in Germany and worked at a radio station " Liberty". Avtorkhanov's version of events boils down to the following. On the one hand, the scale of the Chechen "resistance" to the Soviet regime is being inflated in every possible way, for the suppression of which entire divisions were allegedly thrown along with aircraft that bombed the "liberated regions" controlled by the rebels. On the other hand, the cooperation of the Chechens with the Germans is completely denied:
“... being even right on the borders of the Chechen-Ingush Republic, the Germans did not transfer a single rifle or a single cartridge to Chechen-Ingushetia. Only a few spies and a large number of leaflets were transferred. But this was done wherever the front ran. But the main thing is that the Israilov uprising began in the winter of 1940, i.e. even when Stalin was in alliance with Hitler. "
This myth is, first of all, adhered to by the current Chechen "fighters for independence", since it flatters their national pride. However, many of those who approve of the deportation are inclined to believe in it, since at the same time it looks reasonable. And completely in vain. Yes, during the war years, the Chechens and Ingush committed crimes, and much more serious than the story of the notorious white horse, allegedly donated by Chechen elders to Hitler. However, you should not create a false heroic halo around this. The reality is much more prosaic and ugly.
Mass desertion
The first charge that should be brought against the Chechens and Ingush is mass desertion. Here is what was said about this in a memo addressed to the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Lavrenty Beria "On the situation in the regions of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic", compiled by the Deputy People's Commissar of State Security, Commissioner of State Security of the 2nd rank Bogdan Kobulov based on the results of his trip to Checheno-Ingushetia in October 1943 and dated November 9, 1943:
“The attitude of the Chechens and Ingush to the Soviet regime was clearly expressed in desertion and evasion of conscription into the ranks of the Red Army.
During the first mobilization in August 1941, out of 8000 people to be conscripted, 719 people deserted.
In October 1941, out of 4,733 people, 362 dodged the draft.
In January 1942, when recruiting the national division, only 50 percent of the personnel were drafted.
In March 1942, out of 14,576 people deserted and evaded service, 13,560 people, who went into an illegal position, went to the mountains and joined the gangs.
In 1943, out of 3,000 volunteers, the number of deserters was 1,870 ”.
In total, during the three years of the war, 49,362 Chechens and Ingush deserted from the ranks of the Red Army, another 13,389 brave sons of the mountains evaded conscription, which totals 62,751 people.
And how many Chechens and Ingush fought at the front? Defenders of the "repressed peoples" compose various fables on this score. For example, Doctor of Historical Sciences Hadji Murad Ibrahimbeyli states: “More than 30 thousand Chechens and Ingush fought on the fronts. In the first weeks of the war, more than 12 thousand communists and Komsomol members — Chechens and Ingush — went to the army, most of whom died in the fighting. "
The reality looks much more modest. While in the ranks of the Red Army, 2,300 Chechens and Ingush were killed or gone missing. Is it a lot or a little? The Buryat people, half as large in number, who were not threatened by the German occupation, lost 13 thousand people at the front, Ossetians were one and a half times inferior to the Chechens and Ingush - 10.7 thousand.
As of March 1949, among the special settlers there were 4,248 Chechens and 946 Ingush who had previously served in the Red Army. Contrary to popular belief, a number of Chechens and Ingush were exempted from being sent to the settlement for military services. As a result, we find that no more than 10 thousand Chechens and Ingush served in the ranks of the Red Army, while over 60 thousand of their relatives evaded mobilization or deserted.
Let's say a few words about the notorious 114th Chechen-Ingush Cavalry Division, about the exploits of which pro-Chechen authors love to talk about. Due to the stubborn reluctance of the indigenous inhabitants of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to go to the front, its formation was never completed, and the personnel that they managed to draft were sent to spare and training units in March 1942.
Banditry
The next charge is banditry. From July 1941 to 1944, only in that territory of the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which was later transformed into the Grozny region, 197 gangs were destroyed by the state security bodies. At the same time, the total irrecoverable losses of the bandits amounted to 4532 people: 657 killed, 2762 captured, 1113 confessed. Thus, in the ranks of the bandit formations that fought against the Red Army, almost twice as many Chechens and Ingush were killed and taken prisoner than at the front. And this is not counting the losses of the Vainakhs who fought on the side of the Wehrmacht in the so-called "eastern battalions"! And since banditry is impossible without the support of the local population in the local conditions, many “peaceful Chechens” can also be regarded with a clear conscience as traitors.
By that time, the old "cadres" of abreks and local religious authorities, through the efforts of the OGPU, and then the NKVD, were mostly knocked out. They were replaced by a young gangster growth - Komsomol members and communists raised by the Soviet authorities, who studied in Soviet universities, who clearly showed the validity of the proverb "No matter how much a wolf you feed, he always looks into the forest."
Its typical representative was Khasan Israilov, mentioned by Avtorkhanov, also known under the pseudonym "Terloev", taken by him by the name of his teip. He was born in 1910 in the village of Nachkhoy, Galanchozhsky district. In 1929 he joined the CPSU (b), in the same year he entered the Komvuz in Rostov-on-Don. In 1933, to continue his studies, Israilov was sent to Moscow to the Communist University of Workers of the East. I.V. Stalin. In 1935 he was arrested under Art. 58-10 part 2 and 95 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR and sentenced to 5 years in forced labor camps, but in 1937 he was released. Returning to his homeland, he worked as a lawyer in the Shatoevsky district.
1941 uprising
After the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, Khasan Israilov, together with his brother Hussein, went into an illegal position, developing a vigorous activity to prepare a general uprising. To this end, he held 41 meetings in various auls, created combat groups in Galanchozh and Itum-Kalinsky districts, as well as in Borzoi, Harsinoe, Dagi-Borzoi, Achekhna and other settlements. Commissioners were also sent to the neighboring Caucasian republics.
The uprising was originally scheduled for the fall of 1941 in order to coincide with the approach of German troops. However, as the blitzkrieg schedule began to crack at the seams, its deadline was postponed to January 10, 1942. But it was too late: due to low discipline and the lack of clear communication between the insurgent cells, the uprising could not be postponed. The situation is out of control. A single coordinated action did not take place, resulting in scattered premature actions by individual groups.
So, on October 21, 1941, residents of the Khilokhoy farm of the Nachkhoevsky village council of the Galanchozhsky district plundered the collective farm and offered armed resistance to the task force trying to restore order. An operational detachment of 40 people was sent to the area to arrest the ringleaders. Underestimating the seriousness of the situation, his commander divided his people into two groups, heading for the Khaibakhai and Khilokhoi farms. This turned out to be a fatal mistake. The first of the groups was surrounded by rebels. Having lost four people killed and six wounded in the shootout, she was disarmed as a result of the cowardice of the group leader and, with the exception of four operatives, was shot. The second, hearing the firefight, began to retreat and, being surrounded in the village of Galanchozh, was also disarmed. As a result, the performance was suppressed only after the introduction of large forces.
A week later, on October 29, militiamen detained in the village of Borzoi, Shatoevsky district, Naizulu Dzhangireyev, who was evading labor service and inciting the population to do so. His brother, Guchik Dzhangireyev, called on his fellow villagers for help. After Guchik's statement: "There is no Soviet power, you can act" the crowd gathered disarmed the police officers, smashed the village council and plundered the collective farm cattle. With the rebels from the surrounding villages who joined the Borzoevites, they put up armed resistance to the NKVD task force, however, unable to withstand a retaliatory strike, they scattered through the forests and gorges, as did the participants in a similar performance that took place a little later in the Bavloevsky village council of the Itum-Kalinsky district.
However, Israilov did not study at the Communist University for nothing! Remembering Lenin's statement "Give us an organization of revolutionaries, and we will turn Russia over," he actively engaged in party building. Israilov built his organization on the principle of armed detachments, covering a certain region or group of settlements with their activities. The main link was the aulkoms or troikas-fives, who carried out anti-Soviet and insurgent work in the field.
Already on January 28, 1942, Israilov held an illegal meeting in Ordzhonikidze (now Vladikavkaz), at which the "Special Party of Caucasian Brothers" (OPKB) was established. As befits a self-respecting party, the OPKB had its own charter, a program providing for "the creation in the Caucasus of a free fraternal Federal Republic of states of fraternal peoples of the Caucasus under the mandate of the German Empire", as well as symbols:
“The coat of arms of the OPKB means:
A) the head of the eagle is surrounded by the image of the sun with eleven golden rays;
B) a scythe, a sickle, a hammer and a pen are drawn on its front wing;
C) a poisonous snake is drawn in his right leg claws in a captured form;
D) a pig is drawn in a captured form in his claws of his left leg;
E) on the back between the wings are drawn two armed people in Caucasian uniforms, one of them is shooting at a snake, and the other is cutting a pig with a saber ...
Explanations of the EMBLEM are as follows:
I. Eagle as a whole means the Caucasus.
II. The Sun denotes Freedom.
III. Eleven sun rays represent eleven fraternal peoples of the Caucasus.
IV. The scythe denotes a peasant pastoralist;
Sickle - a peasant grain grower;
Hammer - a worker from the Caucasian brothers;
Pen - science and study for the brothers of the Caucasus.
V. Poisonous snake - denotes a defeated Bolshevik.
Vi. Pig - denotes a Russian barbarian who was defeated.
Vii. Armed people - these are the OPKB brothers, who are fighting against Bolshevik barbarism and Russian despotism. "
Later, in order to better cater to the tastes of future German masters, Israilov renamed his organization the National Socialist Party of the Caucasian Brothers (NSPKB). Its number, according to the NKVD, soon reached 5,000. This is quite similar to the truth, considering that in February 1944, the NKVD operational group seized lists of NSPKB members in 20 auls of the Itum-Kalinsky, Galanchozh, Shatoevsky and Prigorodny regions of the ChI ASSR with a total number of 540 people, despite the fact that only in Chechnya ( without Ingushetia) then there were about 250 auls.
Uprising of 1942
Another large anti-Soviet group on the territory of Checheno-Ingushetia was the so-called "Chechen-Gorsk National Socialist Underground Organization" created in November 1941. Its leader Mairbek Sheripov, like Israilov, was a representative of a new generation. The son of a tsarist officer and younger brother of the famous commander of the so-called "Chechen Red Army" Aslanbek Sheripov, who was killed in September 1919 in a battle with Denikin's people, was born in 1905. Just like Israilov, he joined the CPSU (b), was also arrested for anti-Soviet propaganda - in 1938, and in 1939 he was released for lack of evidence of guilt. However, unlike Israilov, Sheripov had a higher social status, being the chairman of the Lespromsovet ChI ASSR.
Having passed into an illegal position in the fall of 1941, Mayrbek Sheripov rallied around him the leaders of gangs, deserters, fugitive criminals hiding in the Shatoevsky, Cheberloevsky and part of the Itum-Kalinsky districts, and also established contacts with religious and teip authorities in villages, trying to persuade the population for an armed uprising against Soviet power. Sheripov's main base, where he was hiding and recruiting like-minded people, was in the Shatoevsky district. There he had wide family ties.
Sheripov repeatedly changed the name of his organization: "Society for the Salvation of Highlanders", "Union of Liberated Highlanders", "Chechen-Ingush Union of Mountain Nationalists" and, finally, as a natural result, "Chechen-Highland National Socialist Underground Organization". In the first half of 1942, he wrote the organization's program, in which he outlined its ideological platform, goals and objectives.
After the front approached the borders of the republic, in August 1942, Sheripov managed to establish contact with the inspirer of a number of past uprisings, the mullah and associate of Imam Gotsinsky, Javotkhan Murtazaliev, who since 1925 was in an illegal situation with his entire family. Taking advantage of his authority, he managed to raise a major uprising in the Itum-Kalinsky and Shatoevsky regions.
The uprising began in the village of Dzum, Itum-Kalinsky district. Having defeated the village council and the management of the collective farm, Sheripov led the bandits rallied around him to the regional center of the Shatoevsky district - the village of Khimoy. On August 17, Khimoy was taken, the rebels destroyed the party and Soviet institutions, and the local population plundered and stole the property stored there. The capture of the regional center was a success thanks to the betrayal of the head of the department for combating banditry of the NKVD of the ChI ASSR Ingush Idris Aliyev, who kept in touch with Sheripov. The day before the attack, he prudently recalled the task force and the military unit from Khimoy, which were specially designed to guard the regional center in case of a raid.
After that, about 150 participants in the rebellion, led by Sheripov, went to seize the Itum-Kale regional center of the eponymous region, joining the rebels and criminals along the way. Itum-Kale one and a half thousand rebels surrounded on August 20. However, they could not take the village. A small garrison located there repulsed all attacks, and the two companies that approached put the rebels to flight. The defeated Sheripov tried to unite with Israilov, but the state security bodies were finally able to organize a special operation, as a result of which on November 7, 1942, the leader of the Shatoy bandits was killed.
The next uprising was organized in October of the same year by the German non-commissioned officer Reckert, who was abandoned in Chechnya in August at the head of a sabotage group. Having established contact with the gang of Rasul Sakhabov, he, with the assistance of religious authorities, recruited up to 400 people and, supplying them with German weapons dropped from aircraft, managed to raise a number of villages in the Vedensky and Cheberloevsky regions. However, thanks to the adopted operational-military measures, this armed uprising was eliminated, Reckert was killed, and the commander of another sabotage group, Dzugaev, who joined him, was arrested. The asset of the insurgent formation created by Reckert and Rasul Sakhabov in the amount of 32 people was also arrested, and Sakhabov himself was killed in October 1943 by his bloodline Ramazan Magomadov, who was promised forgiveness for this gangster activity.
Harboring saboteurs
After the front line approached the borders of the republic, the Germans began to throw scouts and saboteurs into the territory of Checheno-Ingushetia. These sabotage groups were extremely well received by the local population. The following tasks were assigned to the dropped agents: to create and maximally strengthen the bandit-insurgent formations and thereby distract the units of the active Red Army; conduct a series of sabotage; to block the roads most important for the Red Army; commit terrorist acts, etc.
The greatest success was achieved by the Reckert group, as described above. The most numerous reconnaissance and sabotage group in the amount of 30 paratroopers was dropped on August 25, 1942 on the territory of the Ataginsky region near the village of Cheshki. Chief Lieutenant Lange, who headed it, intended to raise a massive armed uprising in the mountainous regions of Chechnya. To do this, he established contact with Khasan Israilov, as well as with the traitor Elmurzaev, who, being the head of the Staro-Yurt regional department of the NKVD, in August 1942 went into an illegal position together with the district representative of the procurement office Gaitiev and four police officers, taking 8 rifles and several million rubles of money.
However, in this endeavor, Lange failed. Not fulfilling his plans and being pursued by the KGB units, the chief lieutenant with the remnants of his group (6 people, all Germans) managed, with the help of Chechen guides led by Khamchiev and Beltoev, to cross the front line back to the Germans. Israilov, whom Lange described as a visionary, and called the program of the “Caucasian brothers” written by him, was stupid.
Nevertheless, making his way to the front line in the auls of Chechnya and Ingushetia, Lange continued to work on the creation of gangster cells, which he called the "Abwehr groups." He organized groups: in the village of Surkhakhi, Nazran district, 10 people headed by Raad Dakuev, in the village of Yandyrka, Sunzhensky district, 13 people, in the village of Sredniye Achaluki, Achaluk district, 13 people, in the village of Psedakh, in the same district, 5 people. In the village of Goity, a cell of 5 people was created by a member of Lange's group, NCO Keller.
Simultaneously with the Lange detachment, on August 25, 1942, the group of Osman Gube was abandoned on the territory of the Galanchozh district. Its commander Osman Saidnurov (he took the pseudonym Guba while in exile), an Avar by nationality, was born in 1892 in the village of Erpeli, now in the Buinaksky district of the Dagestan ASSR, in the family of a manufacturer of a manufactory. In 1915 he voluntarily joined the Russian army. During the civil war, he served with Denikin with the rank of lieutenant, commanded a squadron. In October 1919, he deserted, lived in Tbilisi, and since 1921, after the liberation of Georgia by the Reds, in Turkey, from where in 1938 he was exiled for anti-Soviet activities. After the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, Osman Gube took a course at a German intelligence school and was transferred to the disposal of the naval intelligence.
The Germans pinned special hopes on Osman Guba, planning to make him their governor in the North Caucasus. To raise his authority in the eyes of the local population, he was even allowed to impersonate a German colonel. However, these plans were not destined to come true - in early January 1943, Osman Guba and his group were arrested by the state security authorities. During interrogation, the failed Caucasian Gauleiter made an eloquent confession:
“Among the Chechens and Ingush, I could easily find the right people who were ready to betray, go over to the side of the Germans and serve them.
I was surprised: what are these people unhappy with? Under Soviet rule, Chechens and Ingush lived prosperously, in prosperity, much better than in pre-revolutionary times, as I was personally convinced after more than 4 months of being on the territory of Checheno-Ingushetia.
The Chechens and Ingush, I repeat, do not need anything, which struck me when I recalled the difficult conditions and constant deprivation in which the mountain emigration in Turkey and Germany found itself. I could not find any other explanation, except that these people from the Chechens and Ingush, treasonous moods in relation to their homeland, were guided by selfish considerations, the desire under the Germans to preserve at least the remnants of their well-being, to provide a service in compensation for which the invaders would have left them at least a part of what they had. livestock and products, land and dwellings ”.
Contrary to Avtorkhanov's assurances, the Germans also widely practiced parachuting weapons for Chechen bandits. Moreover, in order to impress the local population, they once even dropped a small coin of the Tsar's minting.
The district committee is closed - everyone went to the gang
A reasonable question arises: where did the local internal affairs bodies look all this time? The NKVD of Chechen-Ingushetia was then headed by the state security captain Sultan Albogachiev, an Ingush by nationality, who had previously worked in Moscow as an investigator. In this capacity, he was distinguished by particular cruelty. This was especially evident during the investigation into the case of Academician Nikolai Vavilov. It was he, together with the former executive secretary of Moskovsky Komsomolets Lev Shvartsman, who, according to Vavilov's son, tortured the academician for 7-8 hours in a row.
Albogachiev's zeal did not go unnoticed - having received a promotion, he returned to his native republic on the eve of the Great Patriotic War. However, it soon became clear that the newly made People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Checheno-Ingushetia was not at all eager to fulfill his direct duties to eradicate banditry. This is evidenced by the numerous minutes of the meetings of the bureau of the Chechen-Ingush regional committee of the CPSU (b):
- July 15, 1941: “People's Commissar comrade. Albogachiev did not strengthen the organizational structure of the People's Commissariat, did not rally the workers and did not organize an active struggle against banditry and desertion. "
- the beginning of August 1941: "Albogachiev, heading the NKVD, in every way dissociates himself from participation in the fight against terrorists."
- November 9, 1941: “The People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (People's Commissar Comrade Albogachiev) did not comply with the resolution of the Bureau of the Chechen-Ingush Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on July 25, 1941, the fight against banditry until recently was based on passive methods, as a result of banditry not only has not been eliminated, but on the contrary has intensified its actions. "
What was the reason for such passivity? During one of the KGB operations, servicemen of the 263rd Regiment of the Tbilisi Division of the NKVD troops, Lieutenant Anekeyev and Sergeant Major Netsikov, discovered Israilov-Terloev's bag with his diary and correspondence. These documents also contained a letter from Albogachiev with the following content:
“Dear Terloev! Hello to you! I am very upset that your highlanders started an uprising ahead of time (I mean the uprising of October 1941 - I.P.). I am afraid that if you do not listen to me, and we, the workers of the republic, will be exposed ... Look, for the sake of Allah, take the oath. Don't tell us to anyone.
You exposed yourself. You act in deep underground. Don't let yourself be arrested. Know that you will be shot. Keep in touch with me only through my trusted accomplices.
You write me a letter of a hostile bias, threatening me with what is possible, and I, too, will begin to persecute you. I will burn down your house, arrest some of your relatives, and oppose you everywhere and everywhere. By this, you and I must prove that we are irreconcilable enemies and are persecuting each other.
You do not know those Ordzhonikidze GESTAPO agents through whom, I told you, all information about our anti-Soviet work should be sent.
Write information about the results of this uprising and send it to me, I will be able to send it immediately to an address in Germany. You tear my note in front of my messenger. This is a dangerous time, I'm afraid.
10.XI.1941 "
To match Albogachiev (whose request for a hostile letter Israilov conscientiously fulfilled) were his subordinates. I have already mentioned the betrayal of the head of the department for combating banditry of the NKVD of the ChI ASSR Idris Aliyev. At the regional level, there was also a whole galaxy of traitors in the internal affairs bodies of the republic. These are the chiefs of the regional departments of the NKVD: Staro-Yurtovsky - Elmurzaev, Sharoevsky - Pashaev, Itum-Kalinsky - Mezhiev, Shatoevsky - Isaev, chiefs of the regional police departments: Itum-Kalinsky - Khasaev, Cheberloevsky - Isaev, the commander of the extermination battalion of NKVD Prigorodny and others.
What can we say about ordinary employees of the "organs"? The documents are full of phrases such as: “Saidulaev Akhmad, worked as an operative of the Shatoevsky RO of the NKVD, in 1942 he went to the gang”, “Inalov Anzor, a native of the village. Gukhoy Itum-Kalinsky district, a former police officer of the Itum-Kalinsky district branch of the NKVD, freed his brothers from the prison, arrested for desertion, and fled, seizing weapons, ”and so on.
Local party leaders did not lag behind the Chekists. As it was said in this regard in the already cited note by Kobulov:
“When the front line approached in August-September 1942, 80 members of the CPSU (b) quit their jobs and fled, incl. 16 heads of district committees of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 8 executives of district executive committees and 14 chairmen of collective farms ”.
For reference: at this time the ChI ASSR included 24 regions and the city of Grozny. Thus, exactly two-thirds of the first secretaries of the district committees deserted from their posts. It can be assumed that those who remained were mostly "Russian-speaking", such as the secretary of the Nozhai-Yurt RK VKP (b) Kurolesov.
The party organization of the Itum-Kalinsky region was especially "distinguished", where the 1st secretary of the district committee Tangiev, the 2nd secretary Sadykov and other party workers went into an illegal position. On the doors of the local party committee it was just right to post a notice: "The district committee is closed - everyone went to the gang."
In the Galashki district, after receiving summons to appear in the republican military registration and enlistment office, the 3rd secretary of the district committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) Harsiev, an instructor of the district committee and deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the ChI ASSR Sultanov, deputy. chairman of the district executive committee Evloev, secretary of the district committee of the Komsomol Tsichoev and a number of other senior officials. Other workers of the district, such as the head of the organizational and instructor department of the district committee of the CPSU (b) Vishagurov, the chairman of the district executive committee Albakov, the district prosecutor Aushev, while remaining in their places, entered into a criminal relationship with the already mentioned head of the reconnaissance and sabotage group Osman Guba and were him recruited to prepare an armed uprising in the rear of the Red Army.
The local intelligentsia behaved just as treacherously. Elsbek Timurkaev, an editorial staff member of the Leninsky Put newspaper, went with Avtorkhanov to the Germans, People's Commissar for Education Chantaev and People's Commissar for Social Security Dakaev were associated with Avtorkhanov and Sheripov, knew about their criminal intentions and provided them with assistance.
Often, traitors did not even try to hide behind lofty words about the struggle for freedom and openly flaunt their selfish interests. So, Mayrbek Sheripov, turning into an illegal position in the fall of 1941, cynically explained to his adherents: “My brother, Aslanbek Sheripov, in 1917 foresaw the overthrow of the tsar, therefore he began to fight on the side of the Bolsheviks, I also know that the Soviet regime was over, therefore I want to meet Germany halfway. "
Such examples can be cited endlessly, but I think that the above is more than enough to be convinced of the massive betrayal of the Chechens and Ingush during the Great Patriotic War. These peoples deserve the eviction in full. Nevertheless, despite the facts, the current guardians of the "repressed peoples" continue to repeat how inhumane it was to punish the entire nation for the crimes of its "individual representatives". One of the favorite arguments of this public is the reference to the illegality of such collective punishment.
Humane lawlessness
Strictly speaking, this is really so: no Soviet laws provided for the mass eviction of Chechens and Ingush. However, let's see what would have happened if the authorities tried to act in 1944 according to the law.
As we have already found out, most of the Chechens and Ingush of draft age evaded military service or deserted. What is due in wartime conditions for desertion? Shooting or a penalty company. Have these measures been applied to deserters of other nationalities? Yes, they did. Banditry, organizing uprisings, cooperation with the enemy during the war were also punished to the fullest extent. As well as less serious crimes, such as membership in an anti-Soviet underground organization or possession of weapons. Aiding in the commission of crimes, harboring criminals, and finally, failure to report were also punishable by the Criminal Code. And almost all adult Chechens and Ingush were implicated in this.
It turns out that the accusers of Stalin's arbitrariness, in fact, regret that several tens of thousands of Chechen men were not legally put up against the wall! However, most likely, they simply believe that the law was written only for Russians and other citizens of the "lower class", and it does not apply to the proud inhabitants of the Caucasus. Judging by the current amnesties for Chechen fighters, as well as the calls that are heard with enviable regularity "to solve the Chechen problem at the negotiating table" with the gangster leaders, this is so.
So, from the point of view of formal legality, the punishment that befell the Chechens and Ingush in 1944 was much softer than the one that was due to them under the Criminal Code. Because in this case, almost the entire adult population should have been shot or sent to camps. After that, for reasons of humanity, children would also have to be taken out of the republic.
And from a moral point of view? Maybe it was worth "forgiving" the traitorous peoples? But what would the millions of families of the dead soldiers think at the same time, looking at the Chechens and Ingush who had served their time in the rear? Indeed, while the Russian families left without breadwinners were starving, the "valiant" highlanders traded in the markets, without a twinge of conscience, speculating in agricultural products. According to intelligence reports, on the eve of the deportation, many Chechen and Ingush families had accumulated large sums of money, some of them 2-3 million rubles each.
However, even at that time the Chechens had “intercessors”. For example, the deputy head of the Department for Combating Banditry of the NKVD of the USSR R.A. Rudenko. Having left on June 20, 1943 on a business trip to Checheno-Ingushetia, upon his return, on August 15, he submitted a report addressed to his immediate superior V.A. Drozdov, which stated, in particular, the following:
“The growth of banditry must be attributed to such reasons as insufficient carrying out of mass party and explanatory work among the population, especially in the high mountainous regions, where many auls and villages are located far from the regional centers, the absence of agents, the lack of work with legalized bandit groups ... excesses in the conduct of Chekist-military operations, expressed in mass arrests and murders of persons who were not previously on the operational record and do not have compromising material. So, from January to June 1943, 213 people were killed, of which only 22 people were on the operational record ... ".
Thus, according to Rudenko, it is possible to shoot only at those bandits who are registered, and with others - to carry out mass party work. If you think about it, then the report leads to the opposite conclusion - the real number of Chechen and Ingush bandits was ten times more than the number of those who were on the operational record: as you know, the core of the gangs were professional abreks, to whom the local population joined to participate in specific operations ...
In contrast to Rudenko, who complained about the "insufficient implementation of mass party and explanatory work", Stalin and Beria, who were born and raised in the Caucasus, understood the psychology of the mountaineers with its principles of mutual responsibility and collective responsibility of the whole clan for a crime committed by its member. Therefore, they decided to liquidate the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The decision, the validity and justice of which were fully realized by the deportees themselves. Here are the rumors circulating among the local population at the 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. For this, the Karachais were evicted - and we will be evicted. "
Operation "Lentils"
So, the decision to evict the Chechens and Ingush was made. Preparations began for the operation, code-named "Lentil". The commissioner of state security of the 2nd rank I.A. Serov was appointed responsible for its implementation, and his assistants were the commissioners of state security of the 2nd rank B.Z. Kobulov, S.N. Kruglov and Colonel-General A.N. Apollonov, each of which he headed one of the four operational sectors into which the territory of the republic was divided. L.P. Beria personally supervised the course of the operation. As a pretext for the introduction of troops, it was announced that exercises would be held in mountainous conditions. The concentration of troops at the starting positions began about a month before the start of the active phase of the operation.
First of all, it was necessary to make an accurate count of the population. On December 2, 1943, Kobulov and Serov reported from Vladikavkaz that the operational KGB groups created for this purpose had begun work. At the same time, it turned out that in the previous two months about 1,300 bandits hiding in forests and mountains were legalized in the republic, including the "veteran" of the bandit movement Javotkhan Murtazaliev, who inspired a number of past anti-Soviet protests, including the August 1942 uprising. At the same time, in the process of legalization, the bandits handed over only an insignificant part of their weapons, while the rest were hidden until better times.
"17.II – 44 years
To Comrade Stalin
Preparations for the operation to evict the Chechens and Ingush are coming to an end. After clarification, 459,486 people were registered to be resettled, including those living in the regions of Dagestan bordering on Checheno-Ingushetia, and in the city of Vladikavkaz. On the spot, I check the state of affairs in preparation for resettlement and take the necessary measures.
Taking into account the scale of the operation and the peculiarity of the mountainous regions, it was decided to carry out the eviction (including the landing of people in echelons) within 8 days, within which, in the first 3 days, the operation will be completed in all lowland and foothill regions and partially in some settlements of mountainous regions, with coverage over 300 thousand people. In the remaining 4 days, evictions will be carried out in all mountainous regions, covering the remaining 150 thousand people.
During the operation in low-lying areas, i.e. in the first 3 days, all the settlements of the mountainous regions, where the eviction will begin 3 days later, will be blocked by the military teams already introduced there in advance under the command of the Chekists.
There are many statements among the Chechens and Ingush, especially those related to the appearance of troops. Part of the population reacts to the appearance of troops in accordance with the official version, according to which training maneuvers of the Red Army units are allegedly being carried out in mountainous conditions. Another part of the population suggests the eviction of Chechens and Ingush. Some believe that they will evict bandits, German accomplices and other anti-Soviet elements.
A large number of statements about the need to resist the eviction were noted. We have taken all this into account in the planned operational KGB measures.
All necessary measures have been taken to ensure that the eviction is conducted in an orderly manner, within the time frame indicated above and without serious incidents. In particular, 6-7 thousand Dagestanis and 3 thousand Ossetians from the collective farm and rural assets of the regions of Dagestan and North Ossetia adjacent to Checheno-Ingushetia, as well as Russian rural activists in areas where there is a Russian population, will be involved in the eviction. Russians, Dagestanis and Ossetians will also be partially used to guard livestock, housing and farms of the evicted. In the coming days, preparations for the operation will be fully completed, and the eviction is scheduled to begin on 22 or 23 February.
Given the seriousness of the operation, please allow me to stay in place until the completion of the operation, at least in general, i.e. until February 26-27.
NKVD of the USSR Beria ".
An indicative moment: Dagestanis and Ossetians are involved to assist in the eviction. Earlier, detachments of Tushins and Khevsurs were involved in the fight against Chechen gangs in the adjacent regions of Georgia. It seems that the bandit inhabitants of Checheno-Ingushetia managed to annoy all the neighboring peoples so much that they were gladly ready to help send their restless neighbors away.
Finally, everything was ready:
"22.II.1944.
To Comrade Stalin
For the successful implementation of the operation to evict the Chechens and Ingush, following your instructions, in addition to the KGB measures, the following was done:
1. I summoned the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Mollaev, who was informed of the government's decision about the Chechens and Ingush and the motives that formed the basis of this decision. Mollaev shed tears after my message, but pulled himself together and promised to complete all the tasks that would be given to him in connection with the eviction. (According to the NKVD, the day before the wife of this "crying Bolshevik" bought a gold bracelet worth 30 thousand rubles - I.P.) and Ingush and the reasons for their eviction. They were invited to take an active part in communicating to the population the government's decision on eviction, the eviction procedure, the conditions for the arrangement in places of new resettlement, and also tasks were set:
In order to avoid excesses, urge the population to unswervingly comply with the orders of the workers leading the eviction.
The present workers expressed their readiness to make their efforts to implement the proposed measures and have practically started work. We have assigned 40 republican party and Soviet workers from Chechens and Ingush to 24 districts with the task of selecting 2-3 people from the local asset for each settlement, who will have to come up with an appropriate explanation on the day of eviction before the operation begins at gatherings of men specially assembled by our workers government decisions to evict.
In addition, I had a conversation with the most influential in Checheno-Ingushetia, the highest clerics Arsanov Baudin, Yandarov Abdul-Hamid and Gaisumov Abbas, who also announced the government's decision and, after appropriate processing, proposed to carry out the necessary work among the population through those associated with them. mullahs and other local "authorities".
The listed clergymen, accompanied by our workers, have already started working with the mullahs and murids, obliging them to call the population to obey the orders of the authorities. Both the party and Soviet workers and the clergy we use were promised some benefits for resettlement (the rate of things allowed for export will be slightly increased). The troops, operatives and transport necessary for carrying out the eviction are pulled directly to the place of operation, the command and operational personnel are accordingly instructed and ready to carry out the operation. Check-out begins at dawn on February 23rd. From 2 a.m. on February 23, all settlements will be cordoned off, pre-planned ambush and patrol sites will be occupied by task forces with the task of preventing the population from leaving the territory of settlements. At dawn, the men will be summoned by our operatives to gatherings, where the government's decision to evict the Chechens and Ingush will be announced to them in their native language. In high-mountainous areas, gatherings will not be convened due to the large scattering of settlements.
After these gatherings, it will be proposed to allocate 10-15 people to announce to the families of those gathered about the collection of things, and the rest of the gathering will be disarmed and taken to the places of loading into the echelons. The seizure of the anti-Soviet elements slated for arrest has basically been completed. I believe that the operation to evict the Chechens and Ingush will be carried out successfully.
Each operational group, consisting of one operative and two soldiers of the NKVD troops, had to evict four families. The technology of the operations group was as follows. Upon arrival at the house of the evicted, a search was carried out, during which firearms and edged weapons, currency, anti-Soviet literature were seized. The head of the family was asked to hand over the members of the detachments created by the Germans and persons who helped the Nazis. The reason for the eviction was also announced here: "During the German fascist offensive in the North Caucasus, the Chechens and Ingush in the rear of the Red Army showed themselves anti-Soviet, created bandit groups, killed Red Army soldiers and honest Soviet citizens, and sheltered German paratroopers." Then property and people - primarily women with babies - were loaded onto vehicles and guarded to the place of collection. It was allowed to take food, small household and agricultural implements with you at the rate of 100 kg per person, but no more than half a ton per family. Money and household jewelry were not subject to confiscation. For each family, two copies of registration cards were drawn up, where all, including those who were absent, household members, things found and confiscated during a search were noted. For agricultural equipment, fodder, cattle, a receipt was issued for the restoration of the economy at a new place of residence. The remaining movable and immovable property was rewritten by representatives of the selection committee. All suspicious persons were arrested. In the event of resistance or attempts to escape, the perpetrators were shot on the spot without any shouting or warning shots.
23.II.1944
To Comrade Stalin
Today, February 23, at dawn, an operation to evict the Chechens and Ingush began. The eviction is proceeding normally. There are no noteworthy incidents. There were 6 cases of attempts to resist on the part of individuals, which were suppressed by arrest or the use of weapons. Of the persons scheduled for seizure in connection with the operation, 842 people were arrested. At 11 o'clock in the morning, 94,741 people were taken out of settlements, i.e. over 20% of those subject to eviction were loaded onto railway trains of this number 20,023 people.
Despite the fact that the preparations for the operation were carried out in the strictest secrecy, it was not possible to completely avoid information leakage. According to intelligence reports received by the NKVD on the eve of the eviction, the Chechens, accustomed to the sluggish and indecisive actions of the authorities, were very belligerent. Thus, the legalized bandit Iskhanov Saidakhmed promised: “When trying to arrest me, I will not surrender alive, I will hold out as long as I can. The Germans are now retreating in such a way as to destroy the Red Army in the spring. We must hold on at all costs ”. A resident of the aul of Nizhniy Lod, Dzhamoldinov Shatsa, said: "We need to prepare the people to raise an uprising on the very first day of the eviction."
In today's publications, no, no, and there will be an admiring story about how freedom-loving Chechens heroically resisted deportation:
“I spoke with a good friend of mine, a former border guard officer who in 1943 participated in the eviction of Chechens. From his story, among other things, I learned for the first time what losses this action cost “us”, what a courageous struggle the Chechen people waged, defending every house, every stone with weapons in their hands ”.
In fact, these are just fairy tales designed to amuse the wounded pride of the "warlike highlanders". As soon as the authorities demonstrated their strength and firmness, the proud horsemen obediently went to the collection points, without even thinking about resistance. With those few who resisted, they did not stand on ceremony:
“In the Kuchaloi region, legalized bandits Basayev Abu Bakar and Nanagaev Hamid were killed during armed resistance. A rifle, a revolver and a submachine gun were confiscated from those killed.
“During the attack on a task force in the Shali region, one Chechen was killed and one was seriously wounded. In the Urus-Mordanovsky district, four people were killed while trying to escape. In the Shatoevsky district, one Chechen was killed while trying to attack the sentries. Two of our employees were lightly wounded (with daggers). "
“When the echelon SK-241 departs from st. Yany-Kurgash Tashkent railway special settler Kadyev tried to escape from the train. During the arrest, Kadyev tried to stab the Red Army soldier Karbenko with a stone, as a result of which weapons were used. Shot Kadyev was wounded and died in the hospital.
In general, during the deportation, only 50 people were killed while resisting or trying to escape.
A week later, the operation was mostly completed:
"29.II.1944
To Comrade Stalin
1. I am reporting on the results of the operation to evict the Chechens and Ingush. The evictions began on February 23 in most areas, with the exception of high-mountain settlements.
By February 29, 478,479 people were evicted and loaded onto railway trains, including 91,250 Ingush and 387,229 Chechens.
177 trains were loaded, of which 159 trains have already been sent to the site of the new settlement.
Today a train has been sent with the former leaders and religious authorities of Checheno-Ingushetia, who were used by us during the operation.
From some points of the high-mountain Galanchozhsky region, 6 thousand Chechens were not taken out, due to heavy snowfall and off-road conditions, the removal and loading of which will be completed in 2 days. The operation proceeded in an orderly manner and without serious incidents of resistance or other incidents. Cases of attempts to escape and shelter from eviction were isolated and, without exception, were suppressed. A sweep of forest areas is being carried out, where the NKVD troops and the task force of the Chekists are temporarily left until the garrison. During the preparation and conduct of the operation, 2,016 people of an anti-Soviet element from among the Chechens and Ingush were arrested, 20,072 firearms were seized, including 4868 rifles, 479 machine guns and machine guns.
The population bordering on Chechen-Ingushetia reacted approvingly to the eviction of Chechens and Ingush.
The leaders of the Soviet and party bodies of North Ossetia, Dagestan and Georgia have already begun work on the development of the regions that have ceded to these republics.
2. All necessary measures have been taken to ensure the preparation and successful implementation of the operation to evict the Balkars. The preparatory work will be completed by March 10, and the Balkars will be evicted from March 10 to 15.
Today we finish work here and leave for one day to Kabardino-Balkaria and from there to Moscow.
L. Beria ".
Attention is drawn to the number of weapons seized, which would be more than enough for an entire division. It is easy to guess that all these trunks were not intended at all to protect herds from wolves.
Battalion stuffed into the stable
Of course, regardless of the real guilt of the Chechens and Ingush, in the eyes of the current champions of democracy, their deportation looks like an unheard-of atrocity. Alas, the era of "perestroika" with its orgy of unbridled anti-Stalinism is irrevocably gone. Again, the "exploits" of the current fighters for "independent Ichkeria" do not add to their popularity. An increasing number of our fellow citizens are beginning to be inclined to think that the then eviction was quite justified.
In an effort to prevent such a shift in public opinion at any cost, liberal propaganda resorts to composing all sorts of horror stories about the crimes of Stalin's guardsmen. Thus, a heartbreaking story about the brutal extermination of the population of the Chechen village of Khaibakh is regularly thrown onto the pages of newspapers:
“In 1944, 705 people were burnt alive in the stable of the high-mountainous village of Khaibakh.
Old men, women and children of the high-mountainous aul Khaibakh could not come down from the mountains and thus thwarted the plans of deportation. Stepan Kashurko, head of the Podvig search center of the International Union of War Veterans and the Armed Forces, who in 1990 headed the extraordinary commission to investigate the genocide in Khaibakh, tells about what happened to them later.
Before puzzling over the question of how the executioners from the NKVD managed to push an entire battalion of Chechens into the wooden stable of a small high-mountainous village, let us recall the situation in which the "extraordinary commission" headed by Mr. Kashurko operated. 1990, the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, an unprecedented surge of nationalism ... Everywhere "popular fronts" are being created, real, and more often fictitious, offenses are carefully recalled. The nationally concerned public is enthusiastically digging up unnamed corpses, declaring them "victims of Stalin's repressions." Is it any wonder at the obvious absurdities and absurdities, especially since the main ones are yet to come:
“We rushed into the ashes. To my horror, my leg fell into the chest of a burned-out man. Someone shouted that it was his wife. With difficulty I got out of this trap. An eyewitness to the burning, Dziyaudin Malsagov (former Deputy Commissar of Justice), told the crying old people what he experienced in this place 46 years ago, when he was seconded to help the NKGB. People burst out. They talked about burnt mothers, wives, fathers, grandfathers ... ".
What, from the point of view of common sense, should any Chechen who knows that his wife was burned to death in this village? Especially considering the attitude of the inhabitants of the Caucasus to family ties? Naturally, at the first opportunity, that is, immediately after returning from exile, go to Khaibakh to find her remains and bury her humanly. And not leave them unburied in the ashes for several decades, so that later all sorts of idle journalists trample on them.
It is no less interesting how it was possible at first glance to identify so confidently a burnt corpse that had lain for almost half a century in the open air? And could Kashurko, with his knowledge in forensic science, independently and without prompting, distinguish the skeleton of a Chechen woman who was burned forty-odd years ago from, say, the skeleton of a Russian slave burned a week ago?
By the way, the biography of the chairman of the "extraordinary commission" also looks very suspicious.
“On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Victory, Marshal Konev was appointed chairman of the Central Staff of the All-Union campaign on the roads of war. I was a naval lieutenant in reserve, a journalist. "
So, according to Kashurko's own words, in 1965 he was in reserve, with the rank of lieutenant commander. However, in subsequent years, Stepan Savelyevich made a downright enchanting career. In 2005, according to Novaya Gazeta, he was already a retired captain of the 1st rank. Next year we will meet him with the rank of admiral. The “great and sincere friend of the Chechens and Ingush” ended his life with the rank of colonel-general.
Thus, we are faced with either an impostor or a person of questionable mental health. Nevertheless, the nonsense he expounded is being seriously replicated by the current media.
Abduction from the other world
However, let us continue Kashurko's story:
“The Chechens asked to bring Gvishiani to them, let him look people in the eyes. I promised to fulfill the request.
- Incredible. Were you going to invite Gvishiani to Khaibakh?
- We decided to steal him. With the help of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, we arrived at a luxurious house. But fate saved the executioner from answering - we were late: broken by paralysis, he died. We returned to Khaibakh three days later. The highlanders said only: "Jackal jackal death!" To the beat of a drum, we burned at the place from which he commanded: "Fire!", His portrait of one and a half meters. "
If you think that Mr. Kashurko has sincerely confessed to the crime of preparing a kidnapping, and now he can be brought to justice in accordance with the current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, then you are deeply mistaken. Any lawyer will prove in no time that his client is in fact stipulating himself. To kidnap a person who by that time has already been dead for 24 years, you can only dig him out of the grave or fly to the next world. The fact is that Mikhail Maksimovich Gvishiani, who was the head of Beria's personal security in 1937, to whom the Chechen-loving public attributes the burning of Khaibakh, died in September 1966. Moreover, he was the most famous person in Georgia - Kosygin's matchmaker and Primakov's father-in-law. Gamsakhurdia simply could not be unaware that he had died long ago. Therefore, we are dealing with outright lies.
By the way, in order to evict or destroy a small aul, a company is enough, which, according to the logic of things, should be commanded by the captain. However, according to modern storytellers, the "executioner of Khaibakh" had a much higher rank. According to the book “Unconquered Chechnya”, written by a certain Usmanov, at the time of his atrocity he was a colonel: “For this“ valiant ”operation, its leader, Colonel Gvishiani, was awarded a Government award and was promoted in rank.” Another “human rights activist” Pavel Polyan already has a colonel-general - according to his version, Khaibakh was burned by “internal troops under the command of colonel-general M. Gvishiani”.
True, two years later, Polyan, presumably, still bothered to read the reference book compiled by his colleagues at Memorial and find out that at the time described, Gvishiani had the title of State Security Commissioner of the 3rd rank. In the broadcast of Radio Liberty on August 3, 2003, he sets out the case as follows:
“There is evidence that in a number of auls the NKVD troops actually liquidated the civilian population, including in such a barbaric way as burning. Relatively recently, such an operation was widely publicized in the village of Khaibakh, which was covered with snow. Not being able to ensure the transportation of its inhabitants, the internal troops, and they were commanded by the third rank state security commissar Gvishiani, drove about two hundred people, and according to other sources, about six hundred to seven hundred people were locked up and set on fire ... , however, without reference to sources, a top secret letter from Gvishiani Beria:
“For your eyes only. Due to the lack of transportability and in order to rigorously carry out Operation Gory on time, he was forced to liquidate more than seven hundred residents in the town of Khaibakh. Colonel Gvishiani ”.
We must assume that “Mountains” is a sub-name of a sub-part of the operation, which was generally called “Lentils”. ”
Fake Brighton
Well, let's analyze the text of this “letter to Gvishiani Beria”. His very first phrase evokes a feeling of deep bewilderment. Indeed, the words "for your eyes only" are appropriate in a love note from some operetta, and by no means in an NKVD document. Everyone who served in the army or at least attended classes at the military department knows that in our country the following secrecy stamps were used: "secret", "top secret", "top secret of special importance." However, the “For Your Eyes Only” stamp does exist in nature. It is used in classified documents in the United States of America.
Thus, it is safe to assume that this "letter" was fabricated in the United States, and it was originally written in English, and only then translated into Russian. In this case, other incongruities in it immediately become clear.
So, Khaibakh for some reason is called a "shtetl". Meanwhile, in all the documents I have seen, Chechen settlements are designated as auls, farms, villages, but the term "shtetl" is not found anywhere. Gvishiani himself, a native Georgian, could hardly have used such a word. It's another matter if the author of the "document" about the burnt Khaibakh is some Zhmerinka native of Brighton Beach.
It is quite natural that the title of "State Security Commissioner of the 3rd Rank", which is mysterious for the American man in the street, turns into a "colonel", although in fact it corresponded to the rank of lieutenant general. In addition, the author of the "letter" did not know that the operation to evict the Chechens was called "Lentils", and therefore invented the name "Mountains" for it.
The most important thing is that there is no other documentary evidence of the destruction of the inhabitants of the Chechen auls during the deportation, except for this phony letter. Even if the main "rehabilitator", the former secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Alexander Yakovlev, having access to all archives with the right to publish the contents of any of them, declares that there are documents on the burning of Chechen villages, but does not cite either themselves or even references, then we are clearly talking about the fruits of his sick fantasy.
However, the defenders of the rights of humiliated and insulted peoples will not be convinced by all these arguments. The main propagandist of the myth of the burnt Khaibakh is out of tune with his head? Nothing wrong. No documents? So much the worse for documents! They were, of course, destroyed or are still kept in a top-secret special folder.
In a new place
But back to the fate of the deportees. The lion's share of the evicted Chechens and Ingush were sent to Central Asia - 402,922 people to Kazakhstan, 88,649 to Kyrgyzstan.
If you believe the denunciators of "crimes of totalitarianism", the eviction of the Chechens and Ingush was accompanied by their mass death - almost a third, or even half of the deportees allegedly died during the transportation to their new place of residence. This is not true. In fact, according to NKVD documents, 1,272 special settlers died during the transportation, or 0.26% of their total number.
Allegations that these figures are underestimated, since the deceased were allegedly thrown out of the cars without registration, are simply not serious. Indeed, put yourself in the shoes of the commander of the echelon, who received one number of special settlers at the starting point, and delivered a smaller number to their destination. He would be immediately asked the question: where are the missing people? Dead, you say? Or maybe they escaped? Or were you released for a bribe? Therefore, all cases of death of deportees on the way were documented.
But what about those few Chechens and Ingush who really fought honestly in the ranks of the Red Army? Contrary to popular belief, they were by no means subject to universal eviction. Many of them were freed from the status of special settlers, but at the same time were deprived of the right to reside in the Caucasus. So, for example, the family of the commander of the mortar battery, Captain U.A. Ozdoev, who had five state awards, was removed from the register for special settlement for military services. She was allowed to live in Uzhgorod. There were many similar cases. Chechens and Ingush women who were married to persons of other nationalities were also not evicted.
Another myth concerning deportation is associated with the allegedly courageous behavior of the Chechen bandits and their leaders, who managed to avoid deportation and partisans almost until the Chechens returned from exile. Of course, some of the Chechens or Ingush could have been hiding in the mountains all these years. However, even if this is so, there was no harm from them - immediately after the eviction, the level of banditry on the territory of the former Chechen Republic of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic decreased to the level characteristic of “calm” regions.
Most of the gang leaders were either killed or arrested during the deportation. The leader of the National Socialist Party of the Caucasian brothers, Hasan Israilov, has been hiding longer than many. In November 1944, he sent a humiliated and tearful letter to the head of the UNKVD of the Grozny region V.A. Drozdov:
"Hello. I wish you dear Drozdov, I wrote telegrams to Moscow. Please send them to the addresses and send me receipts by mail with a copy of your telegram through Yandarov. Dear Drozdov, I ask you to do everything possible in order to obtain from Moscow forgiveness for my sins, for they are not as great as they appear. Please send me 10-20 copies of copy paper through Yandarov, Stalin's report of November 7, 1944, military-political magazines and brochures at least 10, chemical pencils 10.
Dear Drozdov, please inform me about the fate of Hussein and Osman, where they are, whether they are convicted or not.
Dear Drozdov, I need a medicine against the tuberculosis bacillus, the best medicine has come.
Greetings - Hasan Israilov (Terloev) wrote. "
However, this request remained unanswered. On December 15, 1944, the leader of the Chechen bandits was mortally wounded as a result of a special operation. On December 29, former members of Khasan Israilov's gang handed over his body to the NKVD. After identification, he was buried in Urus-Martan.
But maybe, having ensured the minimum losses of the Chechens and Ingush during the eviction, the authorities deliberately exterminated them in a new place? Indeed, the mortality rate of the special settlers there turned out to be very high. Although, of course, not half and not a third of those deported died. By January 1, 1953, there were 316,717 Chechens and 83,518 Ingush in the settlement. Thus, the total number of those evicted decreased by about 90 thousand people. However, one should not assume that they are all dead. First, some of the deportees were counted twice. Because of this, their numbers were overstated. By October 1, 1948, 32,981 of the people evicted from the North Caucasus were excluded from the lists as being counted twice at the time of initial resettlement, and another 7,018 people were released.
What caused the high mortality rate? There was no deliberate extermination of the Chechens and Ingush. The fact is that immediately after the war, the USSR was struck by a severe famine. Under these conditions, the state had to first of all take care of loyal citizens, while Chechens and other settlers were largely left to their own devices. Naturally, the traditional lack of industriousness and the habit of obtaining food by robbery and robbery did not at all contribute to their survival. Nevertheless, the settlers gradually settled down in a new place, and the 1959 census already gives a larger number of Chechens and Ingush than it was at the time of the eviction: 418.8 thousand Chechens, 106 thousand Ingush.
the list of references is given by the link
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peoples completely deported from places of traditional settlement to Siberia, Central Asia and Kazakhstan. The most large-scale administrative deportations were during the war, in 1941-1945. Some were evicted preemptively, as potential accomplices of the enemy (Koreans, Germans, Greeks, Hungarians, Italians, Romanians), others were accused of collaborating with the Germans during the occupation (Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Caucasian peoples). The total number of those deported and mobilized into the "labor army" reached 2.5 million people (see table). To date, there are almost no books of memory dedicated to deported national groups (as a rare exception, one can name the Kalmyk book of memory, which was compiled not only from documents, but also from oral interviews).
