Alexey Bezgovalny: “Highlanders and Power — History Repeats ...”
Our interviewee is a military specialist. stories Caucasus.- Dear Alexey Yurievich, you specialize in the military history of the Caucasus ...
- More precisely - on the military history of the first half of the XX century.
- However, our conversation may well go beyond this period ...
- Not only can it come out, but it will certainly come out, because, speaking of the military history of the Caucasus in the first half of the 20th century, it is impossible not to touch the military history of earlier periods, and more general issues of the history of this very specific region. Only in such a relationship of events and phenomena can one understand what is happening in the Caucasus today. And why it happens this way and not otherwise.
- Then let's start with what everyone knows. The Caucasus is, figuratively speaking, the unhealing wound of Russia. From there, reports of the killing of police officers, officials, religious figures, terrorist acts, etc. Do you think that historical grievances against Russia are one of the main causes of "North Caucasian" terrorism?
- Historical resentment associated with a living memory of deportation and other oppression was a strong mover of Chechen separatism in the beginning and middle of the 1990's, as well as nationalist movements in general in the former Soviet Union during that period. In recent years, and this must be clearly understood, the resistance of the government has acquired a completely new form, when, by and large, it is all the same to fight KEM, it is important - for WHAT.
The concrete enemies of the militants are, as a rule, their fellow tribesmen - representatives of the authorities, law enforcement agencies, traditional Islam. Militants call them "munaphic" - apostates from the faith (in the sense that they understand this faith). The Russians in this confrontation are “infidels” (infidels), who are served by “munafiki”. Militants never mind harming Russians. Sometimes they succeed in resonant terrorist attacks far from their “front lines”, such as the terrorist attack at Domodedovo airport in 2011. But, I repeat, the current phase of the conflict has the character of a civil confrontation on the basis of different interpretations of local groups.
- Today, young people voluntarily go to the forest, to the bandits, many of them from prosperous families, have higher education, well-paid work.
- Why does the youth go to the forest? This is a difficult question. “Into the woods” push various reasons: the general lack of organization (in the North Caucasus is high unemployment), the rejection of the modern secular lifestyle by religious youth, the rejection of numerous negative phenomena of public life (corruption, cronyism, nepotism, lack of social elevators, mistrust in government and official Muslim clergy). In recent years, against this background, young people have become susceptible to the non-Sunni Islam, widely spread in the North Caucasus (especially in Dagestan), primarily Salafism (Wahhabism), from which militants are recruited. Although an equal sign between a person professing Salafi Islam and a militant cannot be put: the Salafit is not at all obliged to take in his hands weaponto assert your faith.
- But none of the world religions in Russia is prohibited, including Islam. Muslims are not persecuted, as in the old days. From whom to protect Islam today?
- Indeed, no one oppresses Islam in the North Caucasus. Moreover, now Islam is experiencing an unprecedented flourishing, which, perhaps, has not previously existed in the history of North Caucasian peoples. As there were not so many mosques, spiritual educational institutions. Islam was reborn in the family, cultivated by the republican authorities.
- So the rapid development of Islam is evidence of freedom of conscience, from time immemorial inherent in Russia, or purposeful state policy?
- Both. In the North Caucasus, the same thing is happening that, say, is happening with Orthodoxy throughout Russia: a revival at the level of the national mentality.
- How deep are the roots of Islam among the North Caucasian peoples?
- The true deep roots of Islam are in Dagestan, where it, starting from the oldest city in the territory of our country, Derbent, began to spread along with the Arabic script, science and culture soon after its emergence in the VII century. True, the process of the spread of Islam throughout the country of the mountains stretched for hundreds of years. The level of Islamic scholarship in Dagestan is traditionally considered to be significantly higher than in the neighboring republics. Here, by the way, the first Islamic inscriptions in Arabic contain almost the 9th century.
Sunni Islam spread among the Vainakh, Karachay-Balkarian, Adyghe (Circassian) peoples rather late - in the 17th - 18th centuries, and became massive only during the Caucasian War, acquiring a bright political tone in the struggle of the Caucasian peoples for independence from Russia. Prior to this, the North Caucasian peoples professed Christianity or various forms of paganism. On the territory of Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Ingushetia, one can find many ancient Christian churches built in the 10th - 12th centuries. The elements of these religious beliefs, as well as the systems of ordinary (non-written) law (adats), inevitably then overlapped with the new for the mountain peoples Islam and Islamic sense of justice (Sharia).
Interestingly, it is these layers, which rather organically merged into the Sufi interpretation of Islam, which is popular in the North Caucasus, distinguished by its mysticism, so irritate the ideologues of the current North Caucasian militants who advocate a Salafi, “pure” interpretation of the Quran, which rejects the worship of natural objects, the natural graves, and religious rituals, for example, are very common among the Vainakh religious dvdrfirds of zikr dance.
- If I am not mistaken, Dagestan is the most multinational region of the world - 30 nations and 15 languages.
- This is true. But at the same time, Dagestanis have enough wisdom to identify themselves as Dagestanians, despite their “polyphony.”
- Nevertheless, Dagestan is the most troubled republic.
- What is happening there now has absolutely no national coloring. As in the entire North Caucasus. This is exclusively a clash between the two interpretations of Islam. Of great importance is the continuously spinning flywheel of mutual terror. Finally, one cannot ignore the colossal difference in the mentality, for example, of a Russian and a Dagestan guy. Where a Russian can silently tolerate a grievance or go to seek truth in the courts and the prosecutor's office, the mountaineer is ready to take revenge immediately. Moreover, firearms in the North Caucasus are much more affordable than in other regions of the country.
- Russian expansion to the east was of an evolutionary nature. Except for Central Asia. And there was a war in the Caucasus. With the involvement of regular parts. Why did the Russian Empire need the Caucasus?
- It was an objective necessity. By that time, Russia was joined by Georgia, then Armenia. It turned out that enclaves were actually formed. And the Caucasus was in the zone of the closest attention of Turkey. And behind Turkey were our geopolitical opponents: England and France, and Turkey - from the same category. If not us, then they would be entrenched there. I would have had to fight with both them and the mountaineers who would support them.
- From your point of view, how strong is the foreign policy factor in the North Caucasus?
- The external factor in the Caucasus has always been strong, at least since the time when the Caucasus fell into the orbit of Russia's geopolitical interests, and from the 18th century. The Caucasus has always been understood by our opponents as a sore point of Russia. During all the wars - Russian-Turkish, Crimean, World War I and Civil, Great Patriotic War - the opponents of our country tried to kindle hostility towards the Russians among the Caucasian peoples, and at times they succeeded. What is the influence of the external factor now? This question probably needs to be addressed to specialists, but undoubtedly it is present to a certain extent. Both the Western world and international Islamic organizations have their interests in the Caucasus region.
- Why do you think the North Caucasian peoples did not voluntarily join the Russian Empire?
- There was no centralized authority. The rudiments of statehood were only in Dagestan and Kabarda, where the foundations of the feudal system were formed. All other nations were at the stage of a late-growing society. They lived in self-governing communities, the Jamaats. Communities united in unions, of which later formed nationalities. There were a lot of them - the Circassian peoples, Vainakhs, Dagestani ...
- Speaking of historical grievances, you mentioned deportation among their reasons. And in the book about the participation of the peoples of the North Caucasus in the Great Patriotic War, of which you are a co-author, there are facts of collaborationism, which became the basis for the eviction of peoples from their historic homeland. By what right at all and who made such decisions?
- The facts of collaborationism, of course, were, and very numerous. However, I will say straight away that in any case, only the criminal should bear responsibility for the crime, not his family, neighbors, and, all the more, the people as a whole. Why did these North Caucasian peoples — the Chechens, the Ingush, the Karachays, the Balkars — and not some others turn out to be evicted? I am deeply convinced that decisions about deportations, as a measure of punishment, arose situationally, by chance, in the discourse of literally several people in the leadership of the country, primarily Stalin and Beria. It was Beria, who had often been on missions in the Caucasus many times, expressed an opinion regarding the political reliability of one or another people, he also produced ideas about eviction as a measure of punishment. For example, after the eviction of Karachays in November 1943 in a telegram to Stalin, he, in particular, stated something like this: I also consider it necessary to evict Balkarians. What was done later.
It is also important to note that the Caucasian peoples were not the first and not the last, subjected to humiliating and cruel eviction from their historic homeland. Before them, Soviet Germans were evicted from the Volga region on suspicion that they were ready to cooperate with the enemy. And before the war, in 1930, the representatives of nationalities considered “foreign” in the USSR were subject to forced migration, although they were citizens of the Soviet Union - Greeks, Poles, Koreans, etc.
Finally, the Terek Cossacks should be considered the first "immigrants" in the Soviet country, forcibly, hastily and very cruelly ousted from their villages on the Terek and Sunzha even in 1920. By evil irony of fate, this was done precisely in order to favor the Soviet authorities. Chechens and Ingush, who have long argued with the Cossacks over the fertile lands of river valleys. Therefore, it is impossible to erect the deportation of the North Caucasian peoples to the absolute, representing this at the apogee of Stalinist repression. Deportations are an ancient, still Old Testament method of state violence, although, of course, this does not make it easier for any particular people subjected to deportation.
“We also note such a little-known fact: at the beginning of 1942, the decrees of US President Roosevelt were issued, declaring all Germans, Italians and Japanese“ hostile foreigners ”, they were to be detained. Of the states of California, Washington, Oregon and Arizona, about 120 of thousands of ethnic Japanese were forcibly deported to the camps, two thirds of whom were US citizens, including old people and children. Ten camps were established in seven states. The conditions there were hellish, not all survived. Only in 1983, the US Congressional Commission recognized that the internment of the Japanese was “illegal and caused racism, and not military necessity.” But in America they prefer not to talk about it, but the Japanese are generally silent. But the fact of the internment of the North Caucasian peoples is in every way used to incite anti-Russian sentiment.
At the same time, the highlanders in the ranks of the Red Army fought heroically in the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. What was their contribution to our overall victory?
“There’s something to say here.” Behind the brackets of the book “Highlanders of the North Caucasus in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945” there was a rather large category of Highlanders who were already in the army at the time of the start of the war. Then tens of thousands of highlanders shared the tragedy of the Red Army. Many committed feats, many were captured. Take the same Brest Fortress: there were a lot of Chechens, Ingush. A few years ago, old people lived in Chechnya and in Ingushetia, who were told to fight in the Brest Fortress. In 1941, conscripts of different ages were called up for military service, from 1905 to 1918. In addition, volunteer mountaineers were recruited into the army in 1942-1943, but this number was already small. On the other hand, during 1942, the appeal of all North Caucasian peoples was discontinued for political reasons. The Stalinist leadership doubted their loyalty. According to my calculations, by the year 1943, in all the mountain republics, about 100 thousands of military conscripts had accumulated. They could complete the whole army.
- And how did the tsarist government solve the problem with the appeal of the Highlanders?
- The tsarist government has never risen to the mass appeal of the Highlanders. The mountaineers served in the militia units, i.e. at the place of residence, took part in all the wars of Russia in a few volunteer formations. But the militia is militia, the volunteers are volunteers, and the government did not decide to use tens of thousands of highlanders in the First World War. At the beginning there was no such need. But when in the 1915, the personnel army suffered heavy losses, they began to look for replenishment, including in the Caucasus.
In Central Asia, in 1915, this problem was also discussed, but when in 1916 I tried to call upon the local population, who had never been called up and understood the status quo as a privilege, they got a huge uprising with great sacrifices. Then in the Caucasus did not even dare to start the call. Limited to one volunteer Wild Division, which received wide acclaim. And this “legacy” went to the Soviet country. I had to start from scratch.
- What was the relationship between the mountaineers and the Soviet authorities in the prewar period? Highlanders went to cooperate with the new government?
- In the Civil War, the Bolsheviks managed to attract the Highlanders to their side. More precisely, deftly join the high insurgent movement of the Highlanders against the Volunteer Army. Until the spring of 1920, the Highlanders and the Bolsheviks fought side by side with the White Guards. Then came the 11 Army of the Red Army. And if in March-April 1920, the highlanders waited quite sincerely, and then greeted the Red Army with bread and salt, then in August, 1920 began anti-Bolshevik uprisings. Moreover, it is very fierce. In Dagestan, then in Chechnya.
- What was the reason?
- Army must be fed, and this 85 thousands of people. It was necessary to feed the Soviet bureaucracy, which grew very quickly. Feed at the expense of the local population. Began all sorts of requisition. Then the struggle against counter-revolution began, i.e. with those who did not want to give food for nothing. The policy of war communism began to implant itself indiscriminately. In fact, it was a clash of civilizations ...
They came mostly Russians, who did not know the realities of the Caucasus, nor traditions, nor mentality, nor, especially, religious peculiarities. Conflicts always occurred where the Soviet units were garrisons. And it was mutual. The Red Army soldiers simply with horror — I read the censorship materials in the Russian State Military Archive — they write about what they encountered in Chechnya: if you go beyond the limits of the military town, you will be kidnapped, your ears cut off, robbed, etc.
This was a mutual terror, which in a number of mountainous areas, with short interruptions, lasted 20 years, until 1941. Soviet institutions took root here hard, often existed formally. Social innovations often lay on completely unprepared ground. I saw an interesting document dated by March of 1941: a memorandum from the People's Commissar of Agriculture Benediktov to Prime Minister Molotov about what agriculture was in the highland Chechen-Ingushetia. Collective farms actually did not exist. Formally, they were, but all the cattle were taken apart from house to house, each cultivating his plot, shepherding his flock, cattle and land in free circulation. Collective farms sharply unprofitable. All this time there were military KGB operations. Here I find in the documents: the report for 1925 is the year about the suppression of anti-Soviet uprisings in Chechnya; 1927 year - again the results of the KGB operation. 1937 is the annual “final suppression” report again, and so on until the war itself ...
- What national peculiarities, first of all, should be taken into account in domestic policy in relations with the Caucasian peoples?
- This is a question, the answer to which can be very extensive. The positive and, alas, negative experience accumulated by our state in this area is enormous. The North Caucasus has long been a field for large-scale social experiments, in which historical experience was not always taken into account by politicians. Within my competence, I can say in brief about the experience of attracting North Caucasian peoples to the ranks of the Russian / Soviet armed forces.
For the past two hundred years, the authorities have widely used the mountaineers in military service, then they have reduced access to the troops to a minimum or even completely stopped the call. The Russian state, as it were, cannot decide for itself: does it trust the highlanders? On the one hand, the usefulness of attracting mountain young people to military service is obvious from the point of view of their accelerated adaptation to Russian culture, the Russian language, education and strengthening of the all-Russian identity and civil feelings in them. The mountaineers always expressed a desire to fight, but they had their own views on the war and the passage of military service, which were difficult to fit into the concept of an organized military system. The identity of the mountain peoples is not identical to the all-Russian. The authorities have always been intimidated by the civilizational, and earlier - the linguistic gulf between the Slavic and highland groups in the army, as well as the apparent or apparent political disloyalty of the Highlanders to the Russian / Soviet state. Therefore, we see that the mountain formations appeared and disappeared in our army; then the mass call of the mountaineers to the troops was announced, then it was completely folded.
At present, conscription among the mountain youth in the Chechen Republic, the Republic of Ingushetia, and the Republic of Dagestan is sharply limited; mountaineers come to the troops in insignificant numbers. The leadership of the Russian Armed Forces did not give any specific comments on this matter. It can be assumed that the restrictions are primarily caused by the weak socio-cultural involvement of the highlanders in the Russian-speaking environment of the modern military team, the tendency to create fraternities and the manifestation of non-statutory relations, as well as fears that some high-trained military men may turn out to be “ in the forest".
In recent years, the Russian Armed Forces and law enforcement agencies have been following a path that was repeatedly used both before the revolution and in Soviet times, namely the creation of mono-national formations from the Caucasian peoples. These were, as noted above, numerous militia units during the Crimean and Russian-Turkish wars in the 19th century, the Wild Division during the First World War, the 114-I Chechen-Ingush and 115-I Kabardino-Balkar cavalry divisions during the Great World War II.
The experience of forming national units is, as it were, a compromise between the complete rejection of the use of contingents of a certain nationality and their mass appeal. It is clear that the policy of creating “piece”, elite national divisions does not solve the problem of mobresources training in this region. At the same time, national formations (and they are usually completed with volunteers) make it possible to use the militant energy of those who want to devote themselves to military affairs in a positive way. It is no secret, for example, that at one time there were two national motorized rifle battalions of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs deployed on the territory of the Chechen Republic — the 248 “North” and 249 — the South. Now these units are successfully fighting against the remnants of militant gangs on the territory of Chechnya, in effect replacing the federal forces. 2003 to 2008 The 42 Guards Motorized Rifle Division of the Ministry of Defense, stationed in Chechnya, successfully operated two special purpose battalions, Vostok and Zapad, staffed by Chechens. The Vostok battalion took an active part in the peace enforcement operation of Georgia in the territory of South Ossetia in 2008. The battalion fighters were among the first to enter the burning Tskhinval.
The experience of the Chechen Republic is recognized as successful in the neighboring regions. In September, on the proposal of the leadership of the Republic of Dagestan, the President of the Russian Federation allowed 2010 to form in the republic a special-purpose regiment of the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, staffed exclusively by representatives of the peoples of Dagestan.
The very repeatability of historical models speaks of the action of certain patterns here, which gives hope that historians can work out specific guidelines based on the experience (I emphasize, often very difficult) of the history of relations between the Russian / Soviet army and the peoples of the North Caucasus.
- You are the author of several monographs and dozens of articles. Among your last works are “General Bicherakhov and his Caucasian army: Unknown pages of the history of the Civil War and Interventions in the Caucasus (1917 - 1919)”. Also named above - “Highlanders of the North Caucasus in the Great Patriotic War 1941 – 1945”, also co-authored “History of the military-district system in Russia. 1862 - 1918. What are you working on now?
- As I have already said, I am working on a doctoral dissertation devoted to the problems of state policy in the field of admission to the ranks of the Red Army and the organization of military service for representatives of the peoples of the North Caucasus in their development - from the Civil War through the reforms of the interwar period and during the Great Patriotic War. As part of this work, I am preparing a monograph on the most difficult period of the Civil War in Russian history.
- While what we talked about today, we can not help recalling slogans that periodically voiced both our liberals and radicals, that, they say, it’s enough to “feed” the Caucasus and it must be separated from Russia. From our point of view, this is a blatant provocation, to say the least ...
- The North Caucasus is an integral part of Russia, with which it is connected not only by the common territory, but also by the economy, culture, science, art, literature, etc. - thousands, tens and hundreds of invisible threads that cannot be cut, not harming the whole state organism. This may cause irreparable damage to the national security of Russia, and the very existence of the republics of the North Caucasus is in question.
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