"Exiled Forever": Life in Special Settlement and Return to an Occupied Homeland (1949-1965)

The Chechens lived through the exile under constant attacks and provocations. The empire itself made them the target - by the brand of "traitors," by the connivance of local officials and by a secret police that named the Chechens themselves guilty after every pogrom. On 16 June 1950 in the town of Leninogorsk in Kazakhstan the Chechens were attacked by workers recruited to the lead mines, their ringleaders criminals released from Kazakhstan's camps. The pogrom was prepared in secret and caught the Chechen community off guard: most of the killing came on the first day, when the Chechen men, alone or in small groups, had driven off to congratulate their relatives on the end of Ramadan (for Muslims, a major religious holiday). The local authorities, the occupier's police and the special commandant's office did not stop the attackers; the Chechens organized the defense themselves and, after two days of street fighting, by 18 June pushed the pogromists to the town's outskirts, while Soviet troops entered only on 19 June. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "In all, 36 Chechens were brutally killed, including women and children"^[2]. The Directorate of Special Settlements of the MGB (predecessor of today's FSB) of the Kazakh SSR admitted that same summer to "mass brawls between deportee-Chechens and local residents (at Kushmurun station, Kustanai oblast, and in Ust-Kamenogorsk and Leninogorsk, East Kazakhstan oblast), accompanied by killings and grave injuries" - and laid the blame for them on the Chechens themselves^[3]; of Ust-Kamenogorsk the 9th directorate of the MGB of the USSR reported in 1952: "a mass brawl broke out involving up to 150 Chechens and about 300 workers. This mass disorder was put down only after the intervention of an MGB unit"^[3]. The Special Settlements Department of the police ministry, in a memorandum drawn up in July 1950, dated the Leninogorsk pogrom to 17 June and counted the dead its own way: "In the brawl 34 special-settler Chechens were killed" - and placed the attack in Ust-Kamenogorsk on 27 June^[5]. In December 1954 in the village of Yelizavetinka, Akmolinsk oblast, students of the mechanization school called the Chechens "traitors and betrayers of the motherland" - and with these accusations Russians went into a mass clash with the Chechens^[3]. On 15 May 1955 in Ekibastuz workers mobilized to the mines through the military enlistment office beat two Chechens in the street; the police sheltered the beaten men in the station house, but the workers came there and demanded they be handed over. Kruglov, Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, reported to the leadership of the Bolshevik party and to the government: "Having been refused, the former soldiers pushed aside the officers of the militia station, dragged the Chechens out into the street by force and beat them. After that a number of other Chechens living in the town were beaten by the workers. As a result of the brawl 3 Chechens were killed and 4 injured"^[3].

By its decree of 11 March 1952 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ordered that even those who had served out their sentences not be released into freedom: Chechens, Ingush and the other deported peoples "having served punishment for various crimes in corrective-labor camps, colonies and prisons" were, "upon expiry of the term of punishment, to be sent by convoy to special settlement, under the surveillance of the organs of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, at the place of residence of their families"^[5]. The nationwide amnesty of 27 March 1953 was a criminal-law amnesty and did not touch the exiles at all. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "the question of restoring the Checheno-Ingush ASSR was not raised even for discussion. To all the numerous letters and appeals of the highlanders to Moscow came the harsh, unambiguous answer that the Chechens and Ingush were to remain in their places of residence forever"^[2]. The empire cut the exiles off from education as well. Children were formally subject to universal schooling, but in 1945 in some oblasts of Kazakhstan up to 70% of the special settlers' children did not go to school: the families, robbed at deportation, had nothing to dress their children in - in the documents this is recorded as "by reason of the absence of warm clothing and footwear"^[2], and in 1946, of the 89 thousand special settlers' children from the North Caucasus obliged to study under the law on universal education, only 22 thousand actually studied^[2]. By 1949 no less than 60% of the North Caucasus special settlers were completely illiterate; 2.1% had a complete secondary education, 0.2% - higher education^[2]. The empire barred the road to university as well: a school graduate needed a special permit from the republican organs of internal affairs, study was allowed only in Kazakhstan, Kirghizia and Uzbekistan, and even after the diploma the Chechens and Ingush still could not leave the places of deportation - and, according to the data of the organs of internal affairs, a significant part of the special settlers with higher education - lawyers, writers, teachers - could not find work in their profession^[2]. The educated grew fewer even in absolute numbers: in 1946 Kazakhstan counted 1,248 people with higher or specialized secondary education among those deported from the North Caucasus; by the beginning of 1948 there remained 1,127^[2]. By its decree of 16 July 1956 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR removed the special-settlement registration - and by the same second article stripped the people of their property and of the right to their homeland^[4]. Even the empire's own audits gave the segregation no justification. In February 1953 Ganenko and Alatortsev, inspectors of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party, toured the special settlements of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and the commission that examined their memorandum summarized it thus: "Many local party and soviet organs display a disdainful attitude toward work among the special settlers, pass over numerous instances of arbitrariness toward this part of the population, of infringement of the special settlers' lawful rights, of indiscriminate political distrust toward them, which artificially breeds moods of discontent among the special settlers"^[3]. In 1954 the Ministry of Internal Affairs declared unfounded the complaints that Chechens and Ingush were allegedly terrorizing the local population: 506,043 people deported from the North Caucasus stood on the special-settlement rolls in 1954, and of them only 5,418 - about one percent - had been convicted and were in confinement^[3]. The same ministry counted, as of 10 November 1955, among the Chechens deported "for treason" 2,280 war veterans, 4,455 holders of orders and medals and 2,553 families of men killed at the front; among the Ingush - another 1,085, 1,869 and 871^[5]. The empire amnestied even genuine accomplices of the German occupiers: the decree of 17 September 1955 was so entitled - "On the Amnesty of Soviet Citizens Who Collaborated with the Occupiers in the Period of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." But historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write that the highland peoples, repressed "allegedly for 'collaboration with the Germans,'" "were not touched by this decree"^[2]. In August 1956 an inspection that had toured Kazakhstan and Kirghizia reported to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet after the fact: "From 1948 to 1953 the living conditions of the special settlers were burdened with restrictions of various kinds which were not warranted by serious causes from the point of view of the special settlers' own conduct. Many Chechens were dismissed from work, expelled from the party, arrested and then sentenced to long terms of imprisonment"^[3]. By its decree of 9 January 1957 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR recognized "as necessary the restoration of the national autonomy of the Chechen and Ingush peoples," recommended the restoration itself to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR and repealed only the ban on returning: "Article 2 of the Decree of 16 July 1956 in the part prohibiting the Chechens and Ingush from returning to their former place of residence"^[6]. A decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR restored the republic that same day^[3], but neither of these acts ordered the return of the confiscated property.

The colonizer exploited the labor of the deported Chechens under threat of prison. By its resolution of 21 February 1948 the government of the USSR ordered the organization of the "correct and obligatory labor utilization of the special settlers"^[3]. According to the reports of the special settlements department of the secret police, the Chechens and Ingush worked at the disposal of all the ministries (the "narkomats") except the military one: as of 1 January 1949, 125,753 people were employed in agriculture, 6,175 in the coal industry, 9,737 in metallurgy, 12,011 in local industry^[7]. Those whom the agency listed among the "malicious evaders of work on the collective farms" were, by joint order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR and the Prosecutor General, to be tried under Article 82 - "deprivation of freedom for 8 years" - but the secret police admitted that on the ground people were sent into a new 8-year exile without any trial at all, by decisions of collective-farm meetings^[3]. Even the relaxation the colonizer tied to labor: by the resolution of 5 July 1954 "On Lifting Certain Restrictions in the Legal Status of the Special Settlers" the government of the USSR allowed people to live not within the bounds of the commandant's office but within their oblast - yet only those engaged in socially useful labor^[3][8].

Collective-farm meetings sentenced deported Chechens to an 8-year banishment from their places of settlement - without trial, investigation or defense. The government of the USSR established this procedure by its resolution of 2 June 1948: the general meeting of a collective farm or village passed a "public sentence" of banishment "for malicious evasion of labor activity in agriculture and the leading of an antisocial, parasitic way of life," and these meetings were conducted by the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The ministry itself reported: "The banishment measures were determined by general meetings of collective farms and village peasants, conducted by the organs of the MVD"^[5]. The Ministry of Internal Affairs admitted in a 1950 report: "deportees maliciously evading work on the collective farms are being banished by decisions of collective-farm meetings for 8 years to remote regions of the country" - this was done in the Kzyl-Orda, Kustanai, Pavlodar and South Kazakhstan oblasts of Kazakhstan^[3]. The ministry itself called banishment without trial merely an "erroneous practice" and an "incorrect application of the measure of punishment": under its own order such people were supposed to be put on trial^[3]. Historian V. A. Kozlov writes from the ministry's documents: "The more far-sighted police officials were forced to admit that punishing the Chechens and Ingush for evasion of work was inexpedient" - or else "a natural defense mechanism will kick in - the single monolithic community will behave as one person - you cannot punish them all!"^[3].

The USSR persecuted the religious leaders of the deported Chechens through the courts and the secret police. By its verdict of 1-7 July 1952 the Supreme Court of the Kirghiz SSR sent to the camps ten leaders and elders of religious brotherhoods - Naqshbandi, Kunta-Haji, Avdy and Chimirza - for terms of 8 to 25 years; the community leader Nurid Dzhabrailov was charged with having "under the cover of religious convictions conducted sharply anti-Soviet agitation" and "called on the masses of special settlers not to work in the collective farm," the head of the Kunta-Haji brotherhood Yusup Akhmatov - with having "categorically forbidden the murids [his followers] to attend cultural and educational institutions" and "forbidden children to attend school"; the outcome: "to 25 years of deprivation of liberty to be served in an ITL [corrective labor camp], with subsequent loss of electoral rights for a term of 3 years and confiscation of all property, each"^[3]. The secret police "worked up" the clergy - that was its own term for covert surveillance: a secret file was opened on a person or a group, informers were set to watch them and material was gathered for an arrest. Historian V. A. Kozlov writes: two "most characteristic" such files on Chechens, opened in 1952 by the MGB (predecessor of today's FSB) directorates of the regions of the Kazakh SSR, "received highly eloquent code names: 'The Stubborn' and 'The Fanatics.' Both cases were run under the coloring 'Muslim clergy'" (the coloring - what the secret police called the subject of a file)^[3]. The minister of state security of the Kazakh SSR Byzov reported on 12 August 1950 on the same kind of files, "Bloc," "Avengers" and "Caucasians" - under the last of them the secret police was likewise running a file on former leading officials of Chechen-Ingushetia - and gave the number of those arrested: "In all, in Kazakhstan, for anti-Soviet activity the organs of the MGB arrested in 1949 and 7 months of 1950 874 deportees"^[3].

The USSR left the exiled Chechens without schooling in their native language and without a written language, and struck the people out of the encyclopedias. Schooling was conducted in Kazakh and Kirghiz. Historian A. B. Kuznetsova cites the words of former exiles: "the written language in Chechen and Ingush was liquidated"^[7]. The MGB (predecessor of today's FSB) counted, as of 1 January 1952, "children of the nationalities deported from the North Caucasus - 33,702" not covered by compulsory schooling and explained this by "the absence of winter clothing and footwear, owing to the hard material position of the parents, the absence of schools in a number of places of settlement or the remoteness of schools from places of residence"^[5]. In the summer of 1956 inspectors toured the places of exile and reported to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR: "Teaching of children in schools in the native language was not conducted," in the 1955/56 school year "of 61 thousand children of school age only 50 thousand, or 81%, were being taught," and among the illiterate "in some districts their number reaches 40-50%"^[3]. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write that "from all the reference books and encyclopedias of the Stalin era any mention of the Chechens and Ingush was carefully expunged," while the linguist Yu. Desheriev "committed, for those times, a real 'ideological diversion' by publishing in Moscow in 1953 the study 'The Batsbi Language'" - the historians write that in this way he "tried to preserve for posterity the language of the Vainakh people, which by the decision of the 'father of the peoples' [Stalin] was to vanish from the face of the earth" (the Batsbi of Transcaucasia, they explain, spoke one of the dialects of Chechen)^[2]. The same historians write that the Chechen intelligentsia itself held on to the language: by its efforts the first issue of the Chechen newspaper "Qinkhyegaman bayrakh" ("Banner of Labor") came out in the summer of 1955^[2].

The USSR forbade the exiled Chechens and Ingush to leave the district of settlement, which at times consisted of a few streets. A commission of the Central Committee of the party admitted this in 1953 in a memorandum to the head of government Malenkov: "the absence of a special settler without the appropriate permission beyond the limits of the district served by the special commandant's office... is regarded as escape and entails liability under criminal law"^[8]. The exiled Ingush woman Aza Bazorkina, who at sixteen received a passport stamped "special settler," testifies how the commandant would not let her father's friend go to bury his dead wife: "The Muslim cemetery lay beyond the city limits, and he did not allow him to accompany his wife beyond that line"^[9]. Only by its resolution of 5 July 1954 did the Council of Ministers of the USSR ease the regime: to those engaged in socially useful labor it granted "the right of residence within the given oblast, krai, republic"^[10], but escape remained a crime: for leaving the settlement without permission people were tried under article 82 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (escape from a place of obligatory settlement)^[8], and in 1956 "of 328 thousand Chechens, a little over 191.4 thousand were on the registers of the special commandant's offices"^[2]. The ban on returning outlived even the decree of 9 January 1957: the minister of internal affairs of the USSR Dudorov asked the leadership of the Bolshevik party (the "Central Committee of the CPSU") to allow "persons of Chechen and Ingush nationality returning to their former place of residence without the permission of the Organizing Committee to be detained, removed from trains, steamers and other means of transport and returned to the places of their former settlement," and on 9 April 1957 reported: in three days "2,139 persons were identified and detained" on trains^[3]. The Organizing Committee stretched the return out over four years and made it paid: the returnees complained to the formal head of state Voroshilov that the Organizing Committee's representative Nemukhin had in March 1957 "announced to us the procedure of our return over 1957-1960, with all expenses connected with the move charged to us, the movers ourselves"^[3]; on 26 January 1957 the Organizing Committee and the bureau of the party's oblast committee (the "Grozny obkom of the CPSU") established that "arrival for permanent residence on the territory of the republic may take place only by permission of the Organizing Committee of the ChIASSR [the Chechen-Ingush republic]," and ordered the occupier's police to register newcomers only on those permits^[3]; on 5 September 1960 the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR extended the deadline for return "until 1963"^[3]. Mountain Chechnya remained closed: five mountain districts - Galanchozh, Cheberloy, Sharoy, Itum-Kale and Shatoy - the decree of 9 January 1957 did not restore^[3]. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write that "the highlanders were forbidden to reside" there, while the repatriates "were settled in new state farms, workers' settlements, farmsteads... especially in the Cossack districts beyond the Terek, and in arid, unhealthy places remote from district centers and towns"^[2]. The same historians write that in the stanitsas, along the way, "conditions were created for their rapid cultural and linguistic assimilation": "In the stanitsas teaching was conducted only in Russian; the heads of stanitsa soviets, districts and farms remained exclusively Russians"^[2]. The pogrom of August 1958 in Grozny, with the demand from the pogromists' resolution "to allow the Chechen-Ingush population to reside in Grozny oblast at no more than 10% of the total population"^[3], the USSR turned against the Chechens themselves. The historians write: "In November 1958 a special passport regime was established in Grozny and in the Grozny (rural) district, under which serious restrictions on residence registration were introduced here... the true purpose of this action was to create administrative obstacles in the way of the migration of the Chechen population into Grozny," and "The initiators of the introduction of the ban, under the pretext of tightening the fight against a rise in offenses, were the party and soviet organs of Chechen-Ingushetia"^[2].

The colonizer destroyed the mountain villages of the Chechens so that the people would have nowhere to return to. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "The policy of depopulating Mountain Chechnya, begun in February 1944, found its continuation in 1957-1960" - and explain how it was done: "The remains of houses were blown up and burned, bridges and paths were demolished. The organs of the KGB and MVD drove out onto the plain by force of arms the families of highlanders who by hook or by crook had made their way along paths above the clouds into their native auls"^[2]. Historian A. B. Kuznetsova sums up: "Settlements and populated places remote from communications (high-mountain ones) were destroyed," and with the settlement of the rural districts by newcomers "the skills of transhumant animal husbandry, of working high-mountain plots of land, of terrace farming were lost"^[7].

In June 1956 the head of the Soviet militia Barsukov reported: "to place the Chechens and Ingush in the districts where they lived before the deportation is not possible," because "these districts are settled by migrants from the central oblasts of the RSFSR," while on the lands that had passed to North Ossetia, where before the deportation "77,578 Chechens and Ingush lived," "the local [and] party organs consider the return of the Chechens and Ingush inexpedient"^[3]. The minister of internal affairs of the USSR Dudorov in June 1956 proposed not returning the people at all: "The former territory is settled" - and raised the question "of creating for the Chechens and Ingush an oblast autonomy on the territory of the Kazakh and Kirghiz SSR"^[5]. The USSR dropped the plan because of "the sharply negative attitude of the Chechens and Ingush" and their striving to return home^[7]. The decree of 9 January 1957 charged the Russian parliament (the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR) with establishing the borders^[5] - and the Prigorodny district stayed with North Ossetia. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "The unanimous protests of the Chechen-Ingush delegation on the question of the Prigorodny district were ignored by the Central Committee of the CPSU"; the colonizer cut off "1,600 square kilometers of exclusively black-earth land," and enlarged the republic "at the expense of the sandy lands of the Burunnaya steppe (in essence, semi-desert) beyond the Terek"^[2]. The historians write that in Dagestan the colonizers "sought at the same time to prevent the restoration of the Aukh (Chechen) district. For this the returning Chechens were not allowed to settle in their old houses in their native auls, but were dispersed in small groups" across five districts^[2]. The Russian parliament, in setting the republic's borders, did not return to it the former Aukh district either - it is absent from the list of transferred lands^[3]. On 10 April 1964 the new settlers of the village of Duchi in the former Aukh district beat and expelled the Chechen Salikh Saitamulov, who had returned to his parents' plot, and on 12 April about 500 Chechens came to Duchi with demands, as the investigation recorded, "to permit Saitamulov and other Chechens to reside in the village of Duchi and other former Chechen villages, to return to them their former households and plots of land"; the KGB (predecessor of today's FSB) under the government of Dagestan answered with a criminal case for mass disorders^[8]. The case fell apart: historian V. A. Kozlov writes that the Chechens "held together and evaded giving testimony," and the case was closed "for absence... of the elements of a crime"^[8].

Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write that officials of the Organizing Committee, which was in charge of the Chechens' return to the republic, "frequently extorted bribes for passes giving the right to resettle immediately from Kazakhstan and Central Asia to the Caucasus"^[2]. The price was named by the chief agronomist of the Ministry of Agriculture of Kazakhstan Kh. U. Arsanukayev in a statement to the head of the government of the USSR Bulganin on 27 August 1957: "the distribution of passes was organized with the calculation that the placemen of the members of the Organizing Committee, and they themselves, filled their suitcases handsomely with money - one pass was sold by them for 2 thousand rubles on average," - and he relayed the words of the returnees: "During our deportation even Beria did not inflict such great material damage on our people as the Organizing Committee of the ChIASSR [the Chechen-Ingush republic] has now inflicted on us"^[3]. An official of the government of the RSFSR, Belov, replied on 4 October 1957 that the bribes taken for passes had already been examined by the leadership of the Bolshevik party (the "Central Committee of the CPSU"), that on the Organizing Committee members Tongiev and Dukuzov the party's oblast committee "imposed a strict party reprimand," and proposed "to confine ourselves to the measures taken"^[3]. No one returned the houses of the deported: "Wild as it may seem, most often the Chechens had to buy back their houses and land from the new owners"^[2] - the collective and state farms of the republic bought up the houses of those who left with state credit: by October 1958 they had on their books 10,413 vacant "residential houses... from the departed population of Ossetian, Avar and other nationalities"^[3].

The colonizer kept the highest posts of the restored republic for Russian leaders. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write that around the first secretary of the Bolshevik party's oblast committee (the "obkom of the CPSU") Yakovlev "there formed a grouping of leading officials which had a negative attitude '...toward the act of restoring the autonomy of the Chechen-Ingush people...'," and Yakovlev himself "openly declared that he considered the decision on the rehabilitation of the repressed peoples a great mistake"^[2]. An official of the government of the RSFSR, Fedin, reported on 29 August 1957 that three members of the Organizing Committee from among the Chechens and Ingush - Dukuzov, Malsagov and Tepsaev - "for more than eight months have not been appointed to any posts and in essence are responsible for nothing concrete," although "the republic feels a great shortage of cadres from among the Chechens and Ingush"^[3]. The writer A. E. Kosterin, a witness of the events, wrote: "Everything was and is being done so as to provoke excesses on the part of the exiles both against the party-soviet organizations and against those who settled their villages... These excesses have been, are and, regrettably, will be, unless the position and tactics of the obkom change"^[2]. The same historians write: "Very quickly an unspoken system of distributing the highest posts takes shape in socialist Chechen-Ingushetia" - the posts of first secretary of the party's oblast committee, minister of internal affairs, prosecutor, head of the KGB (predecessor of today's FSB), head of "Grozneft" and others "are reserved for Russian leaders"^[2].

The colonizer settled the lands of the deported Chechens and Ingush with newcomers and kept them there through all the years of exile. In 1956 a commission of the leadership of the Bolshevik party (the "Central Committee of the CPSU") was preparing the restoration of the republic and reported on the newcomers: into the districts that had gone to Grozny oblast "78 thousand persons were resettled from the RSFSR, Ukraine and Moldavia," onto the lands given to Dagestan "46 thousand highlanders resettled from the high-mountain districts of the republic," into the districts given to North Ossetia - "55 thousand persons"^[5]. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write that already by mid-May 1944 the newcomers in Grozny oblast numbered 40% of the Chechens deported from it, and "there were few willing to go to the new places" - so the colonizer paid the settlers 2,500 rubles per family and exempted them from taxes for a year^[2]. The Chechen historian A. G. Avtorkhanov, writing in emigration, saw in the replacement of the population an imperial calculation, and named it: "to create in the Caucasus a new colonial-colonizing and military-police corps of foreigners, subordinate, obedient and compliant in the matter of defending Soviet imperial interests." He summed it up thus: "by settling here a population of more than a million Soviet colonizers the Bolsheviks have already driven the first wedge between the brotherly peoples of the Caucasus"^[1]. As a second motive he names oil - "the clearly marked course of the Soviet government to take finally into imperial hands the leading and basic Caucasian oil economy for the whole Soviet Union"^[1]. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov sum up: "As a result of artificial shifts of territorial borders and of 'corrections' in the settlement of the repressed peoples, by 1961 the Chechens and Ingush made up 41% of the population of the republic, whereas in 1939 their share had reached 58.4%"^[2].