Neutralization of the Opposition

The Chechen historian A. G. Avtorkhanov, who worked in Chechnya in those years and later wrote about it in emigration, writes: "At the beginning of October 1937, accompanied by a large Chekist staff, there arrived in Chechen-Ingushetia a candidate member of the Politburo, chairman of the Party Collegium of the KPK under the TsK and Yezhov's deputy – Shkiryatov"^[1]. Shkiryatov convened an enlarged plenum of the oblast committee of the party in the Lenin House of Culture in Grozny - by the archival protocols the plenum ran on 8-10 October 1937, with 194 participants^[2] - and summoned there also the senior officials of the city and the districts. Avtorkhanov continues: "Shkiryatov gave the order to arrest all Chechens and Ingush who were members of the Chechen-Ingush oblast committee"^[1]. The Chekists arrested them right there, in the hall of the plenum. Avtorkhanov writes of what followed: "Then Shkiryatov's order was extended to all Chechen-Ingush officials, from the chairman of the republic's government down to the chairman of a village soviet"^[1]. In October and November 1937 the NKVD (a predecessor of today's FSB) arrested Ali Gorchkhanov, chairman of the government of the republic; Abdul-Khalim Salamov, his deputy; Khasi Vakhayev, second secretary of the oblast committee; Magomed Mamakayev, head of the culture and propaganda department of the oblast committee; Khamid Okuyev, People's Commissar (minister) of education; Musa Khaniev, chairman of the Supreme Court; Khasan Mekhtiev, prosecutor of the republic; and Said Baduev, chairman of the Union of Soviet Writers. Avtorkhanov writes also of the lower floors: "Arrested were also the chairmen of the district executive committees (in the Chechen-Ingush republic there were up to 28 districts), almost all chairmen of village Soviets, of kolkhozes, and their party organizers"^[1]. Of the 23 heads of the district NKVD departments only Goytiev was a Chechen, and the NKVD arrested him too. The NKVD arrested, and the party organs removed from office - historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "In all, in October 1937, 30 of the 76 members and candidate members of the Chechen-Ingush obkom were repressed, including all the Chechens and Ingush; 20 of the 28 secretaries of district party committees; 77 members of district committees and 192 senior officials of the rural districts of the republic"^[3]; in 1938 the colonizer removed almost all heads of the district land departments, 19 chairmen of district executive committees and 22 secretaries of district committees^[3].