in the campaign “Non-Recognition and the Attempted Military Invasion: Moscow's Response to the Independence of the Chechen Republic (September-November 1991)”
On 10 September 1991 the RSFSR president Yeltsin sent to Chechen-Ingushetia a delegation headed by state secretary Burbulis and instructed it "to explain the policy of the Russian Federation and of the President of the RSFSR at the present stage"[1]; the delegation came back with nothing[2]. On 8 October the Moscow leadership, over Khasbulatov's signature, resolved "until the election of a new composition of the Supreme Soviet of the Chechen-Ingush Republic, to regard the Provisional Supreme Council of the Republic as the only lawful body of state power on the territory of the Chechen-Ingush Republic" and ordered "the illegal armed formations [this is what the coloniser called the fighters for independence from Russia] to surrender their weapons to the bodies of internal affairs by 24:00 on 10 October 1991"[3]. The Chechens did not surrender their weapons: on 9 October the leadership of the National Congress of the Chechen People replied that the resolution had been adopted "with the sole aim of preserving colonial domination over the Chechen people, over the peoples of the Caucasus and their natural riches", announced the mobilisation of men from 15 to 55 and put the National Guard on combat alert[4]. On 10 October Moscow instructed vice-president Rutskoi and the RSFSR government "to ensure the necessary conditions for the restoration of legality and law and order in the Chechen-Ingush Republic"[5]. On 15 October the chairman of the KGB of the RSFSR (predecessor of today's FSB) Ivanenko suspended the work of the KGB of Chechen-Ingushetia "until 27 October 1991" and by his own order appointed an acting chairman for it[2]. On 19 October Yeltsin addressed the leadership of the congress with an ultimatum: "I demand from the leaders of the Executive Committee of the National Congress of the Chechen People and the groupings supporting them the cessation of unlawful actions and unconditional submission to the law… all measures provided for by the laws of the RSFSR will be taken"[6]. On 24 October Moscow resolved that the elections set for 27 October "have no legal basis and their results cannot be recognised as lawful", and entrusted the preparation of different elections to the Provisional Supreme Council and to the RSFSR deputies from the republic[7]. The Chechens voted anyway: on 27 October, according to the electoral commission of the Chechen Republic, 72 % of voters turned out, and 90.1 % voted for Dzhokhar Dudaev[2]. On 1 November Dzhokhar Dudaev signed a decree: "Guided by the Declaration on the state sovereignty of the republic and by the will of the citizens of the Chechen Republic expressed in direct and universal elections, to proclaim the state sovereignty of the Chechen Republic from 1 November 1991"[8]. On 2 November Moscow answered with a resolution: "To recognise the elections to the supreme body of state power (the Supreme Soviet) and of the President of the republic held in the Chechen-Ingush Republic on 27 October 1991 as unlawful, and the acts adopted by them as not subject to execution"[9]. On 7 November Yeltsin, in decree No. 178, named as the reason for the state of emergency an aggravation "caused by the unlawful actions of the executive committee of the National Congress of the Chechen People and its leaders, who seek, by organising mass disorders, with the use of violence, to remove the lawfully acting state bodies from power", and in point 6 banned any elections: "elections of bodies of state power and of local self-government shall not be held during the whole period of the state of emergency"[10]. None of these bans worked: the elections took place, the president and the parliament of Chechnya were at work, and on 11 November the deputies in Moscow refused to approve the decree itself[11].