in the campaign “Non-Recognition and the Attempted Military Invasion: Moscow's Response to the Independence of the Chechen Republic (September-November 1991)”
On 15 September 1991 the deputies of the Supreme Soviet of Chechen-Ingushetia, at their last session, chaired in person by Khasbulatov, a Chechen from the Moscow leadership, then acting head of parliament, dissolved themselves and chose from their own ranks a Provisional Supreme Council of 32 members headed by Khusein Akhmadov to hold new elections[1]. Filatov, in 1991 secretary of the parliament's leadership in Moscow, recalled: "with the energetic participation of Khasbulatov the Supreme Soviet of the republic was dispersed — what remained was the so-called Small Council, some artificial formation that was to work until new elections were held"[2]. Khusein Akhmadov took the side of Dzhokhar Dudaev's congress and on 4 October signed a resolution on the KGB (predecessor of today's FSB): "to terminate the activity of the KGB of the ChIR [Chechen-Ingush Republic] and of all its structures on the territory of the Chechen Republic"[3]. Then Moscow began to build its own power out of this council. On 25 September five of its members headed by the council's deputy chairman Chernyi, Khasbulatov's man, came out against Dzhokhar Dudaev's congress; on 26 September Khasbulatov himself threatened by telegram not to recognise the elections; on 5 October thirteen of the council's thirty-two members, backed by the local KGB, tried to remove Khusein Akhmadov[1]. On 8 October the Moscow leadership, over Khasbulatov's signature, having heard vice-president Rutskoi back from Grozny, declared lawful in the republic only the council "under the chairmanship of comrade B. D. Bakhmadov" - a procurator whom they themselves had installed - and instructed it "to take all necessary measures to stabilise the situation"[4]. General Sokolov, head of the occupation army's training centre in Grozny, reported to his command: "the chairman V. D. Bakhmadov was appointed by the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR R. I. Khasbulatov", and the council itself "has no practical power"[5]. On 9 October the leadership of the National Congress of the Chechen People, Dzhokhar Dudaev's congress, called Bakhmadov's council "unlawful, puppet" and demanded that it "dissociate itself from the attempt to resurrect" the Supreme Soviet "dissolved by the people"[6]. After the elections of 27 October Bakhmadov's council addressed the residents of the republic: the elections "are unconstitutional and have no lawful force, not a single decree of the so-called president D. Dudaev, not a single resolution of the parliament of the so-called Chechen Republic has legal force or is subject to execution"[7]. On 7 November the RSFSR president Yeltsin, by decree No. 178, resolved: "To introduce... on the territory of the Chechen-Ingush Republic, as a special form of administration, a Provisional Administration of the Chechen-Ingush Republic"; as its head he appointed his own representative in the republic, Arsanov, as deputy the republic's minister of internal affairs Ibragimov, and instructed them "to form the Provisional Administration of the Chechen-Ingush Republic within 3 days"[8]. On 8 November the parliament of the Chechen Republic, chaired by Khusein Akhmadov, replied: "The leadership of Russia, following the lead of the overthrown totalitarian forces and proceeding from imperial interests, has introduced it [the state of emergency] on the territory of a republic whose sovereignty was proclaimed as far back as November 1990" - and declared the decree "unlawful and having no legal force"[9]. Neither Bakhmadov's council nor Arsanov's Provisional Administration ever got to work in Chechnya: on 11 November the deputies in Moscow refused to approve Yeltsin's decree[10].