Punitive Expeditions

The occupation administration of Tersky Town deliberately organized a campaign of violent punishment: in his petition to Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich, the Kabardian prince Sholokh reported that the Terek voivode sent the armed detachments precisely «against your sovereign's disobedient ones — the Michkiz people, against their kabaks»^[1].

The regular army of the Tsardom of Muscovy carried out armed raids on the territories of Nokhchi societies: the historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that in 1691–1700 «punitive expeditions were carried out by the tsarist authorities in retaliation against the rebel Cossacks and their Highlander allies»^[2] and records «retaliatory punitive raids by tsarist forces»^[2].

The government of the Tsardom of Muscovy organized military operations against Nokhchi societies: the historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov states that «the measures taken by Peter I to combat the Bulavin «rebeliya» and other uprisings, including on the Terek against Chechnya, were in essence punitive»^[2].

The deployment of the regular army to physically destroy the Hetmanate's defiant capital: "On the morning of November 2, Russian troops burst into Baturyn. After a two-hour battle, the remnants of the garrison were slaughtered together with the entire civilian population"^[3][4]. The town was looted and burned on Peter's direct order - his letter to Menshikov of 5 November 1708: "and Baturyn, as a mark against the traitors (for they resisted), burn entire, as an example to others"^[5].

A punitive expedition against the Sich to physically annihilate the Lower Dnipro Cossacks: "Three infantry regiments led by Colonel P. Yakovlev were sent there. Keleberda was the first to be taken and burned on April 16. A stubborn battle was fought for Perevolochna"^[3]. The assault on the Sich itself lasted four days. The punitive force was guided by mercenary colonel Hnat Galagan: in "1709 he took part in the destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich, for which he received four villages on the Right Bank"^[6].

The government of the Russian Empire purposefully organized military actions to punish the defiant Indigenous population: historian Sh. B. Akhmadov points out that on August 4, 1722, by decree of Peter I, "a punitive expedition was carried out for a second time against the rebellious Chechens and Andreevtsy"^[7].

The Government of the Russian Empire organized an armed raid to physically punish the insurgent Indigenous population: historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov points out that General Douglas «halted the movement of the main forces and sent toward Chechen-Aul a detachment of dragoons under Colonel Koch, totaling 300 soldiers and 200 Cossacks»^[2].

The Russian Empire dispatched troops to the lands of the Nokhchi to compel submission. The plan of the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, General Gudovich, was to strike the unprotected: to catch the inhabitants before "their livestock and families… are sheltered in the mountains," for "then… their punishment and complete success in the matter would be surer and more convenient." When the commander of the Caucasus Line, General Bulgakov, delayed by an expedition in Dagestan, gave the inhabitants time to fortify the Khankala Gorge and took it by a bloody storm, General Gudovich, in a directive of March 20, 1807, refused to take this "on his own account" and stressed that he had not sent him to wage war: "you were sent not to wage war with the Chechen peoples, but to punish them and bring them into complete submission." The commander of the Caucasus Line, General Bulgakov, considered the outcome of the campaign to be that the Chechens had by force of arms been "brought to such a state that they will long feel the blow dealt to them and, certainly, will not soon regain strength"^[8].

The use of regular troops to brutally suppress the unrest of the deceived population: the 1817 uprising of the Buh Cossacks against being turned into military settlers was crushed by four regiments - over 10,000 soldiers with artillery; the rebels were cut down with sabres, drowned in the Southern Buh, and flogged with whips^[9].

The Russian Empire carried out punitive raids beyond the Terek in order to force the Nokhchi into submission. The imperial historian Potto writes that Colonel Eristov «crossed the Terek a second time and, after a stubborn battle, destroyed several villages along the Sunzha»^[10]. The punitive, rather than defensive, character of these raids was acknowledged by the imperial leadership itself. Commander-in-chief General Rtishchev condemned «such expeditions» and demanded that the mountaineers be won over «not by arms, but by kind treatment»^[10]. Emperor Alexander I, upon learning «of yet another raid on peaceful Chechnya by Colonel Eristov», ordered by a special rescript «to establish tranquility on the Caucasian Line through friendliness and gentle indulgence»^[11].

Solzha (Sunzhenskaya) the Russian Empire took by storm and ravaged as punishment for the village’s refusal to hand over a fellow villager who had shot at a soldier who was taking his ox. Historian D. A. Khozhayev records the ravaging of Solzha (Sunzhenskaya)^[11]. Imperial general Yermolov testifies in his "Notes" that a villager shot at a soldier "when they would not give him back an ox from a state wagon, which he called his own," and the attempt to seize the shooter failed — the officer whose "horse was seized by the bridle" was nearly killed, and the detachment retreated; to the demand to hand over the shooter the villagers replied "that they would not surrender the man who shot at the soldier and would defend themselves if the troops came," after which the chief of the corps staff "went himself with several companies… but was met with gunfire," while "the wives and children and the best property had already been sent away; only men remained to defend the houses"; during the storming the troops were ordered to cut off the withdrawal — "to intercept the retreat in the forest" — but the defenders had withdrawn earlier^[12].

The Russian Empire sent troops to ravage Nokhchi villages as punishment for insubordination. Historian D. A. Khozhayev writes that general Yermolov ordered Major General Sysoyev and Colonel Bekovich-Cherkassky to "surround the peaceful village of Dadi-Yurt" and to "punish it by force of arms, giving quarter to no one"^[11]. Yermolov confirms his order in his "Notes": to surround the aul, offer the inhabitants the chance to leave, "and should they resist, to punish them by force of arms, giving quarter to no one"^[12]. On the fifteenth of September 1819 the aul was surrounded by six Kabardian companies and seven sotnias of Cossacks and taken by storm^[13].

The Russian Empire sent troops to lay waste to Nokhchi villages and drive their inhabitants off the land. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that under Yermolov "cruel punitive raids on peaceful Caucasian auls, disgracing Russian arms, with the destruction of the population, houses, crops, orchards, and forests, the driving off of livestock, and the plundering of property, became the rule"^[11]. General Yermolov writes in his "Notes" that on September 30, 1819, he "went in person with 6 battalions and 16 artillery pieces toward the Kachkalyk villages" and on October 2 attacked "the village of Goryachevskaya, the strongest of them," while Major General Sysoyev simultaneously invaded from the direction of Groznaya through Khan-Kale, drawing the Chechens’ forces away from the Kachkalyk plain^[12]. The imperial historian Potto confirms that the Apsheron men "burst into the aul and consigned it to the flames"^[13].

The Russian Empire sent troops on a punitive campaign to ravage Nokhchi villages and cut military roads through their lands. The imperial historian Potto writes that in the spring of 1820 Grekov, commander of the left flank, moved on the aul of Germenchuk "with a musket in one hand and an axe in the other," and on the night of March 6, 1820, covertly moved a detachment across the Sunzha, falling suddenly upon the aul of Topli^[13]. General Yermolov himself, in an order to Grekov of March 15, 1820, sanctioned the design: "only the squeezing of the Chechens in their essential needs can make plain to them the advantage of submission, and I have long since authorized you to employ every possible means to that end"^[14].

The Russian Empire sent troops on punitive campaigns to punish the Nokhchi for resistance and drive them off the plain. Historian D. A. Khozhaev cites the report of Grekov, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, who stated the campaigns’ purpose plainly: to drive the Chechens into the forests, where "only snow and cold weather were lacking for the Chechen people… to feel the necessity of submitting," and notes that Grekov’s expedition "destroyed… two auls — Shali and Malaya Ataga, whose inhabitants had taken a more active part in the unrest"^[11]. The imperial historian Potto confirms: on March 1, 1821, the troops "surrounded the village of Oisungur… and, to punish the inhabitants who had fled before their arrival, destroyed it completely," and in February 1822 Grekov "burned the villages of Shali and Malye Atagi"^[13].

On the night of January 10, 1827, General Laptev, commander of the left flank of the Caucasus Line, led a detachment of 350 Line Cossacks with two horse guns and four hundred Chechens of subordinated communities compelled to take part against the village of Uzeni-Yurt - a refuge for the inhabitants of villages ravaged by troops in Yermolov's punitive campaign of 1826 - in order to destroy it as punishment for raids on the Line and in the absence of the Karabulak leader Astemir. The imperial historian Potto wrote: «Laptev decided to take advantage of that moment to strike a blow in Astemir's absence... and, quickly assembling a detachment, on the night of the tenth of January led it against Uzdeni-Yurt. By dawn the troops already stood before the aul»^[15].

The Russian Empire sent troops to ravage the lowland villages of the Nokhchi, choosing the moment most vulnerable for the inhabitants to strike. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that «in January 1826, having waited for a period inconvenient for the inhabitants of Chechnya, when the frosts made it difficult to shelter families, Yermolov launches a large punitive campaign into Chechnya», occupying the aul of Bolshaya Ataga on January 26^[11]. General Yermolov himself, in a report to Emperor Nicholas I dated May 28, 1826, reported that the troops were methodically cutting roads and occupying villages: on April 12 «the village of Kurchali was occupied without a shot», on the 16th «the troops moved to the village of Gekhi», and on the 24th he «moved to the village of Malaya Roshni, which was found empty»^[14].

The use of the regular army to suppress the peasants' anti-serfdom uprising in Sloboda Ukraine (the Shebelynka uprising of 1829) – one in a series of revolts caused by the "servile condition" of the military settlements' inhabitants^[9].

Reprisals against the insurgents to preserve imperial control: "The tsarist government resorted to brutal repressions against the participants of the uprising, abolished the constitution of the Kingdom of Poland and, simultaneously, most attributes of the Polish lands' autonomy… introduced martial law (which lasted a quarter of a century)"^[16].

From December 18, 1830 to January 26, 1831, General Velyaminov conducted a sweeping march through lowland Chechnya as punishment of the people for supporting the resistance, systematically devastating villages from the Sunzha River to the Kachkalyk Ridge. The imperial historian Potto wrote of the method: Velyaminov "would usually mark out a point toward which he advanced unswervingly with his entire detachment, and then, upon reaching it, immediately set up camp and established a fortified wagenburg (a camp enclosed by wagons), from which the troops were dispatched in turn in small columns to exterminate the neighboring auls"^[15]. Potto acknowledges the outcome of the campaign: "the whole of lowland Chechnya, traversed through and through as far as the Kochalyk Ridge, was put to fire and sword by Velyaminov"^[15].

In the winter of 1831–1832, General Velyaminov, from his camp near the Groznaya fortress, dispatched troops against Chechen settlements in revenge for their support of the uprising: on December 23, 1831, Lieutenant Colonel Zass, commander of the Mozdok Cossack Regiment, devastated the hamlets on the right side of the Sunzha opposite the village of Chertugai, and in February 1832 Velyaminov "undertook an expedition to punish the Chechen villages lying up the Sunzha from the Groznaya fortress" — this is acknowledged by the imperial survey of military operations^[17]. The imperial historian Volkonsky wrote of the purpose of the raids: "to harass the enemy and divert his attention from our borders"^[18]. The historian Ya. Z. Akhmadov recorded: "Another large expedition was directed against the Chechen auls situated along the banks of the Sunzha"^[19].

From August 22 to the end of September 1832, corps commander Rosen conducted a campaign through Chechnya and Ichkeria (the mountainous southeastern part of the Chechen land) in retribution against the people for the uprising, applying a uniform scheme: a village that failed to meet the conditions was exterminated. Rosen acknowledged the scheme in a report to Minister of War Chernyshev: the villages, "being unable to agree among themselves on the release of our prisoners, have been punished by the destruction of dwellings and plowed fields"^[17]. Historian D. A. Khozhaev wrote: "In the summer and autumn of 1832, the troops of General Rosen swept through Chechnya, leaving death and destruction in their wake"^[11].

In 1835–1836, Colonel Pullo, chief of the Sunzha fortified line, conducted systematic expeditions against Chechen villages that supported Imam Tashu-Hajji. The imperial review of military operations acknowledges: Tashu-Hajji’s attempts "were preempted in good time by the expeditions of the chief of the Sunzha line, Col. Pullo, which inflicted utter ruin on the residents"^[17]. On August 23, 1836, Pullo led a detachment by a covert night march to the aul of Zandak on the Yaman-su River. Corps commander Rosen reported to the Minister of War on the objective: "in order to shake the influence of Tashev-Hajji and to quell the unrest among the Chechens and instill fear in them, I resolved to undertake movements to punish the residents of the village of Zandak"^[17].

The amanat-and-tribute system of Pullo, commander of the left flank of the Caucasus Line (a chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), rested on punitive sorties of the troops against the seized auls of Chechnya. Pullo described the practice in a memorandum of 1840: "I would appear unexpectedly before the astonished population of the most remote auls and, according to the degree of the village's guilt, either annihilated it or contented myself with imposing a fine, taking amanats and arresting the most guilty persons" (a fine here is a monetary penalty; amanats - hostages whom the empire took away from the auls; the "annihilation" of a village in the imperial lexicon means the destruction of its buildings and property, not of its inhabitants); auls suspected of ties with the resistance "were immediately punished with fines, with the arrest of ill-intentioned people, and in extreme cases even with the annihilation of auls"^[20]. Punishment is the administrative routine of the system: the destruction of a village stands in one row with fines and arrests as a grade of punishment.

In late December 1836, Colonel Pullo carried out a punitive raid on the Chechen village of Kishkeroy-Yurt (Keshkeroy) beyond the Gudermes river, to punish its inhabitants for harboring Tashu-Hadji, the leader of the Chechen resistance. In April 1836, Nicholas I had demanded that action against Tashu-Hadji be undertaken "not otherwise than with complete confidence of success"^[17], and on 10 December 1836 Rozen reported to the Minister of War Chernyshev that he "had authorized Col. Pullo to act at once against the unsubmissive Chechen villages"^[17]. Over the four days of the raid, the village was exterminated together with 76 inhabitants and defenders, and 40 people were led away into captivity^[20].

On 23-29 January 1837, a detachment under General Feze - 4 battalions of the Kurinsky and 2 of the Apsheronsky regiments, 257 Cossacks, 3249 men in all with 12 guns - marched out of the Groznaya fortress into Lesser Chechnya. Rozen, in a report to Minister of War Chernyshev of 11 February 1837, named the purpose plainly: "to punish the Chechens of the western part of Chechnya who have evaded obedience"^[17]. The campaign continued the winter punitive operations after the December extermination of Kishkeroy-Yurt (campaign C1158): within a week, according to the expedition journal appended to the same report, Shalazh-yurt and the dwellings on both banks of the Shalazha were destroyed, more than a thousand saklias (saklia - a highlander's house) were burned, and 92 captives were taken^[17].

In February-April 1837, continuing the January annihilation of Lesser Chechnya (campaign C1160), the command of the Russian Caucasus Corps conducted a series of expeditions under General Feze across eastern and central Chechnya: the February movement through Shali, Germenchuk and the Michik, the March march up the Dzhalka, and the April night raid on the Gertli settlement. Rozen set out the sanction in a dispatch to Minister of War Chernyshev: a campaign "beyond the Argun" - "for diminishing the Chechens' trust in the instigators and turning them away from the intention of joining Shamil" (Shamil - imam, leader of the Dagestani and Chechen highlanders' resistance to the Russian conquest)^[17]. The Gertli raid was declared a punishment in Rozen's report to Chernyshev of 30 May 1837: "for the devastation or final annihilation of this brigand party... and for the punishment of its inhabitants"^[17].

In 1839-1840 punitive marches of imperial troops swept across Chechnya in waves. In May 1839 general Grabbe, commander of the troops of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), invaded Ichkeria (mountainous south-eastern Chechnya); he named the goal himself in a report to Minister of War Chernyshev of 10 May 1839: "to punish both this village [Benoy] and all other unsubmissive villages"^[20]. The imperial officer Milyutin, a participant of the invasion, admitted the outcome: "The burning of several Aukh and Ichkerian villages only embittered the nearest highlanders still more, and the very end of our raid nonetheless looked as if they had driven out uninvited guests"^[21]. In winter the troops of general Pullo, who commanded the left flank of the Caucasus Line, twice marched through the auls that had submitted: on 18-30 December 1839 - 28 auls of Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya), from 26 January 1840 - the auls along the Michik river; historian Sh. A. Gapurov writes of these marches: "He exacted tribute from the destitute people wholesale, disarmed them, demanded the surrender of captives, forced them to fell timber"^[22]. After the uprising the punitive actions continued: in late April 1840 the troops marched into Aukh (the Chechen region in the north-east) - the imperial historian Yurov recorded: "Having destroyed the orchards and given the saklias to the flames..." (saklia - a highlander's house)^[23]; on 6-14 July the detachment of general Galafeyev, who had taken over the troops of the left flank after Pullo, marched across Lesser Chechnya - historian N. I. Pokrovsky: "From 6 to 14 July general Galafeyev passed through Lesser Chechnya with fire and sword"^[24]; historian D. A. Khozhayev cites the imperial goal: to "punish exemplarily" the Chechens "who had joined Shamil" (Shamil - the imam, leader of the resistance of the highlanders of Dagestan and Chechnya to the Russian conquest)^[11]. The autumn marches were sanctioned by general Golovin, commander of the Separate Caucasus Corps, in an instruction to general Grabbe of 17 August 1840 "to employ the troops... for the strict punishment of the mutinous Chechens"^[20]; Nicholas I approved the plan through Minister of War Chernyshev on 10 September 1840^[25]. Galafeyev's detachment passed through Greater Chechnya (the lowland eastern part of Chechnya) from 26 September to 18 October; Grabbe's detachments - through Lesser Chechnya from 27 October to 5 November and through Greater Chechnya from 10 to 18 November^[24]. Historian N. I. Pokrovsky conveys the calculation of the last expedition from Grabbe's dispatches: "He counted on the stunning impression of this expedition"^[24].

In 1841-1846 punitive marches of imperial troops against Chechnya went on yearly. In June 1841 general Grabbe, commander of the troops of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), entered Aukh (the Chechen region in the north-east): historian N. I. Pokrovsky writes - "on 6 June he occupied Yaryksu, on the 7th - Kishen, which was being devastated for three days"^[24]. At the end of September 1841 the detachments of Grabbe and lieutenant colonel Nesterov passed through the upper reaches of the Assa river - a march which, according to Pokrovsky, "was accompanied by annihilations of auls"^[24]; from 15 to 30 October Grabbe's expedition passed through Greater and Lesser Chechnya (the lowland eastern and western parts of Chechnya). Pokrovsky states the goal of these marches: "to intimidate the Chechens by expeditions"^[24]. In spring 1844 raids were ordered by general Neidhardt, head of the empire's troops in the Caucasus: to gather troops in the Groznaya fortress "for the conduct of brief and sudden raids into the nearest auls of Greater Chechnya" and to act "not only for menacing, but also for the punishment of unsubmissive auls" (instruction to the commander of the Nazran detachment of 5 April 1844)^[20]. The sweeping of Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya) in December 1846 was carried out by a specially assigned column. The imperial officer Poltoratsky, a participant of the expedition, recorded the order of 14 December 1846: "for tomorrow... a column of three battalions [of the Jaeger Prince Vorontsov regiment], eight guns and a cavalry regiment under the command of colonel Meller-Zakomelsky was assigned to go and burn the enemy auls"^[26]. The task "to go and burn" auls was set by order as a routine assignment for the next day.

Short surprise strikes were the working mode of the troops in Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya) in 1847-1851. The detachment against the hamlet of naib Duba (a deputy of Imam Shamil, leader of the highlanders' resistance to the Russian conquest) set out "on 5 March, at 10 o'clock at night" and struck at dawn^[26]; the raid of 17 February 1850 took "two hours' time"^[27]; in June, September and November 1851 the auls were struck by the detachments of Generals Sleptsov, Baryatinsky and Kozlovsky^[27][24]. The frame of the practice was given by historian N. I. Pokrovsky: "separate short strikes aimed at terrifying the Chechens"^[24].

The period 1852-1856 passed in series of punitive sorties across Greater Chechnya (the lowland eastern part of Chechnya) and its fringes. On 4 January 1852 the detachment of Baryatinsky, who commanded the left flank of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), assembled in the Vozdvizhenskaya fortress: imperial historian Volkonsky, a participant in the march, counts "over ten thousand bayonets, about one and a half thousand cavalry, 24 guns," and conveys the task thus - "to smash the enemy hordes, destroy all means of subsistence of the inhabitants and the enemy, and then act according to circumstances"^[28]. Farther east the sorties continued until 1856: General Baklanov recorded in his memoirs a "hard fight at the annihilation of the auls Dengi-Yurt and Ali-Yurt" on 25 February 1853^[29]. The award mechanics of the marches was exposed from inside by imperial officer Poltoratsky: the soldiers of the Kabardinsky regiment took the trenches abandoned by the Chechens on the Michik without losses, and they "were sent the same day to take the auls Gurdaloy and Asa-Yurt, where they managed to lose several killed and wounded, which was necessary, since the storming of the trenches had cost them not a single scratch"^[26] - the auls were attacked for the sake of losses for an award recommendation.

The armed suppression of the peasants' anti-serfdom movement (the "Kyiv Cossack movement"): "To suppress the 'Cossack movement' the government threw in regular troops and police. Bloody clashes occurred in several villages and towns"^[30].

Historian N. I. Pokrovsky writes: "Throughout January 1857 the Chechen and Kumyk detachments are cutting clearings", and "On 10 November a new expedition into Aukh began. The Aukhovites could not hold out and surrendered, 'brought submission'"^[24]. In 1858 General Yevdokimov's troops entered the Argun gorge: "The tsarist troops are advancing along the Argun valley. In January the Chechen detachment occupied the exit from the Argun gorge onto the plain... only in July 1858 did Yevdokimov move further... on 4 July he crossed Mesken-Duk and penetrated into the Shatoy society"^[24]. The course of the summer expedition can be seen from the journal of General Yevdokimov himself, submitted to Minister of War Sukhozanet with a report of 11 August 1858, No. 237: on 4 August imam Shamil approached the Argun "with all his cavalry from the Nazran expedition" and took position with two guns beyond the Verdy-akhk ravine; "having satisfied himself of our intention to remain on the right bank of the Chanty-Argun, he ordered the camp to be struck", after which the imperial "2 light guns and 2 half-pud mortars opened, at my order, fire on the highlanders". That same day Yevdokimov "inspected the site on which the main fortification was to be erected, and at once ordered that its laying-out begin"^[31]. In February 1859 the troops approached Vedeno, the capital of the Imamate and residence of imam Shamil (leader of the resistance of the highlanders of Dagestan and Chechnya to the Russian conquest) - the fortress fell on 1 April 1859^[24].

In early June 1860, troops, Cossacks, and militia were sent into Benoy, where the deported families had returned without permission, led by Baysangur of Benoy, head of that society under Imam Shamil (the leader of the highlanders’ resistance to the Russian conquest)^[19]. On 28 September 1860 the troops took Benoy by storm: the historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write - "the desperate resistance... was quickly suppressed by artillery fire"; the historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova dates the taking of the aul to 26 September and adds: "The retaliatory repressions were directed at the entire population of the insurgent districts"^[19][32]. In December 1860 - January 1861 General Kundukhov's operation swept through Ichkeria - ten infantry battalions, four hundred Cossacks, and seven hundred Chechen militia: "'flying' detachments were widely used to pursue the insurgents, while the main mass of the troops was engaged in 'combing' the terrain"^[19]. From spring until late autumn 1861, according to the historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova, "on the territory of Chechnya, from the Assa river to the aul of Gekhi, a military-punitive expedition operated... evicting the Chechens by force of arms into the foothills and onto the plain"^[32]. In autumn 1861 three detachments forced the last leaders of the uprising to surrender - an imperial report of 22 December 1861 sums it up: "The persistent actions of our troops in the severe winter of last year... compelled the Ichkerians to declare unconditional submission"^[31].

The use of the regular army to suppress the January Uprising: Muravyov and Berg, appointed by the emperor, "resorted to brutal repressions and terror with the aim of suppressing the uprising"; "hundreds of Poles were executed, thousands exiled to Siberia or given over to the army"^[16].

In May 1877 the detachment of Colonel Batyanov suppressed the uprising in borderland Salatavia: historian A. I. Ismailova writes - "The suppression of the uprising, which went on through the entire second half of May, was carried out with extreme cruelty. The auls of Almak, Dylym and Burtunay with their hamlets were destroyed"^[33]. On 12 July 1877, "significant detachments of troops were moved against the Bass auls. But the inhabitants, with their families and all their movable property, hid in the forests. The punitive expedition destroyed the auls, and the crops it ravaged and trampled down"^[33]. On 16 July Colonel Nakashidze entered Cheberloy in two columns: historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write - he "destroyed 5 villages, including the auls of Makazhoy and Sadoy, arrested up to a thousand people and seized a large number of livestock"^[19]. On 14 August the troops took the aul of Dyshni-Vedeno at the walls of the Vedeno fortress - the insurgents, according to historian A. I. Ismailova, defended every saklia (a highlander's house) "despite the murderous artillery fire"^[33].

At the end of 1906 a punitive detachment of the Russian Empire, with artillery and Cossacks, was restoring imperial power in the Vedeno okrug: "the villages of Nizhaloy, Nokhch-Keloy, Khoy and Makazhoy, whose residents stubbornly refused to submit, were subjected to artillery bombardment"; it was noted that as a result of the punitive expedition "...the greater part of the population of the Vedeno okrug, seized by panic, fled to the mountains, where it suffers hunger and cold"; several hundred people were arrested, most of them convicted and exiled^[19]. In August 1908 the village of Tsatsan-Yurt was subjected to an "execution" with mass searches^[19].

The resistance of the villages of captured Ukraine tied down troops for the whole of 1919. On 18 April 1919 Antonov-Ovseenko, commander of the RSFSR's Ukrainian Front, reported to Vatsetis, commander-in-chief of the RSFSR armed forces, that he would give no troops for the Southern Front: "Right now there is hard fighting at Shepetivka and Tiraspol and a hard struggle with kulak uprisings everywhere." Vatsetis wrote on the report: "Carry out the order and report back"^[34]. Two weeks later, on 3 May 1919, Antonov-Ovseenko repeated his refusal and named the scale: "30 versts from Kyiv there is a kulak uprising, up to three thousand well-armed men with 8 guns." Vatsetis answered as before: "I repeat that the order must be carried out"^[35].

For the command, the Ukrainian peasants who had risen against the seizures were not an adversary but a hindrance to supplying the front: it regarded the Ukrainian village as a rear area to be kept in order while the main forces carried out Moscow's tasks.

Naval artillery was turned on the risen villages too: on 2-5 May 1919 the armed steamers of the Dnipro river flotilla shelled Chornobyl, Pliuty and Trypillia, held by the insurgents - the vessels "Arnold," "Verny" and "Admiral" are named in the operational summary one by one^[36].

On 25 May 1919, summing up for the armies of the front the fighting against the Ukrainian units of commander Hryhoriv, who had risen against the Soviet authority, Antonov-Ovseenko laid down the order of the mopping-up: those who surrendered were to be handed to the military tribunals of the Soviet authority, "ringleaders and chiefs" singled out separately, and the villages in the armies' areas of operation disarmed with the taking of hostages; the order was signed with him by commissar Savitsky and chief of staff Babin^[37].

At the end of February 1919 four regiments of the Volunteer Army - the division of General Shatilov - attacked the village of Goity with artillery, for its refusal to hand over the Red Army men sheltering there; detachments from the surrounding villages came to its aid, and the Denikinites retreated toward Grozny^[19]. On 23 March the army struck from Grozny at Gudermes^[19]. From 27 to 30 March battles raged for Alkhan-Yurt: "The shelling of the village was conducted by 24 guns and an armored train that had taken position near the Ermolovskaya stanitsa... the village was captured"; more than 400 of its defenders died^[19]. For failure to fulfill the demand to return captured Cossacks the army stormed Tsatsan-Yurt - historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "On 9 April 1919 the White troops attacked and by nightfall captured the village of Tsatsan-Yurt. In the course of the fierce battle more than 500 people died on the Chechen side, including over 400 Tsatsan-Yurt villagers proper"^[19]. In October the command threw against Chechnya a force of 15 thousand soldiers and officers taken off the advance on Moscow: "On 5 October stubborn three-day battles began for Chechen-Aul, after which the villages situated near the railway were subjected to a new devastation"^[19].

Through the resisting villages the troops moved in raids with house-to-house searches and arrests. The instruction on mass searches, issued for the operation by the staff of the OGPU (the political police, a predecessor of today's FSB), ordered houses to be cordoned off and everyone found in them to be detained and searched, and speaks of arrests in points 7 and 8: "All who counteract in one measure or another the successful conduct of the mass operation are brought to account and arrested", "Malicious concealers of weapons are arrested"; of what was taken during a search the same document says: "During searches and arrests only all correspondence is taken, including correspondence in the Arabic language, as well as all weapons found during the search"^[38]. The information department of the OGPU, in its "Survey of the Political Condition of the USSR for September 1925" stamped "Top Secret", summed up the operation with the words "On our side losses are 20 men"^[39], and reported nothing about the killed and wounded in the shelled and bombed auls. The count of losses for the operation as a whole is given by historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov from a journal publication of 1995: six killed civilians, 30 wounded, a further 12 killed assigned to the "bandits", with the troops' own losses at five killed and nine wounded^[19].

The Nokhchi rose in arms three times against the forced merging of households into kolkhozes ("collectivization"), and all three times the USSR sent troops against the auls. In December 1929 Shali, Goity and Benoy revolted. The Chechen historian A. G. Avtorkhanov, who worked in Chechnya in those years and later wrote about it in emigration, names the leaders of the uprising: in Shali it was headed by Shita Istamulov, in Goity - by Akhmat-Mullah and Kuriev, in Benoy - by Yaroch and Khodzhas. Shita Istamulov explained why he was taking up arms: "we cannot look on while the Chechens' grain is taken away, while they are ruined and their last property is taken. Fines, searches - if the authorities keep all this up, they will force me to come out with weapon in hand... If we keep looking on at this, they will take everything, down to your last trousers, and kill you naked. Better to die, at least you will know you will be buried in trousers"^[40]. Avtorkhanov writes of the first days of the uprising: "The insurgents occupied all the village and district institutions, burned the state archives, arrested the district authorities, including the chiefs of the GPU [the political police, a predecessor of today's FSB], in Benoy they also seized the oil fields, and established a provisional people's power"^[41]. The insurgents sent their demands to Moscow. As the first point they demanded "Stop the unlawful confiscation of peasant property", as the second - "End the trial-less arrests of peasants", as the third - "Recall the heads of the GPU from Chechnya, replacing them with a civil administration"; by two more points - to abolish the "people's" courts introduced by the Soviet power, with the return of sharia justice, and to restore the powers of the Chechen Congress. They agreed to lay down arms if these conditions were met^[40]. The first attempts of the Soviet troops to seize the auls failed - Shali and Goity fought them off; the staff of the North Caucasus Military District admitted in its memorandum on the first operation of 30 March 1930 that "the successful armed resistance to the local authorities in the auls of Shali and Goity during the seizure of inventoried property served as the final push" toward calling in field units^[42]. The OGPU recorded in its survey of the political condition of the USSR for December 1929: on 7 December "two teips [clans] of the aul of Goity, led by the son of Sheikh Khadzhiev, shut themselves in their quarters, posting an armed guard", and "on 8 December in the village of Shali, over the inventorying of the property of kulaks [peasants declared well-off], the militia was disarmed"; the OGPU calls Shita Istamulov "the former Minister of War of the government of Uzun-Haji" [the North Caucasus emirate of 1919-1920]; the arrest count in the same survey: "220 people arrested in Shali and 144 in Goity. The leaders of the Shali and Goity outbreaks Istamulov, Khadzhiev and Kuriev have gone into hiding"^[43]. The Russian command moved against the peasants, disarmed four years earlier, a detachment formed in Grozny. At its head stood Burichenko, former head of the Vladikavkaz infantry school. After the first failures the command reinforced the detachment with battalions, an artillery divizion and a "detachment of airplanes". On 11 December the troops seized Shali, on the morning of 12 December - Goity, and from 20 to 27 December they attacked the mountain auls of Benoy, Tsentoroy and Zandak. The staff memorandum states: "in the operation as a whole there took part, together with the units of the VOGPU [OGPU troops], 1,904 fighters with 75 heavy and light machine guns"; artillery pieces and seven airplanes are named there as well; the outcome, in the same document: "Over the operation 450 bandits were seized. Up to 60 people killed and wounded"; the troops' losses - 43 men, of them 21 killed or dead of wounds^[42]. On the end of the uprising the sources diverge: in the staff memorandum the seizure of Shali and Goity is dated 11 and 12 December 1929, while the historians place the fall of both centers in mid-January 1930; of the leaders' fate some sources write that they escaped, others - that the insurgent staff in Goity perished^[41]. In the spring of 1930 the mountain okrugs rose again, and the Soviet troops again marched on the auls, now in greater force. The occupation command of the district admitted the scale of the outbreak in its report to the krai committee of the party (the "kraikom VKP(b)"): "In Chechnya, as in Karachay, we had not isolated bandit counter-revolutionary outbreaks, but a direct uprising of entire districts (Galanchozh), in which almost the whole population took part in the armed action"^[42]. By the district staff's memorandum on the second operation in Chechnya, by 14 March rifle battalions with batteries, cavalry divizions and an aviation flight had been massed into Chechnya: "in all, 3,920 fighters with 16 [artillery] pieces were drawn into the operation"^[42]. By the final report of Belov, commander of the occupation troops of the district, to the krai committee of the party, 1,500 units of weapons were seized across Chechnya, 122 people arrested, 19 insurgents killed^[42]. Avtorkhanov describes the end of the march on Benoy: "At the end of March 1930 Belov, having received fresh units from Transcaucasia, unfolded a large mountain offensive with the task of taking the insurgents' last point - Benoy. After two months of heavy fighting and great losses, in April 1930, Belov entered Benoy, but found not a single inhabitant in the aul: all of them, including women and children, had evacuated further into the mountain wilds. The victor Belov sent envoys to the insurgents with an offer of honorable peace: to all who voluntarily returned to the aul with the surrender of weapons, an amnesty was declared. The insurgents replied that they would return to their auls only when Belov left with his troops"^[41]. In March 1932 the Nozhay-Yurt district revolted; the uprising was led by Mutsu Shamilev (the Nokhchi know him as Motsu of Shuani), Ibragim Ninakhadzhiev, Usman Ushkhaev, Khusein Istamulov and Dada Kebetov; on 20 March, 300-400 insurgents attacked the oil extraction site on Mount Sterch-Kertch, another 700-800 dug in on the mountain ridge, covering the uprising's district from the direction of Khasav-Yurt, a town in neighboring Dagestan^[19]. Kashirin, commander of the occupation troops of the district, in a memorandum of 31 March 1932 reported to the Minister of War of the USSR Voroshilov: "The band is headed by a certain 'imam' Mutsu from the aul of Shuani"^[42]. For nine days the district remained in the insurgents' hands. Units of the 28th Mountain Rifle Division and the national cavalry regiment approached the district on 26-27 March, fighting began at midday on 28 March, and by 29 March the Soviet troops had seized the district. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "the number of killed reached 333, of wounded - 150. The units of the Red Army and the operational groups of the GPU lost in all 27 men killed and 30 wounded"^[19].

In September 1941 the USSR created special departments for the struggle against "banditry" within the local NKVD organs (a predecessor of today's FSB), including in Chechnya, and permanent operational groups in the Shatoy, Galanchozh and Itum-Kale districts, whose task the historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov render in the words "to quickly suppress any manifestations of banditry"^[19]. The first came the military operation of 30 October - 15 November 1941 across the districts of the declared "uprising": according to the report of the 141st Regiment of the NKVD Internal Troops (predecessors of today's Rosgvardia), 36 people recorded as "bandits" were killed and 251 detained - "insurgents — 127, bandits — 7, bandit-insurgents — 13, deserters — 104"^[42]. On 5 December 1941, in the village of Gikhi in the Urus-Martan district, the regiment in a two-hour battle destroyed a group of ten people that the report calls the "cadre band" of Kaidov Azak: three were killed, seven detained^[42]. In the same December, to support the operational groups, the USSR formed the 178th Motorized Rifle Battalion in Chechnya, expanded the following year into the 141st Regiment of NKVD troops (in the commander's report the regiment is called a rifle regiment, by the historians - a mountain-rifle one)^[19]. The regiment's count for 1941, from 25 October to 1 January 1942: 59 people killed, 390 detained^[42].

Regular chekist-military operations by the NKVD and MGB to sweep western Ukrainian villages: the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR T. Strokach personally "directed and coordinated operational-chekist operations to liquidate the underground of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and mass deportations of the population in Western Ukraine"^[44]. Already "on April 5, 1944, on the basis of a directive of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR, a scheme of arrests and deportation of OUN–UPA members was worked out"^[45].

Use of regular troops and tanks to suppress revolts of Ukrainian political prisoners in the concentration camp system. In Kengir, tanks crushed the unarmed: "About 200 Ukrainian women joined hands and marched against the tanks. But the tanks did not stop and one by one overcame the living phalanx. And the MVD men rushed to the barracks, shooting everyone they encountered"^[46].