Aggressors may artificially create conditions of mass famine through the forcible seizure of food, the destruction of agricultural infrastructure, and the blocking of escape routes. This form of indiscriminate terror physically exterminates the population, suppressing ongoing revolts, while simultaneously clearing the demographic landscape of the colonized territories.
On January 10, 1827, during the razing of the village of Uzeni-Yurt, the troops of General Laptev, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, destroyed the inhabitants' livestock — the basis of a peasant household's sustenance. The imperial historian Potto recorded: the village, "with all its property and even its livestock, was destroyed to the ground"[1]. In the summer of 1827, the Cossacks of General Engelhardt, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, after seizing the population of Samashki, destroyed the standing crops of the Galgai who lived near the aul at mills and farmsteads. Potto wrote: "beforehand they ordered that they be shown the fields belonging to those Galgai who lived at the mills, and burned their grain where it stood"[1]. The destruction of livestock in winter and of ripened grain at harvest time deprived people of sustenance for a year ahead.
The Russian Empire condemned the Nokhchi inhabitants to famine by ravaging their villages, crops, and stores. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that after Yermolov's campaign, deprived of shelter and food, «people were dying of hunger, cold, and disease»[2].
In December 1830 – January 1831, General Velyaminov's troops deliberately destroyed the winter stores of food and fodder of the villages being devastated. The imperial historian Potto wrote: during the burning of Edin-Yurt and Daut-Yurt, the troops "destroyed enormous stores of harvested hay"[1]; on January 17, 1831, Geldigen was put to the torch "with all its stores"[1]. The destruction of hay and grain stores in the depths of winter condemned the inhabitants, who had fled to the mountains and forests, to famine.
In August–September 1832, the troops of corps commander Rosen destroyed the crops and plowed fields of the villages being ravaged — the people’s food base on the eve of winter. Rosen acknowledged this in a report to Minister of War Chernyshev: the villages that had not submitted were "punished by the destruction of dwellings and plowed fields"[3]. The imperial historian Volkonsky wrote: on September 1, the residents of Avtury, for refusing to hand over prisoners, were "punished by the destruction of crops and dwellings"; on September 3, near Geldigen, the detachment "exterminated their plowed fields and houses"[4].
In the course of the extermination of Kishkeroy-Yurt, Pullo's detachment deliberately destroyed the winter stores: the village was burned "with a considerable stock of grain and hay," and the following day part of the detachment "was occupied with the destruction of the hay stored in the surrounding area"[5]. The destruction of grain and fodder stores in the depth of winter left the surviving inhabitants without means to survive it.
Completing the annihilation of Lesser Chechnya, Feze's troops destroyed the survivors' food as well: on 29 January 1837, according to the expedition journal appended to Rozen's report to Minister of War Chernyshev of 11 February 1837, "by noon the detachment completed the destruction of the dwellings and of the stores of grain and hay along the Martan gorge"[3]. The destruction of food and fodder in the middle of winter left the survivors without means to live through it.
Destroying the kutans (winter shelters for livestock) along the Dzhalka and near Shali in March 1837, Feze's troops deliberately burned food. Rozen's report to Minister of War Chernyshev of 12 April 1837 records: in the kutans they "burned a considerable quantity of the grain found in them"; near Shali the troops "seized the watchmen present at them and a multitude of food supplies"; and Birzul's column burned "several hundred chetverts of the grain found in them" (chetvert - an old grain measure of about 210 liters)[3]. Burning hundreds of chetverts of grain at the end of winter left the families who had fled to the forests and mountains without means to survive until the harvest.
In spring 1840 the empire imposed a grain blockade on Chechnya amid famine that was already documented. On 14 March 1840 general Piryatinsky, commander of the centre of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), reported: "throughout Chechnya there is no grain at all, the people suffer great extremity from famine"[5]. Three weeks later, on 8 April 1840, general Grabbe, commander of the troops of the Caucasus Line, by an instruction to general Galafeyev sanctioned the ban the latter had introduced: "Your directive concerning the prohibition of the sale of grain I fully approve, and I permit you to extend this prohibition to all those parts of the region entrusted to you where you deem it necessary"[5]. In summer the troops destroyed the harvest where it stood: the journal of military operations of general Galafeyev's detachment (6-17 July 1840) names the goal outright - "the punishment of the mutinous villages by annihilating them and destroying their means of existence, for now a certain shortage in the inhabitants' food supply can be foreseen"[6]. In autumn the stores were annihilated just before winter: the imperial survey of 27 October 1840 records that the troops marched, "having annihilated on their way a very considerable quantity of stores of food and hay"[5]. General Golovin, commander of the Separate Caucasus Corps (head of the empire's troops and administration in the Caucasus), admitted the calculation in a memorandum of 26 April 1841: "In vain did we expect that after the annihilation, in last year's expedition, of the highlanders' food stores, their villages and various property, famine, cold and extreme destitution would shake the fierce power of the instigator" ("instigator" - the empire's label for Shamil, leader of the highlanders' resistance)[7].
Famine was the planned aim of the policy of 1852-1857 - the empire wrote about it in orders and reports. On 29 July 1852, near the aul Belgatoy, the column, by the record of imperial historian Volkonsky, "finding there the same stores of hay as the day before, annihilated them to the last stalk"[8]. Baryatinsky, who commanded the left flank of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), in a letter to Vorontsov, viceroy in the Caucasus, of 16 August 1852, calculated the effect on the Dagestani cavalry of Imam Shamil, leader of the highlanders' resistance of Dagestan and Chechnya to the Russian conquest: "in the coming winter expedition Shamil can have almost no Tavlin cavalry in Chechnya, because there will be nothing to feed it with"[7]. The doctrine was sealed by Vorontsov in an official letter (otnosheniye) to Minister of War Chernyshev of 28 August 1852: the Chechens, deprived of crops and hay, "must - either resettle into our bounds, or go into the very depth of the mountains"[9]. General Olshevsky summed up the practice in his notes: "The destruction of grain crops... compelled the Chechens to submit to us sooner than any other measures, resettling into our bounds"[7]. The result was recorded by historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov: "in 1856-1857 a famine set in in Chechnya such as the Chechens had almost never known"[10].
Historian N. I. Pokrovsky writes of Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya): its inhabitants "as early as the beginning of the fifties had been driven by Russian troops into the mountain wilds and doomed to starvation" (campaign C1166)[7]. The clearings continued the same work: "The clearing of the Gekhi proseka gives Yevdokimov the opportunity to lay waste the fields of those of the Lesser Chechnya people who had not yet brought submission, hiding in the mountains"[7]. The choice the policy left open is formulated in the report of General Yevdokimov, who commanded the Chechen Detachment, of 25 March 1857: flight into the mountains - or coming out "to us onto the glades"[11]; famine in the mountains made the first path lethal.
Svistunov, head of the Terek oblast, wrote to Smekalov on 18 August 1877: "As for Benoy and Zandak, they must be deported to Siberia to a man, or, if these scoundrels refuse, all of them must be killed off in winter like cockroaches and destroyed by famine"[12]; the same directive of Svistunov is quoted by historian D. A. Khozhaev[2]. In the imperial publication of the correspondence (letter to Smekalov of 18 August 1877, No. 226) the formula reads: "to freeze them all out in winter, like cockroaches, and destroy them by famine"[13]. The food base was being destroyed from the very first days: on 13 April 1877, merely for letting the detachment of Alibek-Haji, leader of the uprising, pass through the village, "the hayfields and maize fields of the inhabitants [of Benoy] were completely burned by the tsarist troops"[14]. Colonel Batyanov, according to historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova, "widely applied the destruction of stores of grain and hay," believing that this made many "come to their senses"[14]. In Cheberloy the troops stood for about 20 days - "All this time they were ruining the fields of the Cheberloy villages. Their inhabitants meanwhile were in such a state as if the greatest of floods had struck them"[10].
Confiscation of absolutely all food, including the extraction of seed stocks, through the mechanism of crushing grain procurement quotas, which led to mass deadly famine[15].
The USSR, deporting the Chechens and Ingush from their native land, made no provision for food at the places of exile - and from famine and disease in exile almost a third of the deported died within four and a half years. The colonizer had taken the people's livestock and food back home: by the resolution of the State Defense Committee of the USSR of 31 January 1944 the people's commissariats (ministries) were obliged "to accept in the North Caucasus from the special settlers livestock and agricultural produce... issuing exchange receipts for what was accepted," while from the confiscated livestock 350 horses "fit for cavalry service" were handed over to the cavalry units of the Soviet militia[16]. Pchelkin, People's Commissar (Minister) of Internal Affairs of the Kirghiz SSR, reported to People's Commissar (Minister) of Internal Affairs of the USSR Beria on 22 April 1944: the food the exiles had brought with them "is running out," "the established ration is critically insufficient," the collective farms are "in no position to help for lack of it, as a result of which in some districts there are instances... of the eating of roots and grasses"[17]. Historian P. M. Polian writes: for lack of food, shelter and fodder the exiles in Kirghizia "had to slaughter up to 90%" of the livestock issued "in compensation for that left behind in their former places of residence," while the funds allocated to them were handed out by local bosses to others - in the Kazalinsk district "one ton of bread was issued to the local party activists," and in the collective farms of the Bazar-Kurgan district "food was issued only to able-bodied special settlers, while those unfit for work were deprived of rations"[17]. In exile the Chechens and Ingush died by the tens of thousands: by the end of 1944 the number of exiles ("special settlers" in the colonizer's terms) had fallen by about 11.5 thousand in Kirghizia and by more than 46 thousand in Kazakhstan[10]. In 1945, among the North Caucasus exiles, 44,652 children died - 2,230 were born; no fewer than 80 thousand people were starving[10]; in the winter of 1948-1949 in the Kazakh SSR (today's Kazakhstan) up to 118 thousand were starving, and 418 people died of hunger[10]. By October 1948 about 146.9 thousand North Caucasus exiles had died in exile; historians put the direct losses of the Chechens and Ingush at 145.7 thousand people, and together with the unborn - at 300 thousand; the people recovered its pre-war numbers only by 1959[10].