In the current Ukrainian War, a number of units have been founded from a nation that previously suffered oppression under the Russian boot. These units face off against their fellow countrymen, under the command of the Warlord Ramzan Kadyrov who is aligned with Putin. This battle of brother against brother dates back to the fall of the Soviet union, but its roots go back even further. This is the story of Chechnya and its fight for freedom.
The Chechen people have lived in the Caucasus region for millenia, forming independent polities in the 13th century, and fighting the Mongol hordes that flooded into central asia at that time. Most of Eurasia had fallen quickly to the Mongols, but for over a century the Chechens (then known as Nakhs with their Ingushian neighbors) waged a vicious insurgency against the Khans from mountain hideouts, and by the end of the 14th century the invaders had been driven out of Chechnya. As the Mongols retreated and were replaced by the growing power of Russia, the Chechens continued to hold out against foreign domination into the 16th century, with the majority converting to Islam throughout this period. Peter the Great in the 18th century was unable to suppress the Chechens secure in the highlands, and it wasn’t until 1859 that the Chechens, under a united Northern Caucasian Islamic Imamate, surrendered to the Russian Empire.
Having finally pacified the region, the Tsar set to work displacing the Caucasians from their homeland, shipping in non-chechens, especially loyal Cossacks from Ukraine and deporting many Chechens out of Russia. The Chechens rose up again in 1877 against their rulers but were quickly and ruthlessly crushed. They did not attempt any violent resistance through the rest of the century. World War I and its catastrophic effect on Russia was the next chance the Chechens had for independence, as the central government ceased to exist in 1917. The Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus was formed out of seven confederated states of the region, including Chechnya, and fought the White and Red armies during the Russian Civil War with help from the dying Ottoman Empire and the nascent Ukrainian People’s Republic but succumbing to the Bolsheviks in 1921. At first the Soviets allowed a puppet ethnic Mountain Republic to exist but soon the USSR fully annexed the region, creating the Chechen Autonomous Oblast in 1924. Ukrainian refugees flooded into Chechnya fleeing the Holodomor, Stalin’s genocide, and resentment grew among Chechens until in 1940, following the USSR’s failed aggressive war against Finland, Chechen militants decided the time for action was now. Hasan Israilov, the leader of the resistance said, quote:
“I have decided to become the leader of a war of liberation of my own people. I understand all too well that not only in Chechnya, but in all nations of the Caucasus it will be difficult to win freedom from the heavy yoke of Red imperialism. But our fervent belief in justice and our faith in the support of the freedom-loving peoples of the Caucasus and of the entire world inspire me toward this deed, in your eyes impertinent and pointless, but in my conviction, the sole correct historical step. The valiant Finns are now proving that the Great Enslaver Empire is powerless against a small but freedom-loving people. In the Caucasus you will find your second Finland, and after us will follow other oppressed peoples. For twenty years now, the Soviet authorities have been fighting my people, aiming to destroy them group by group: first the kulaks, then the mullahs and the ‘bandits’, then the bourgeois-nationalists. I am sure now that the real object of this war is the annihilation of our nation as a whole. That is why I have decided to assume the leadership of my people in their struggle for liberation.”
After the German invasion of the USSR the Chechens sought help for their cause, and Nazi germany sent them limited support, but a mutual distrust coupled with German support for caucasian based Cossacks killed any real alliance. Nevertheless, an enraged Stalin wanted revenge on the upstart Chechens, and he got it. In 1944 at least half a million Chechens plus related ethnic groups were deported to Central Asia at gunpoint, and hundreds of thousands died in transit. Those who survived the journey were welcomed with backbreaking labor at “special settlements”. After a decade of toil, the Khrushchev administration that followed after Stalin’s death abolished the slavery of the Chechens and over the next several years most of them had returned to their homeland. The non-Chechens who had moved into Chechen homes and occupied Chechen lands were met with deep resentment, and ethnic riots broke out between the two throughout the late 50s and early 60s. When these riots calmed down, Chechens gradually began to assimilate into Soviet life again, and an enterprising Chechen man named Dzhokhar Dudayev joined the Soviet Air Force in 1962, rising through the ranks as a bomber commander and ending his career as a Major-General when the USSR collapsed. Dudayev happened to be in an important position as an Estonia based garrison commander in 1990 when he declared he would not allow Soviet troops to be sent to crush the independence movement there. With his resignation from the Air Force he was convinced to come back home by the rising nationalist movement.
Dudayev, after his forces had kicked out any Soviet apparatchiks still in the country, declared the independence of Chechnya on November 1 1991. It was not until 1994 that the Russian government under Boris Yeltsin attempted to put Chechnya under heel, and their first war against them was a miserable failure, for although Dudayev was murdered while talking to a Russian dove politician in April of 1996, the Chechens were able to exact a terrible toll on the invaders, even while the Russians had killed tens of thousands of Chechen Civilians. Yeltsin had to pull out, and this was a humiliating defeat for the Russian state.
Chechnya itself remained a democratic (if more islam influenced) republic under Dudayev’s successors, but radical islamists forced the hand of both the Chechen and Russian states, infiltrating and occupying large sections of neighboring Dagestan and setting off bomb attacks (their responsibility is disputed) in moscow in late 1999, enraging Russia and leading to an immediate aerial bombing campaign (which of course killed thousands of Chechen civilians). Incoming Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin then orchestrated a land war against Chechnya, leading to thousands of dead civilians and millions of Chechens displaced into “filtration camps”, functionally prison camps where abuse and even death was rampant. With a much more brutal campaign than Yeltsin’s, Prime Minister (then Acting President after Yeltsin resigned on New Year’s Eve) Putin was able to secure the surrender of the Republic in April 2000. Akhmad Kadyrov, a man who fought for independence in 1996, switched sides during the war and was named the first president of the “Chechen Republic”, the Russian controlled oblast with some limited Autonomy created after the war. Chechen insurgents continued to fight on, and they managed to kill the President in 2004. His son, Ramzan (who also fought initially for Chechnya), quickly succeeded him in 2005 as Acting President, later being sworn in in February 2007. He has ruled the Chechen Republic since then, implementing draconian islamic law regarding alcohol, women’s clothing, and torturing and killing suspected homosexuals. Since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he has personally led Chechen forces, along with his children (three of which are under the legal age of serving) in the war.
Meanwhile, after the Russian annexation of Crimea and occupation of the Donbas, the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion was founded and took part in the war in the Donbas and later in the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian war. They were joined that year by another Chechen unit, the Separate Special Purpose Battalion, meaning over a thousand Chechen men are under arms fighting for Ukranian independence, after it had been taken from them.
The current future of Chechnya now depends very heavily on the War in Ukraine. Kadyrov’s death in action could weaken pro-Russian sentiment in Chechnya, although there’s no guarantee that one of his 6 sons couldn’t take up his mantle. The example of the foreign battalions fighting for Ukraine calls back to history, to the famous Irish brigades of Bolivar, to the Italians fighting with Garibaldi. Could they be the catalyst for a new, lasting independence for Chechnya? Springtime of Nations hopes fervently for self-determination to spring up for all captive nations. Long live Chechnya and may 1000 flowers bloom!