Why Stalin evicted the Chechens and Ingush. Operation Lentils - preparation

After the devastating winter of 1941-1942. The German leadership decided to rely on a number of non-Russian peoples, opposing them to the Russians, pitting them against each other and trying to create something similar to a civil (interethnic) war. Now these peoples are demanding an official apology from Russia (or rather from the Russian people) for the deportation, recognition of the genocide, and payment of monetary compensation.

But let’s try to figure out why, not a Russian person himself, Caucasian Stalin in 1944 deported Chechens, Ingush (“the population bordering Checheno-Ingushetia reacted favorably to the eviction of Chechens and Ingush,” Dagestanis and Ossetians were brought in to help in the eviction) and Crimean Tatars ( “it is characteristic that the Crimean Slavs perceived this fact with understanding and approval”)? Why were more than 100 nations and nationalities living in the USSR and only these were deported en masse?
On this score, there is a widespread myth today, launched back in the days of Khrushchev and happily picked up by current liberals, that there were no objective reasons for the eviction at all. The Chechens, Ingush and Tatars fought bravely at the front and worked hard in the rear, but as a result they became innocent victims of Stalin’s tyranny: “Stalin hoped to pull the wool over the small nations in order to finally break their desire for independence and strengthen his empire.”

For some reason, all these liberals are silent about such a fact as, for example, the deportation of the Japanese to the USA - the forcible transfer of about 120 thousand people to special camps. (of whom 62% were American citizens) from the West Coast of the United States during World War II. About 10 thousand were able to move to other parts of the country, the remaining 110 thousand were imprisoned in camps, officially called “military relocation centers.” In many publications these camps are called concentration camps.

NORTH CAUCASIAN LEGION
A few words should be said about the Chechens and Ingush who were evicted by the Soviet authorities in 1944. The highlanders greeted the German troops with joy and presented Hitler with a golden harness - “Allah is above us - Hitler is with us.”
As the Germans approached the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, these peoples began to openly behave treacherously - mass desertion from the Red Army and draft evasion began - In total, during the three years of the war, 49,362 Chechens and Ingush deserted from the ranks of the Red Army, another 13,389 brave sons of the mountains evaded from conscription, which totals 62,751 people.

How many Chechens and Ingush fought at the front? Defenders of “repressed peoples” invent various fables on this score. For example, Doctor of Historical Sciences Hadji-Murat Ibragimbayli states: “More than 30 thousand Chechens and Ingush fought on the fronts. In the first weeks of the war, more than 12 thousand communists and Komsomol members - Chechens and Ingush - joined the army, most of whom died in battle.”

The reality looks much more modest. While in the ranks of the Red Army, 2.3 thousand Chechens and Ingush died or went missing. Is it a lot or a little? The Buryat people, half smaller in number, who were not threatened by the German occupation, lost 13 thousand people at the front, one and a half times less than the Chechens and Ingush Ossetians - 10.7 thousand

In addition, the mentality of these highlanders emerged - deserters created gangs engaged in outright robbery, and local uprisings began, with traces of obvious German influence. From July 1941 to 1944, only in the territory of the Chi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which was later transformed into the Grozny region, state security agencies destroyed 197 gangs. At the same time, the total irretrievable losses of the bandits amounted to 4,532 people: 657 killed, 2,762 captured, 1,113 turned themselves in. Thus, in the ranks of the gangs that fought against the Red Army, almost twice as many Chechens and Ingush died or were captured as at the front. And this is not counting the losses of the Vainakhs who fought on the side of the Wehrmacht in the so-called “eastern battalions”! And since banditry is impossible in these conditions without the complicity of the local population, many “peaceful Chechens” can also, with a clear conscience, be classified as traitors.

By that time, the old “cadres” of abreks and local religious authorities, through the efforts of the OGPU and then the NKVD, had been largely driven out. They were replaced by young gangsters - Komsomol members and communists brought up by the Soviet regime, who studied in Soviet universities, who clearly demonstrated the truth of the proverb “No matter how much you feed the wolf, he keeps looking into the forest.”

The most unfavorable moment for the Soviet regime was the period of the Battle of the Caucasus in 1942. The actions of the Chechen-Ingush in the region intensified due to the German offensive. The mountaineers even created the Chechen-Mountain National Socialist Party! During the year, 43 special operations were carried out by units of the internal troops (excluding the operations of the Red Army), 2342 bandits were eliminated. One of the largest groups numbered about 600 rebels.
These losses in killed and prisoners against the Soviet regime were greater than the losses suffered by the Chechens and Ingush in the ranks of the Red Army against the Germans! 2,300 people died fighting on the side of the Red Army, and there were 5 Heroes of the Soviet Union, for the sake of justice, here are their names: Khanpasha Nuradilov, Hansultan Dachiev, Abukhazhi Idrisov, Irbaikhan Beibulatov, Mavlid Visaitov.

The Chechens and Ingush treated the German saboteurs especially warmly. Captured with his group, the commander of the saboteurs, emigrant Avar by nationality Osman (Saidnurov) Guba, said during interrogation:
“Among the Chechens and Ingush, I easily found the right people who were ready to betray, go over to the side of the Germans and serve them. I was surprised: what are these people unhappy with? The Chechens and Ingush under Soviet rule lived prosperously, in abundance, much better than in pre-revolutionary times, which I was personally convinced of after more than four months of being on the territory of Checheno-Ingushetia... I did not find any other explanation except that these people from Chechens and Ingush, their treasonous sentiments towards their homeland, were guided by selfish considerations, the desire under the Germans to preserve at least the remnants of their well-being, to provide a service, in compensation for which the occupiers left them at least part of the available livestock and products, land and housing.”

Fortunately, the Germans did not occupy the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Otherwise, many anti-Soviet units could be created from the Chechens and Ingush, who are strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Russian. Their small number in the “eastern” battalions is explained by the fact that they simply deserted from the Red Army to their native places and waited for the Germans. Soviet troops had to repel German attacks in the Caucasus and also deal with these mountaineers in their rear. The country's leadership perceived this attitude of the mountaineers towards the war as a clear betrayal, a consumerist attitude towards the rest of the peoples of the USSR, which is why the decision was made to deport. The eviction was forced and justified.

On February 23, the resettlement of Caucasian peoples began. Operation Lentil was well prepared and was successful. By the beginning of it, the motives for the eviction were brought to the attention of the entire population - betrayal. Leaders, religious leaders of Chechnya, Ingushetia and other nationalities took a personal part in explaining the reasons for the resettlement. The campaign achieved its goal. Of the 873,000 people evicted, only 842 people resisted and were arrested; only 50 people were killed while resisting or trying to escape.
The “warlike highlanders” did not put up any real resistance. As soon as Moscow demonstrated its strength and firmness, the highlanders obediently went to the assembly points, they knew their Guilt.

CRIMEAN TATARS IN THE SERVICE OF THE WEHRMACHT
They truly served the enemy faithfully.
On the territory of the occupied multinational Crimea, the German leadership decided to rely on the Crimean Tatars who were anti-Bolshevik and historically anti-Russian. With the front rapidly approaching, the Crimean Tatars began to desert en masse from the Red Army and partisan detachments and express anti-Russian sentiments. “... All those drafted into the Red Army amounted to 90 thousand people, including 20 thousand Crimean Tatars... 20 thousand Crimean Tatars deserted in 1941 from the 51st Army during its retreat from Crimea...” Thus, the desertion of the Crimean Tatars from the Red Army it was almost universal.

The Tatars sought to curry favor with the occupiers, show their loyalty, and quickly take money in the new occupied Crimea. The most disenfranchised on the peninsula were Russians (49.6% of the population of Crimea), and the Crimean Tatars (19.8%) were the masters. The latter were given the best houses, collective farm plots and equipment, special stores were opened for them, religious life was established, and some self-government was allowed. It was constantly emphasized that they were the chosen ones. True, after the war, Crimea was supposed to be completely Germanized (the Fuhrer proclaimed this on July 16, 1941), but the Tatars were not informed about this.
But while Crimea remained a close rear area of the active army, and then a combat zone, the Germans temporarily needed order in this territory and reliance on part of the local population. They decided to wait with the relocation.

The Crimean Tatars easily made contact with the Germans, and already in October-November 1941, the Germans formed the first groups of Crimean Tatar collaborators. And these were not only Tatars - Khivi from prisoners of war in the active army, of whom there were 9 thousand people. These were police self-defense units to protect villages from partisans, implement German policies and maintain local order. Such detachments consisted of 50 - 170 fighters and were led by German officers. The personnel were made up of Tatar deserters from the Red Army and peasants. The fact that the Tatars enjoyed special favor is evidenced by the fact that 1/3 of the self-defense police wore German military uniforms (though without insignia) and even helmets. At the same time, the Belarusian police self-defense units (the status of the Slavs was the lowest) wore rags - civilian clothes of assorted colors or Soviet uniforms that had been through the camps.
Crimean Tatars took an active part in the anti-Soviet struggle. According to German data, from 15 to 20 thousand Crimean Tatars served in the German armed forces and police, which is about 6-9% of the total number of Crimean Tatars (for 1939). At the same time, in 1941 there were only 10 thousand Tatars in the Red Army, many of whom deserted and later served the Germans. Also, about 1.2 thousand Crimean Tatars were red partisans and underground fighters (177 deserted from partisan detachments)

The Fuhrer himself noted the Tatars’ zeal to serve their new masters. The Tatars were provided with small pleasant services - free food in special canteens for families, monthly or one-time benefits, etc. It must be said that active national anti-Russian propaganda was carried out in the Tatar police units.
The Crimean Tatars, accomplices of the Germans, not only fought and served the Germans - for some reason they were especially cruel to their opponents. Perhaps most Tatars have a bad attitude towards the enemy and extreme cruelty.
Thus, in the Sudak region in 1942, the Tatars destroyed a reconnaissance landing force of the Red Army. They captured twelve of our paratroopers and burned them alive.
On February 4, 1943, Tatar volunteers from the villages of Beshui and Koush captured four partisans. All of them were brutally killed: stabbed with bayonets, and then, while still alive, they were laid on fires and burned. Particularly disfigured was the corpse of partisan Khasan Kiyamov, a Kazan Tatar, whom the punitive forces apparently mistook for their fellow countryman.
The attitude towards the civilian population was no less brutal. Throughout the occupation, on the territory of the Krasny state farm, where the Crimean Tatars lived, a concentration death camp operated, in which at least eight thousand Crimean citizens suspected of sympathizing with the partisans were brutally tortured and killed. The camp was guarded by Tatars from the 152nd auxiliary police battalion. According to eyewitnesses, the head of the camp, SS Oberscharführer Speckmann, hired guards to do the dirtiest work.
It got to the point that, fleeing the Tatar massacre, the local Russian and Ukrainian population was forced to seek protection... from the German authorities! And often German soldiers and officers, shocked by the actions of their “allies,” provided the Russians with such assistance...

Intoxicated with power, the pro-German leaders of the Bakhchisarai and Alushta Muslim committees (the creation of such bodies is another German indulgence), as a personal initiative, proposed that the Germans simply destroy all Russians in Crimea (before the war, Russians made up 49.6% of all residents of Crimea). Such ethnic cleansing was carried out in two villages in the Bakhchisarai region by Tatar self-defense forces. However, the Germans did not support the initiative - the war was not over yet, and there were too many Russians.

Because of their attitude towards Soviet power, the Crimean Tatars were evicted from Crimea. Of course, today it is easy to condemn Stalin, who radically resolved the issue with the Crimean Tatar traitors in a military manner. But let's look at this story not from the perspective of today, but from the point of view of that time.
Many punishers did not have time to leave with the Nazis, taking refuge with numerous relatives who were not going to hand over their executioner relatives. In addition, it turned out that the “Muslim committees” created by the Germans in Tatar villages did not disappear anywhere, but went underground.
In addition, the Tatar population had a lot of weapons in their hands. Only on May 7, 1944, as a result of a special raid by the NKVD troops, 5395 rifles, 337 machine guns, 250 machine guns, 31 mortars, and a huge number of grenades and cartridges were seized.
The country’s leadership realized that in the person of the Crimean Tatars they were faced with a “fifth column”, welded together by strong family ties... and very dangerous for the rear of the Red Army.

GENOCIDE?
You can find many stories of how front-line soldiers - Crimean Tatars and Caucasians with many Soviet awards - found themselves repressed along with everyone else. This was the retribution for some for the betrayal of others.

These peoples fully deserved their eviction. Nevertheless, despite the facts, the current guardians of the “repressed peoples” continue to repeat how inhumane it was to punish the entire nation for the crimes of its “individual representatives.” One of the favorite arguments of this public is the reference to the illegality of such collective punishment.

Strictly speaking, this is true: no Soviet laws provided for the mass eviction of Chechens, Ingush and Tatars. However, let's see what would have happened if the authorities had decided to act according to the law in 1944.

As we have already found out, the majority of Chechens, Ingush and Kr. Tatars of military age avoided military service or deserted. What is the punishment for desertion in wartime conditions? Execution or penal company. Did these measures apply to deserters of other nationalities? Yes, they were used. Banditry, organizing uprisings, and collaborating with the enemy during the war were also punished to the fullest extent. As well as less serious crimes, such as membership in an anti-Soviet underground organization or possession of weapons. Complicity in committing crimes, harboring criminals, and, finally, failure to report were also punishable by the Criminal Code. And almost all adult Chechens, Ingush and Tatars were involved in this.

It turns out that the denouncers of Stalin's tyranny, in fact, regret that several tens of thousands of men were not legally put against the wall! However, most likely, they simply believe that the law is written only for Russians and other “lower class” citizens, and it does not apply to the proud inhabitants of the Caucasus and Crimea. Judging by the current amnesties for Chechen fighters, this is so.

So, from the point of view of formal legality, the punishment that befell the Chechens, Ingush and Crimean Tatars in 1944 was much milder than what was due to them according to the Criminal Code. Since in this case almost the entire adult population should have been shot or sent to camps.

Maybe it was worth “forgiving” the traitor nations? But what would millions of families of dead soldiers think, looking at those who were behind the lines?

February 23rd, 2012 , 04:01 pm

We remember and mourn

February 23 marks 67 years since the day when, in connection with the liquidation of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the forced deportation of Chechens and Ingush to remote areas of Kazakhstan and Central Asia began. Since last year, this day in Chechnya has been celebrated not only as a date of mourning, but also as an official Day of Remembrance and Sorrow.

The mass deportation of the Chechen and Ingush peoples was carried out on the orders of Joseph Stalin on February 23, 1944. The official reason was the accusation of “aiding the fascist occupiers.” Absurd in its essence, this accusation, however, was completely in line with the logic of the Soviet leadership of the Stalin era, which pursued a policy of state terror, when entire social strata or individual peoples were declared “anti-Soviet.”
Our republic, by the will of Soviet leaders, became the main place of exile for the peoples of the Soviet Union in the 30s and 40s of the 20th century. The vast majority of them were evicted to the Karaganda region, on the territory of which a whole system of camps and special settlements was created.
The special settlers faced a lot of difficulties in their new place of residence: hunger, illness, domestic instability, separation of families, death of loved ones, the humiliating stigma of being an “enemy of the people” - they were able to survive all of this. There is no exact data on the number of deaths as a result of the deportation, but historians estimate that the harsh conditions in the resettlement sites caused the death of tens of thousands of people.
Special settlers worked in the coal basin, participated in housing construction and the construction of industrial enterprises, were engaged in agriculture, and the improvement of cities and towns in our region. Local residents who warmly welcomed representatives of other nationalities resettled to Kazakhstan helped them endure all the hardships of life that befell them, and sometimes simply survive. Only in the 50s did the state policy towards persons on special registration change.
The archives of the Department of the Committee on Legal Statistics and Special Records of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan for the Karaganda Region contain documents that most fully reflect the period of mass repressions of 1930-1950. Numerous materials from repressed special settlers are concentrated here, namely persons sent to our region for special settlement on national grounds. Tens of thousands of prisoners of about 40 nationalities passed through Karlag alone.
In the archives of the UKPS and the Administration of the State Police of the Republic of Kazakhstan for the Karaganda region, there are about 39 thousand personal files of special settlers, over 4 thousand personal files of foreigners, about 300,000 files of prisoners. There are file cabinets for these cases; a searchable electronic database allows you to make a quick and high-quality search or determine where and when a particular case was sent for storage.
As for the personal files of the Chechens and Ingush, all of them, in accordance with the agreement of the internal affairs bodies of our republics, were sent for storage to the National Archives under the Council of Ministers of the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The department's archive contains only lists that reflect the archive numbers of cases, the names of the persons against whom cases were opened, as well as the dates of sending these cases to Chechnya. In this regard, in response to requests for confirmation of legal facts in relation to persons of Chechen nationality, the archival data of the UKPS and the Investigative Directorate of the State Police of the Republic of Kazakhstan for the Karaganda region can only confirm the fact that only adults are staying in the special settlement, i.e. persons against whom personal files were opened.
Due to the military actions that took place on the territory of Chechnya, many documents previously sent for storage to the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic were irretrievably lost. In the absence of supporting archival materials regarding certain categories of special settlements, department employees recommend going to court to establish the legal fact of being in a special settlement. Those interested will receive detailed explanations of what other authorities applicants can contact to obtain supporting information. The addresses of information centers of the Department of Internal Affairs of the regions from which the eviction took place are also given.

Gulzira ZHUNUSOVA, prosecutor of the Department of the Committee on Legal Statistics
and special records of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan for the Karaganda region

A day is longer than a century

They lingered in the mosque after prayer to remember the events that happened 67 years ago, on the terrible day of February 23. Men with blue and gray eyes, with brown irises of a hot look, portly men in hats and caps were then just children, some were not yet born, but they have something to tell from the words of their parents.

Sixty-seven years is a short human century, but how much pain and fear, joys and hopes fit in it. What helped them survive, who helped the whole people not become wordless dust, and not lose each survivor’s human appearance?
Through the thickness of years they plunge there, into the salty, hopeless depths, where, as foolish children, they grew up early under a thickness of innocent guilt. And they return back to their evening, painted with warm colors, with salty tears in the corners of their unsteppe eyes.

Bloody sunrise

At 2 a.m. on February 23, 1944, the most famous ethnic deportation operation began - the resettlement of residents of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. There was deportation of “punished peoples” before this - Germans and Finns, Kalmyks and Karachais, and after - Balkars, Crimean Tatars and Greeks, Bulgarians and Armenians living in Crimea, as well as Meskhetian Turks from Georgia. But Operation Lentil, the eviction of almost half a million Vainakhs - Chechens and Ingush - became the largest.
During the day, 333,739 people were removed from populated areas, of which 176,950 were loaded onto trains. A faster eviction was prevented by heavy snow that fell on the afternoon of February 23.

Imran Khakimov:
- It was snowing, raining, people were crying. Many died along the way, they were buried - there was no time, they were simply buried in the snow. Women died from bladder rupture. Because of the modesty instilled by their strict upbringing, they could not relieve themselves in front of everyone...

Magomed Sultygov:
“My father took a snow bath before prayer at the bus stop and contracted an infection. All swollen and delirious. He was hidden in the carriage because the sick were taken off the train and left to die. In the Kustanai region he was placed in a district hospital. He recovered and found a job here...

Ziyavuddi Dakaev:
- My father fought in the Gomel direction. In February 1944, he came to his native land on vacation after being wounded. I went home - a pot was boiling on the stove, and a neighbor was dragging our sofa. There were no more people, the dogs were howling, all the cattle were in alarm. The Armenian neighbor said: “You are being evicted, they have taken you to the station.” Father barely found us. I approached the colonel, he commanded this “parade,” and said: “I’m not going anywhere, take me and my family and shoot me at this wall.” The colonel replied: “I am also a soldier, I am following orders. The only thing I can do is give you a chaise with horses so that you can dress warmly and take food. You are being evicted to Kazakhstan”...

Makasharip Mutsolgov:
- I was ten years old, I remember all this. In the morning we were brought to the area by car and spent the night at the station. We were fed liquid porridge only at bus stops. On the way, they grabbed what they could - a guy, I saw, was dragging a snow retention shield to melt the potbelly stove in the carriage. One soldier caught up with him and hit him.

gloomy morning

Three-year-old Sulim Isakiev was awakened by the whistle of a steam locomotive. The older sister took him by the hand and led him out of the car to the Karaganda-Sortirovochnaya station. This beep is the first thing he remembers from childhood. The first pictures for these children were the steppe, the smoke above the chimneys, the cramped dugout... For Imran Khakimov, the smell of grease from hot bread became a memorable smell, sharp as the sound of a locomotive whistle. And the tongue, together with the pulp of the baursak, tasted the first unfamiliar words for Akhmed Murtazov, the most important for a hungry child: “drink - ish”, “eat - zhe”.

Kharon Kutaev:
- At the station they put us on a sled and drove us around the state farms. We lived first in a dugout in the area of the 18-bis mine, then in barracks on Dorozhnaya Street. At the end of 1945, my grandmother and I were found by a cousin. I fainted with hunger. My brother sold a suit and boots at a flea market. I bought bread. He chewed it and gave it to me, and it came out...

Akhmed Murtazov:
- Mother lived here for only a year and a half. She was very worried when she received a funeral for her father, and never recovered from the grief. Before her death, she gave me behests: don’t steal, don’t be a hooligan, don’t disgrace your father’s name. My mother taught me how to read prayer. I have followed her instructions all my life.
Some gave food to the boys, some didn’t. There was an old woman, we called her “apa”. She fed them baursaks. I will never forget these first Kazakh words. Apa said: “Oh, kim, otyr!” Shay ish, baursak”...

Imran Khakimov:
- Where Kopay-gorod was, there was a meat-packing plant, they grazed sheep there. Hungry people climbed over the low fence and cut off the tails of live sheep. As a boy, I got a job in a bakery in Mikhailovka. The molds were coated with grease to prevent the dough from sticking - there was no oil. You couldn’t put hot bread in your mouth, it stank so much, and when it cooled down, nothing...

Andi Khasuev:
- Our mother had three children. We were placed in a Kazakh family. Bread was always shared equally, the head of the family, a Kazakh, when leaving for work, ordered the women to look after us as if they were their own children. I believe: Kazakhs are the most hospitable, most decent, most responsive people...

Movldi Abaev:
- My father had a 7th grade education, which was a lot in those days. He was appointed assistant commandant. My father organized a canteen - they collected meager rations into a common pot and made a mess. This is how they survived. And in the first winter, many died, especially people from the mountains, they did not undergo acclimatization.
When my parents got married, they found out that there were relatives in Karaganda, and they decided to go. It was easier to survive here - there was work. We rode on the roof of the carriage, I don’t know how we didn’t freeze...

Magomed Sultygov:
- My father’s first wife died, leaving four children. And my mother was left alone - the whole family died of typhus, she herself barely got out. People found out where there were single men and women. So the father and his children went to Kokchetav, got married, and brought their mother. The commandant found out that she had arrived without permission and wanted to take her to the NKVD. Then people gathered, and one Russian man stood up for my parents; he had six sons who fought, and all his superiors stayed with him. They defended their mother.

Work noon

We came to the full holder of the “Miner’s Glory” badge, holder of the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, Akhmed Murtazov, together with Uvays Dzhanaev, head of the Karaganda regional Chechen-Ingush ethnocultural association “Vainakh”. “I’ve known him for more than twenty years,” says Uvais Khavazhievich, surprised. “But I only recently found out that we have such a well-deserved one.”

Akhmed Dashaevich recalls:
“They were almost entirely disabled people returning from the front, without arms, without legs, shell-shocked. We were trained in the FZO as a labor reserve. I studied to be a machine operator, that’s what it was called, but what kind of mechanization is there... There was a cutting machine, they cut the layer with it. There weren't many of us, the machine operators, and when the boss asked me to stay for the second shift, I never refused, although I was tired. There was no hot water in the bathhouse - either the stoker was not working or the pump was not working. But there is no one to complain to. Still, life in the hostel was much better compared to the dugout: it was warm, the bed was changed.
Our group of machine operators was assigned to mine No. 33-34. Our foreman was a good mentor, Hero of Socialist Labor Pyotr Akulov. I worked for him for five years, then he got sick and died. It became difficult, because I was a young guy, and there were forty-year-old men there, they didn’t want to listen to me. I wrote an application to the site manager to transfer to the Kostenko mine.
At the Kostenko mine I truly became an adult. I began to pursue a policy similar to that of my first foreman. He was strict, but fair, and knew how to tell and show ten times, and that’s how he taught. Then the “Donbass-1” and “Donbass-2” combines appeared. The relief is huge...
I didn’t think about family until I got on my feet. Normal earnings appeared - we have a comprehensive Komsomol youth brigade, everyone is strong and fast. My portrait hung on the city Honor Board. Then he got married. I didn’t drink vodka, I didn’t make friends with drunks, I didn’t smoke, I behaved with dignity.
I did as the head of the site, Malakhov, told me. First I graduated from evening school, then from technical school. They offered me a promotion, but I refused. He said: “When I retire and can’t cope with young people, you’ll find a salaried job.” So I worked with young people until retirement, until 1989.
They threw me from section to section, there were some lagging behind, for reinforcement. The head of the mine, Melnikov, persuaded, he knew how. I have this principle: if you treat me like a human being, I will do the same, if it’s rude, I won’t stand on ceremony in response.
And before my well-deserved rest, Drizhd called me and asked if I wanted a car. I replied that I would like a Volga, but not a Zhiguli. “Well done,” he says, “you understand.” I wrote a statement in front of him, he drew a circle instead of a signature, he did that. And I got the Volga.

Warm evening and new morning

Makasharip Mutsolgov was ten years old in 1944. And for ten years he dreamed of returning to his homeland. In 1955, I got a ticket to Moscow and hid on the top bunk for four days. I arrived safely from the capital to the Caucasus, found my home, Ossetians lived there. I sat on my native bench, wandered around the village and went back to Kazakhstan. Since then, he has visited the Caucasus more than once. They all go there from time to time, men who lingered after prayers at the mosque that evening. But living there, they admit, is still uncomfortable. It's better in Kazakhstan.
From their sunset they turn with their covenants to the new dawn. Just as their mothers and fathers instructed them, they want to be heard by the new generation.

Akhmed Murtazov:
- When a person has free time, he finds bad company. I didn’t have time - I went to the DND, was the chairman of the comrades’ court. And my sons were involved in sports sections. I also raise my grandchildren. Not a single policeman ever came to our house. And I was at the police station only when I received my passport.
We say: sit on a Kazakh cart, sing along to Kazakh songs, ride on a Russian chaise, sing Russian songs. If everyone speaks their own language, we will not understand each other. This is how hostility and denunciations arise. This brings me terrible pain. This is also prohibited by our faith - to inform on people, to speak badly about them.

Movldi Abaev:
“We need to know the story, no matter how bitter it may be, and talk about it so that our children and grandchildren know.” Why do people live in peace in Kazakhstan? Because we have experienced a lot - hunger and cold, and how hard it is when you are left alone with trouble.

Andi Khasuev:
- Nobody infringed on me, and how can anyone infringe on me? Since I was ten years old, I have been earning my own bread and sharing this bread. Those who eat by themselves and do not share with anyone are discriminated against. And if you swallow a large piece, it will get stuck in your throat.
I wish the younger generation will never experience such grief as we and our fathers. Kazakhstan is our common home, and love for this home should be pure and strong, like spring water that comes from the very depths to a height of hundreds of meters.
After these words, all the men nod their heads in agreement and say: you couldn’t say it better. So be it!

Olga MOOS

Human warmth

This real story could form the basis of a story or become a script for a feature film. Life throws intricate plots at us, persistently demanding an answer to the eternal “to be or not to be?” In this story, to be human meant to snatch another person from oblivion. To find a lost son, one had to become a father again. The spindle turns, and the thread of fate is spun, and the canvas turns out to be embroidered. White on black.

After a month of torment in windswept carriages, the family of displaced Makhmudovs arrived at the Zhosaly station in the Kyzylorda region. It was cold and hungry in the new place. Daud and Rabiat Makhmudov, together with the rest of the Chechen families, also scattered across the steppes, dug dugouts. They tried to survive - no matter what the grief was, but the children, 9-year-old Saidamin and very little Tamara, had to be saved.
Unable to withstand the hardships and cold Kazakhstan winter, the Makhmudovs’ father and mother died. Saidamin and Tamara could have shared the fate of many children of the post-war period - vagrancy, special detention centers. But fate decreed otherwise.
One morning, on the threshold of the orphanage where the brother and sister ended up, a short Kazakh man with light gray hair at his temples appeared. Seeing Saidamin, he said: “Let’s go live with me. My only son disappeared in the war. Maybe you can replace it for me. I will call you Abylaykhan, as my son. And my name is Arutdin, my last name is Kulimov.”
So Saidamin Makhmudov had a new family. They lived poorly, but amicably - a small house, father and mother, sisters. Everyone, both household and village residents, unquestioningly obeyed their father, the chairman of the collective farm. And he, in turn, demanded respect from everyone for his adopted son. He taught his wife Ziyashkul: “Don’t ask your son to carry water from the well; among the Chechens this is considered women’s work. Let him chop wood, look after the horses... He respects our customs in everything, and we will respect the customs of his native land.”
Seven years flew by like seven days. One morning, like a steppe lark, a rumor flew across the steppes that a Red Army officer who had returned from the war was walking around Saryarka, looking for his surviving relatives. He's been walking for five or six years now, and he's found everyone except the youngest, Saidamin.
This story would not exist if the brothers had not found each other. But it turned out to be difficult to come to an agreement - Saidamin-Abylaikhan forgot his native language. The Red Army soldier says to him in Chechen: “Hello, brother!”, and Saidamin says to him: “Nemene?” He again: “I am Kasum, your cousin!” Saidamin answered sadly: “Men seni bilmeimin...”
When I realized, I began to break free from my brothers’ hands: “I’m not going anywhere!” The father asked the unexpected guests to leave him and his son alone. I guessed that he was afraid to leave. Here everything is native - both the people and the steppe, but there is the unknown. Arutdin said simply and wisely: “Son, your homeland is there, sooner or later it will call you. You were my support in difficult times, but now I have no right to hold you. If you decide to return, the doors of your home are open for you. Go, may Allah bless you!”
And that's not the whole story. All the good that Arutdin Kulimov did for others returned to him increased a hundredfold. Soon the news came: his own son Abylaykhan was alive, he was on his way and would soon be in his father’s house!
People from all over the area gathered for the big event. In the most honorable place behind the dastarkhan are Saidamin, Kasum and Abylaykhan. They listen carefully to their father’s parting words:
- Whatever sprout you plant, that’s how the tree will grow. Whatever you put in your son’s heart, he will take it to people. My sons are my pride. And even if Saidamin decided to leave for his homeland, it must be so, this is the call of the blood, you can’t escape it. But those who lived here will certainly return, because our land is rich in kind people.
The farewell words turned out to be prophetic. Many years later, by the will of fate, Saidamin's children - ten brothers and sisters, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren - moved to Karaganda. The Makhmudov family numbers about seventy people. Some live in Chechnya, some in Kazakhstan, and we can talk about each for a long time. Everyone grew up to be worthy people: builders, engineers, doctors, athletes, miners. The eldest son, Sadyk, received a high award in 1990 - the “Miner’s Glory” badge, III degree. The youngest, Akhmed, became a mullah and graduated from the Islamic University in Grozny.
Saidamin Makhmudov, living in the Caucasus, always remembers his second homeland. More than once he made pilgrimages to the holy places of Kazakhstan and now, despite his venerable age - 76 years, he comes to Karaganda to visit his children. Together with them, he repeats the words of his father, Arutdin Kulimov, which are passed down from generation to generation in the Makhmudov family:
- We went through a lot in difficult times for the country, we supported each other as best we could, regardless of who was of what kind and what nation. Now our duty is to live in peace and harmony under one shanyrak spread over this blessed land. Now that we have everything, sometimes human warmth is not enough. Therefore, we must not forget that we all come from the same past, and we should not judge each other, but understand.

Course of events

On January 31, 1944, the State Defense Committee of the USSR adopted Resolution No. 5073 on the abolition of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the deportation of its population to Central Asia and Kazakhstan “for aiding the fascist invaders.” The Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was abolished, from its composition 4 districts were transferred to the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, one district was transferred to the North Ossetian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Grozny region was formed on the rest of the territory.

On January 29, 1944, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Lavrentiy Beria, approved the “Instructions on the procedure for the eviction of Chechens and Ingush,” and on January 31, a resolution of the State Defense Committee was issued on the deportation of Chechens and Ingush to the Kazakh and Kyrgyz SSR. On February 20, together with I. A. Serov, B. Z. Kobulov and S. S. Mamulov, Beria arrived in Grozny and personally led the operation, where, under the guise of “exercises in mountainous areas,” an army of 100 thousand people was transferred, including 18 thousand officers and up to 19 thousand operatives of the NKVD, NKGB and Smersh. On February 21, he issued an order to the NKVD for the deportation of the Chechen-Ingush population. The next day, he met with the leadership of the republic and senior spiritual leaders, warned them about the operation and offered to carry out the necessary work among the population. Beria reported this to Stalin:

“It was reported to the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, Mollaev, about the government's decision to evict the Chechens and Ingush and about the motives that formed the basis for this decision.
Molaev shed tears after my message, but pulled himself together and promised to complete all the tasks that would be given to him in connection with the eviction. Then in Grozny, together with him, 9 leading officials from the Chechens and Ingush were identified and convened, to whom the progress of the eviction of the Chechens and Ingush and the reasons for the eviction were announced.
... We assigned 40 Republican party and Soviet workers from Chechens and Ingush to 24 districts with the task of selecting 2-3 people from the local activists for each locality for campaigning.
A conversation was held with the most influential senior clergy in Checheno-Ingushetia B. Arsanov, A.-G. Yandarov and A. Gaisumov, they were called upon to provide assistance through mullahs and other local authorities.”

The deportation and dispatch of trains to their destinations began on February 23, 1944 at 02:00 local time and ended on March 9 of the same year. The operation began with the code word "Panther", which was transmitted by radio.

On a frosty morning, all adults were called to places of collective gatherings: clubs, schools, city and rural squares. It was Red Army Day and people, unsuspectingly, were in a festive mood. It was a public holiday and was used as an excuse for gatherings. Throughout the territory of Checheno-Ingushetia, against the backdrop of aimed machine guns and machine guns, a decree-sentence on the deportation of Chechens and Ingush was announced. We were given only 10-15 minutes to get ready. Showing dissatisfaction and attempting to escape was punishable by execution on the spot.

The deportation was accompanied by few attempts to escape to the mountains or insubordination on the part of the local population. The NKGB also reported on “a number of ugly facts of violation of revolutionary legality, arbitrary executions of old Chechen women who remained after the resettlement, the sick, the crippled, who could not follow.” According to the documents, in one of the villages three people were killed, including an eight-year-old boy, in another - “five old women”, in the third - “according to unspecified data” “arbitrary execution of the sick and crippled up to 60 people.” There is also information about the burning of up to 700 people alive in the village of Khaibakh in the Galanchozhsky district.

180 trains were sent with a total of 493,269 people resettled. 56 people were born along the route, 1,272 people died, “which is 2.6 people per 1,000 transported. According to a certificate from the Statistical Directorate of the RSFSR, the mortality rate in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1943 was 13.2 people per 1,000 inhabitants.” The causes of death were the “old and young age of those being resettled,” the presence of “sick people with chronic diseases” among those resettled, and the presence of the physically weak. 285 patients were sent to medical institutions. The last to be sent was a train of passenger cars containing former executives and religious leaders of Checheno-Ingushetia, who were used in the operation.

According to official data, during the operation 780 people were killed, 2,016 “anti-Soviet elements” were arrested, and more than 20 thousand firearms were confiscated, including 4,868 rifles, 479 machine guns and machine guns. 6,544 people managed to hide in the mountains.

Chechens and Ingush were evicted not only from their historical homeland, but also from all other cities and regions who were in the ranks of the army, demobilized and also exiled.

After the deportation, over 80 rebel groups continued to operate on the territory of the former Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and several thousand Chechens and Ingush remained.

Link

On March 20, 1944, after the arrival of 491,748 deportees, contrary to the instructions of the central government, the local population, collective farms and state farms did not provide or were unable to provide food, shelter and work to the settlers. The deportees were cut off from their traditional way of life and had difficulty adapting to life on collective farms.

Upon arrival at the places of exile, any movement at a distance of more than three kilometers from the place of residence was strictly prohibited. Twice a month, the special settler had to report to the commandant’s office, confirming that he was in place. Violation of the rules and regulations of residence was punishable by imprisonment for up to 20 years without trial.

In 1949 - five years after the deportation - the Vainakhs, along with other Caucasian “special settlers”, were forbidden to leave the areas of the commandant areas where they were registered. The ban applied to all persons over 16 years of age, and its violation was punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

Essentially, the special settlers were deprived of their civil rights.

Doctor of Economic Sciences, famous Russian scientist Ruslan Imranovich Khasbulatov writes:
According to the statistical census of 1939, there were 697 thousand Chechens and Ingush people. Over five years, if the previous population growth rates were maintained, there should have been more than 800 thousand people, minus 50 thousand people who fought on the fronts of the active army and other units of the armed forces, that is, the population subject to deportation, there were at least 750-770 thousand people . The difference in numbers is explained by the mass mortality in this short period of time. During the period of eviction, about 5 thousand people were in inpatient hospitals in Checheno-Ingushetia - none of them “recovered” or were reunited with their families. We also note that not all mountain villages had stationary roads - in winter, neither cars nor even carts could move along these roads. This applies to at least 33 high-mountain villages (Vedeno, Shatoy, Naman-Yurt, etc.), in which 20-22 thousand people lived. What their fate turned out to be is shown by the facts that became known in 1990, related to the tragic events, the death of the inhabitants of the village of Khaibakh. All its inhabitants, more than 700 people, were driven into a barn and burned.

Of those who arrived (according to official reports) in March 1944, 478,479 Vainakhs arrived in Central Asia. 12 years after the resettlement in 1956, 315 thousand Chechens and Ingush lived in Kazakhstan, and about 80 thousand people lived in Kyrgyzstan. This results in a loss of 83 thousand 479 people. It is known that from 1945 to 1950. More than 40 thousand children were born into Vainakh families. Over 12 years, about 130 thousand people died for various reasons.

After Stalin's death, restrictions on movement were lifted from them, but they were not allowed to return to their homeland. Despite this, in the spring of 1957, 140 thousand forcibly deported returned to the restored Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. At the same time, several mountainous regions were closed to their residence, and the former inhabitants of these territories began to be settled in lowland villages and Cossack villages

Memories

“In “veal wagons” overcrowded to the limit, without light and water, we followed for almost a month to an unknown destination... Typhoid went for a walk. There was no treatment, there was a war going on... During short stops, on remote deserted sidings near the train, the dead were buried in snow black from locomotive soot (going further than five meters from the carriage threatened death on the spot)..." (department head North Ossetian Regional Committee of the CPSU Ingush X. Arapiev)

“People from all the surrounding farms and villages were gathered in the Chechen village of Khaibakh. Those who could not walk were ordered by an NKVD officer to go into the stables. They say it’s warm there, hay has been brought in for insulation. Old people, women, children, the sick, as well as healthy people looking after sick and elderly relatives came there. This happened before my eyes. All other residents of the area walked through the village of Yalkhoroi under escort to Galashki, and from there to the railway station. When a healthy part of the population was taken away, the stable gates were locked. I hear the command: “Fire!” A flame broke out and immediately engulfed the entire stable. It turns out that the hay was prepared in advance and doused with kerosene. As the flames rose above the stable, the people inside, with unnatural cries for help, knocked down the gate and rushed out. They immediately started shooting people running out with machine guns and light machine guns. The exit to the stables was littered with corpses.” (Dziyaudin Malsagov, born 1913).

3-4 days after the eviction of people from the village of Mushe-Chu, the soldiers found an old Zaripat lying in an empty house. She was shot with a machine gun. Then, tying a steel wire around his neck, he was dragged out into the street, broke the fence, covered his body with it, and burned him. Zakriev Salambek and Said-Khasan Ampukaev buried her along with this noose. She was my father’s sister...” (Selim A, born 1902).

“In Kazakhstan, we were unloaded into an open field. Let's go look for a place to hide from the frost. We found an abandoned shed. We returned, and in the place where the neighboring family remained - a mother and five children - there was a snowdrift. They dug up, but everyone was already dead. Only the one-year-old girl was still alive, but she too died two days later.” (Adlop Malsagov).

“In the first days of deportation, people did not die from disease, but froze to death. Somewhere we found a large cast iron frying pan and lit a fire in it. And around, wrapped in some rags, sat children and women. The men began to dig dugouts, which was not easy to do in 30-degree frost. I sat with my mother, covered with a sheepskin coat, which she miraculously took out of the house. The first feeling that I experienced then and which accompanied me for a long time was fear.” (Dagun Omaev).

“Mom fell ill. We had a red blanket and there were a lot of lice crawling on it. I lay down next to her, clinging to her, she was so hot. Then my mother sent me to ask someone for whey and make cakes from corn flour and bake them. I went, but in those houses in which the doors were opened for me, they did not understand what I wanted: I did not know either Russian or Kazakh.

Somehow I still managed to make a flat cake. She lit the straw and put a piece of dough there. You can imagine how he got baked there. But she still broke off a piece. I see mom lying with her mouth open. I put this piece of dough there and lay down next to her. I didn’t understand that my mother was already dead. For two days I lay next to her, snuggling with her, trying to warm myself.

Finally, the cold forced me to go outside. Undressed, hungry, I stood in the bitter cold and cried. A Kazakh woman passing by clasped her hands and ran away somewhere. After some time, another woman, a German, came with her. She gave me a cup of hot milk, wrapped me in a blanket, sat me on the stove, and she began to work to bury my mother. I was four years old at the time.” (Lidiya Arsangireeva).

“In that first winter, almost a third of the special settlers died from typhus, hunger and cold. Many of our close relatives also died. But we children never saw our mother cry. And only once, when Father Oman died, we saw through a crack in the barn how my mother, locked there, holding back her sobs, beat herself with a stick in order to drown out the mental pain with physical pain.” (Gubati Galaeva).

Almost everyone knows about the fact of the deportation of Chechens and Ingush, but few know the true reason for this relocation.

The fact is that since January 1940, the underground organization of Khasan Israilov operated in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, whose goal was to separate the North Caucasus from the USSR and create on its territory a federation of a state of all the mountain peoples of the Caucasus, except the Ossetians. The latter, as well as the Russians living in the region, according to Israilov and his associates, should have been completely destroyed. Khasan Israilov himself was a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and at one time graduated from the Communist University of the Working People of the East named after I.V. Stalin.

Israilov began his political activity in 1937 with a denunciation of the leadership of the Chechen-Ingush Republic. Initially, Israilov and eight of his associates themselves went to prison for libel, but soon the local leadership of the NKVD changed, Israilov, Avtorkhanov, Mamakaev and his other like-minded people were released, and in their place were imprisoned those against whom they had written a denunciation.

Khasan Israilov

However, Israilov did not rest on this. During the period when the British were preparing an attack on the USSR (for more details, see the article), he creates an underground organization with the goal of raising an uprising against Soviet power at the moment when the British land in Baku, Derbent, Poti and Sukhum.

However, British agents demanded that Israilov begin independent actions even before the British attack on the USSR. On instructions from London, Israilov and his gang were to attack the Grozny oil fields and disable them in order to create a shortage of fuel in the Red Army units fighting in Finland. The operation was scheduled for January 28, 1940. Now in Chechen mythology this bandit raid has been elevated to the rank of a national uprising.

In fact, there was only an attempt to set fire to the oil storage facility, which was repulsed by the facility’s security. Israilov, with the remnants of his gang, switched to an illegal situation - holed up in mountain villages, the bandits, for the purpose of self-supply, from time to time attacked food stores.

However, with the beginning of the war, Israilov’s foreign policy orientation changed dramatically - now he began to hope for help from the Germans. Israilov’s representatives crossed the front line and handed the German intelligence representative a letter from their leader. On the German side, Israilov began to be supervised by military intelligence. The curator was Colonel Osman Gube.

Osman Gube

This man, an Avar by nationality, was born in the Buynaksky region of Dagestan, served in the Dagestan regiment of the Caucasian native division. In 1919 he joined the army of General Denikin, in 1921 he emigrated from Georgia to Trebizond, and then to Istanbul. In 1938, Gube joined the Abwehr, and with the outbreak of war he was promised the position of head of the “political police” of the North Caucasus.

Chechen volunteer from the eastern battalions of the Wehrmacht.

In total, during the three years of the war, 49,362 Chechens and Ingush deserted from the ranks of the Red Army, another 13,389 evaded conscription, for a total of 62,751 people. Only 2,300 people died at the fronts and went missing (and the latter include those who went over to the enemy). The Buryat people, who were half smaller in number and were not threatened by the German occupation, lost 13 thousand people at the front, and the Ossetians, who were one and a half times smaller than the Chechens and Ingush, lost almost 11 thousand. At the same time when the decree on resettlement was published, there were only 8,894 Chechens, Ingush and Balkars in the army. That is, ten times more deserted than fought.

Two years after his first raid, on January 28, 1942, Israilov organized the OPKB - “Special Party of Caucasian Brothers,” which aims to “create in the Caucasus a free fraternal Federative Republic of the states of the fraternal peoples of the Caucasus under the mandate of the German Empire.” He later renamed this party the “National Socialist Party of the Caucasian Brothers.” In February 1942, when the Nazis occupied Taganrog, an associate of Israilov, the former chairman of the Forestry Council of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Mairbek Sheripov, raised an uprising in the villages of Shatoi and Itum-Kale. The villages were soon liberated, but some of the rebels went to the mountains, from where they carried out partisan attacks. So, on June 6, 1942, at about 17:00 in the Shatoi region, a group of armed bandits on the way to the mountains fired at a truck with traveling Red Army soldiers in one gulp. Of the 14 people traveling in the car, three were killed and two were wounded. The bandits disappeared into the mountains. On August 17, Mairbek Sheripov’s gang actually destroyed the regional center of the Sharoevsky district.

In order to prevent the bandits from seizing oil production and oil refining facilities, one NKVD division had to be brought into the republic, and during the most difficult period of the Battle of the Caucasus, military units of the Red Army had to be removed from the front.

However, it took a long time to catch and neutralize the gangs - the bandits, warned by someone, avoided ambushes and withdrew their units from the attacks. Conversely, targets that were attacked were often left unguarded. So, just before the attack on the regional center of the Sharoevsky district, an operational group and a military unit of the NKVD, which were intended to protect the regional center, were withdrawn from the regional center. Subsequently, it turned out that the bandits were protected by the head of the department for combating banditry of the Chechen Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Lieutenant Colonel GB Aliyev. And later, among the things of the murdered Israilov, a letter from the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs of Checheno-Ingushetia, Sultan Albogachiev, was found. It was then that it became clear that all Chechens and Ingush (and Albogachiev was Ingush), regardless of their position, were dreaming of how to harm the Russians. and they did harm very actively.

However, on November 7, 1942, on the 504th day of the war, when Hitler’s troops in Stalingrad tried to break through our defenses in the Glubokaya Balka area between the Red October and Barrikady factories, in Checheno-Ingushetia, by the forces of the NKVD troops with the support of individual units of the 4th Kuban Cavalry Corps carried out a special operation to eliminate gangs. Mairbek Sheripov was killed in the battle, and Gube was captured on the night of January 12, 1943 near the village of Akki-Yurt.

However, bandit attacks continued. They continued thanks to the support of the bandits by the local population and local authorities. Despite the fact that from June 22, 1941 to February 23, 1944, 3,078 gang members were killed and 1,715 people were captured in Checheno-Ingushtia, it was clear that as long as someone gave the bandits food and shelter, it would be impossible to defeat banditry. That is why on January 31, 1944, the USSR State Defense Committee Resolution No. 5073 was adopted on the abolition of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the deportation of its population to Central Asia and Kazakhstan.

On February 23, 1944, Operation Lentil began, during which 180 trains of 65 wagons each were sent from Checheno-Ingushenia with a total of 493,269 people resettled. 20,072 firearms were seized. While resisting, 780 Chechens and Ingush were killed, and 2016 were arrested for possession of weapons and anti-Soviet literature.

6,544 people managed to hide in the mountains. But many of them soon descended from the mountains and surrendered. Israilov himself was mortally wounded in battle on December 15, 1944.

Almost everyone knows about the fact of the deportation of Chechens and Ingush, but few know the true reason for this relocation.

The fact is that since January 1940, an underground organization has been operating in the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic Khasan Israilov, which set as its goal the separation of the North Caucasus from the USSR and the creation on its territory of a federation of a state of all the mountain peoples of the Caucasus, except for the Ossetians. The latter, as well as the Russians living in the region, according to Israilov and his associates, should have been completely destroyed. Khasan Israilov himself was a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and at one time graduated from the Communist University of the Working People of the East named after I.V. Stalin.

However, Israilov did not rest on this. At a time when the British were preparing an attack on the USSR, he created an underground organization with the goal of raising an uprising against Soviet power at the moment when the British landed in Baku, Derbent, Poti and Sukhum. However, British agents demanded that Israilov begin independent actions even before the British attack on the USSR. On instructions from London, Israilov and his gang were to attack the Grozny oil fields and disable them in order to create a shortage of fuel in the Red Army units fighting in Finland. The operation was scheduled for January 28, 1940. Now in Chechen mythology this bandit raid has been elevated to the rank of a national uprising. In fact, there was only an attempt to set fire to the oil storage facility, which was repulsed by the facility’s security. Israilov, with the remnants of his gang, switched to an illegal situation - holed up in mountain villages, the bandits, for the purpose of self-supply, from time to time attacked food stores.

German paratroopers were sent to Chechnya, including Gube himself, and a German radio transmitter began operating in the forests of the Shali region, communicating between the Germans and the rebels. The first action of the rebels was an attempt to disrupt mobilization in Checheno-Ingushetia. During the second half of 1941, the number of deserters amounted to 12 thousand 365 people, evading conscription - 1093. During the first mobilization of Chechens and Ingush into the Red Army in 1941, it was planned to form a cavalry division from their composition, but when it was recruited, only 50% (4247) were recruited people) from the existing conscript contingent, and 850 people from those already recruited upon arrival at the front immediately went over to the enemy. In total, during the three years of the war, 49,362 Chechens and Ingush deserted from the ranks of the Red Army, another 13,389 evaded conscription, for a total of 62,751 people. Only 2,300 people died at the fronts and went missing (and the latter include those who went over to the enemy). The Buryat people, who were half smaller in number and were not threatened by the German occupation, lost 13 thousand people at the front, and the Ossetians, who were one and a half times smaller than the Chechens and Ingush, lost almost 11 thousand. At the same time when the decree on resettlement was published, there were only 8,894 Chechens, Ingush and Balkars in the army. That is, ten times more deserted than fought.

In order to prevent the bandits from seizing oil production and oil refining facilities, one NKVD division had to be introduced into the republic, and also during the most difficult period The battle for the Caucasus remove the military units of the Red Army from the front.

However, bandit attacks continued. They continued thanks to the support of the bandits by the local population and local authorities. Despite the fact that from June 22, 1941 to February 23, 1944, 3,078 gang members were killed in Checheno-Ingushtia And 1,715 people were captured, it was clear that as long as someone gave the bandits food and shelter, it would be impossible to defeat banditry. That is why on January 31, 1944, the USSR State Defense Committee Resolution No. 5073 was adopted on the abolition of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the deportation of its population to Central Asia and Kazakhstan.

On February 23, 1944, Operation Lentil began, during which 180 trains of 65 wagons each were sent from Checheno-Ingushenia with a total of 493,269 people resettled. 20,072 firearms were seized. While resisting, 780 Chechens and Ingush were killed, and 2016 were arrested for possession of weapons and anti-Soviet literature.

6,544 people managed to hide in the mountains. But many of them soon descended from the mountains and surrendered. Israilov himself was mortally wounded in battle on December 15, 1944.