Country: Russia

Group: Chechens

Date Finalized: 11/16/2022

Team: Samuel Kniery (Lead), Hajer Rahee, Jhanz Marco Garcia, Zaida Yancy

Content Warning: Lethal Violence, Ethnocide

Approximate Time Period: 1940-1957, 1994-2009

The Chechens are a predominately Muslim ethnic group that primarily resides in the North Caucus Mountains (MRG, 2015). In the early 1940s, growing concerns over the potential for ethnopolitical rebellions in the oil-rich region prompted the Soviet government to implement social control strategies that involved the torture and murder of suspected Chechen dissidents (Burds, 2007). In late January 1944, the Soviet State Defense Committee issued Order No. 5073, secretly decreeing the removal of Chechens from their homeland (Brauer, 2002; Zhanbossinova & Kazbekova, 2019). On February 23, under the leadership of the Peoples Commissariat of Internal Affairs, Soviet soldiers (NKVD) invited the Chechen people to gather in the public squares as part of a “Red Army Day” celebration. When the Chechen people arrived, NKVD officers denounced them as traitors to the Soviet Union (Brauer, 2002; MRG, 2015). At gunpoint, the officers informed the Chechens that they would have 10-15 minutes to abandon their homes and prepare for deportation. When time elapsed, soldiers shot, drowned, and used explosive devices on hundreds of Chechens, many of whom could not understand the orders given in the Russian language (Williams, 2000).

Over the next several weeks, the NKVD sealed an estimated 459,486 Chechens into Studebaker cattle cars stained with blood, feces, and coal dust (Brauer, 2002; MRG, 2015; Zhanbossinova & Kazbekova, 2019). Soviet officials poisoned local food and water supplies to kill any Chechens who escaped the deportation and slaughter (Williams, 2000). Because the NKVD barred Chechens from bringing additional clothing, food, or water, the train stopped every 10 hours to dispose of thousands of dehydrated and starving Chechens, tossing the dead into the snow and leaving the living to freeze to death (Williams, 2000; Zhanbossinova & Kazbekova, 2019). Typhoid quickly spread in the claustrophobic conditions of the cars, killing thousands more (MRG, 2015). The indecency of toilets on the trains, often just a small hole in the middle of the cattle car, caused many Chechen women to hold their bladders until they burst (Brauer, 2002). Numerous pregnant Chechen mothers, forced to give birth in crowded train cars, died of complications. NKVD soldiers shot any Chechen that attempted to open the car’s hatches with assault rifles (Zhanbossinova & Kazbekova, 2019).

In the first month of resettlement, primarily in Central Asia, declassified Soviet records indicate that over 20% of Chechens died during the deportation and an additional 70,000 died after arriving at their destination (MRG, 2015; Williams, 2000; Zhanbossinova & Kazbekova, 2019). Although the local populations of Kazakhstan largely supported the “special settlers,” the lack of adequate housing and food for the Chechens precipitated occasional violent clashes (Brauer, 2002; Zhanbossinova & Kazbekova, 2019). Soviet administrators sent thousands of uncompliant Chechens to Siberian gulags, where hundreds more died (Williams, 2000). Soviet soldiers beat and tortured Chechens who spoke of a possible return to Chechnya. Beginning in July 1954 and formalized in January 1957, the USSR allowed Chechens to return to their homeland. However, upon returning, many Chechens found traditional villages destroyed, worship sites and graveyards defaced, and land occupied by Russian settlers, frequently resulting in violent confrontations (Brauer, 2002; MRG, 2015).

The Russo-Chechen wars, occurring from 1994-1996 and 1999-2009, left more than 200,000 Chechen civilians dead (MRG, 2015; Russell, 2005). The disappearance and murder of numerous Chechens, including the assassination of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov in 2005 and human rights activist and journalist Natalya Estemirova in 2009, remain unsolved (MRG, 2015).

Decades of deliberate attacks on the ethnic Chechen population by the USSR and the subsequent Russian Federation demonstrate a clear and well-supported instance of lethal violence. Given the present sociopolitical instability in the region related to the ongoing Azerbaijan-Armenian conflict, the Russo-Ukrainian War, and the discriminatory rhetoric of Russian officials, the potential for future lethal violence against Chechens remains high (Myre, 2022; Russell, 2005; Sipos, 2019).

Data Quality: Data quality for Chechen lethal violence is rated a 3/3 due to significant historical and contemporary peer-reviewed research among academics and non-profit organizations.

Sources

  1. Brauer, B. (2002). Chechens and the survival of their cultural identity in exile. Journal of Genocide Research, 4(3), 387–400. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520220151970
  2. Burds, J. (2007). The Soviet War against `Fifth Columnists’: The Case of Chechnya, 1942—4. Journal of Contemporary History, 42(2), 267–314. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022009407075545
  3. MRG. (2015, June 19). Chechens. Minority Rights Group. https://minorityrights.org/minorities/chechens/
  4. Myre, G. (2022, March 12). Russia’s wars in Chechnya offer a grim warning of what could be in Ukraine. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/03/12/1085861999/russias-wars-in-chechnya-offer-a-grim-warning-of-what-could-be-in-ukraine
  5. Russell, J. (2005). Terrorists, bandits, spooks and thieves: Russian demonisation of the Chechens before and since 9/11. Third World Quarterly, 26(1), 101–116. https://doi.org/10.1080/0143659042000322937
  6. Sipos, M. (2019). Informal practices and the street-level construction of migrant deportability: Chechen refugees and local authorities in Polish accommodation centres for asylum seekers. Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies, 45(7), 1168–1184. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2017.1409106
  7. Williams, B. G. (2000). Commemorating “The Deportation” in Post-Soviet Chechnya: The Role of Memorialization and Collective Memory in the 1994-1996 and 1999-2000 Russo-Chechen Wars. History and Memory, 12(1), 101–134. https://doi.org/10.2979/his.2000.12.1.101
  8. Zhanbossinova, A. S., & Kazbekova, A. T. (2019). Chechen Frontier in the Socio-Cultural Space of East Kazakhstan in Conditions of Deportation. Space and Culture, India, 7(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.20896/saci.v7i1.413