175
organizations in Turkey were very different to earlier European ones. “In Europe,
an overt and covert political struggle was waged while in Turkey the keynote of the
effort was preservation of an endangered community.”
452
These groups and their activities, in contrast to earlier European groups,
interestingly enough, were not well informed on events in the Soviet Union and the
North Caucasus region itself, nor were they particularly concerned with the
situation there.
During this period, the situation in the North Caucasus was much more
dramatic than during the pre-War period. In late 1943 and early 1944 Stalin
deported seven nationalities completely from their native countries to the Central
Asia and Siberia, officially, for collaboration with the German armies. Among
these nations were four North Caucasian nationalities: the Chechens, the Ingush,
the Karachays and the Balkars.
453
Despite the Soviet claims of collaboration, the Germans in fact only reached
to the Russian-inhabited Malgobek district in what is today northwestern
Ingushetia and thus occupied only some parts of the Karachay and Balkar
Balkan Göçmen Derneklerileri: Sivil Toplum ve Milliyetçilik,” in Stefanos Yerasimos, ed.
Türkiye’de Sivil Toplum ve Milliyetçilik. 2001. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 451-460 and 425-449.
For a deatiled study on the North Caucasians publications see Lowell Bezanis, 1994. “Soviet
Muslim emigrés in the Republic of Turkey,” Central Asian Survey, 13(1): 59-180.
452
Bezanis, “Soviet Muslim emigrés”, 92. He also stressed that the “North Caucasian activism after
1950 served several purposes: to connect, inform and help preserve the North Caucasian community
in Turkey, to counter assimilation, to fight communism in and out of Turkey, and to accomplish this
within the parameters of acceptable political behavior in Turkey.”
453
The other three were the Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, and the Volga Germans. For a detailed
account of the deportations see R. Conquest, 1960. The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities, London:
Macmillan & Co. Ltd. Alexandr Nekrich, 1978. The Punished Peoples: the Deportation and fate of
Soviet minorities at the end of the Second World War, (trnsl.) George Saunders. New York: Norton.
Abdurahman Avtorkhanov, “The Chechens and the Ingush during the Soviet Period and its
Antecedents,” in The North Caucasus Barrier, 184-192.
176
territories in autumn 1942. They stayed until March 1943 and never reached the
lands inhabited by the Chechens and Ingush. Thus Stalin’s accusations were
unfounded. The selection of the peoples to deport, as Cornell put it, was the
indication of the purpose of act: “the Chechens were traditionally the leaders of
Caucasian rebellions, the Karachais and Balkars were both of Turkic origin, and
were thus a potential pro-Turkish fifth column. These were the peoples seen as
most dangerous to Soviet rule.”
454
In November and December 1943 all the Karachays were loaded on cattle
wagons and transported to the Central Asia and Siberia. In February 1944 the
Chechens and the Ingush, and in, March the Balkars followed them. In numbers,
these deported North Caucasians comprised nearly half of the total deportees. The
Chechens and Ingush alone totalled half a million. The former republics of these
deported groups were, naturally dissolved and their territories were redistributed
among the other neighbouring peoples. The peoples who used to live in the
mountainous areas were forcibly resettled in the rural lowlands, while the Russians
were drawn into the towns and cities. Not until the late 1950s were the deportees
allowed return. Nevertheless, they lost more than a half of their populations over
the course of deportation.
In January 1957 the Chechen-Ingush ASSR and the autonomy of the
Balkars, Karachays and Kalmyks was re-established. But the Soviet regime created
a new discord among the Mountaineers. Clashes began to take place between the
returnees and those who had been forcibly resettled in their former lands, with each
454
Svante E. Cornell, 2001. Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in
the Caucasus, Surrey: Curzon, 31.
177
side claiming the right to the territory. The iron fist of the Soviet regime, however,
suppressed these discords and clashes in a ruthless manner.
455
1- Perestroika and Glasnost’:
Following the election of Mikhail Gorbachev as First Secretary of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in March 1985. The Soviet Union
experienced major social, political and economic upheavals. This was activated by
the efforts of the reform-minded leadership to carry out a so-called well-planned
comprehensive reorganisation of the country. This ‘revolution from above’
inadvertently fuelled a scale of ethnic unrest unparalleled in Soviet history, as the
various nationalities of the world’s largest multi ethnic society seized the
opportunities opened by glasnost’ (openness) and democratization to put forward
demands for greater national self-determination.
456
Moreover, the complex and
three-tiered hierarchy of ethnically defined, administrative units, of the Soviet
Union did not affect the situation positively.
457
When the Union Republics
demanded sovereignty in the late 1980s, autonomous republics and oblasts began
to demand a higher status and greater rights.
455
The North Caucasian emigres were closely interested with the deportations and several numbers
of articles were written on the issue. See, A. Bahadur, August 1951. “Kuzey Kafkasyada Halkın
Toptan İmhası,” Kafkasya (Der Kaukasus), (Munich), 1: 10-12. Vassan-Ghiray Djabagui, 1955.
“Soviet Nationality Policy and Genocide,” Caucasian Review, (Munich), 1: 71-80. R. Karcha, 1956.
“Genocide in the Northern Caucasus,” Caucasian Review, (Munich), 2: 74-84. R. Traho, 1957. “The
Restoration of National Autonomy in the Northern Caucasus,” Caucasian Review, (Munich), 4: 7-8.
R. Karcha, 1957. “The Restoration of the Liquidated Republics and the Rehabilitation of the
Deported Peoples,” Caucasian Review, (Munich), 5: 41-46.
456
Graham Smith, 1996. “The Soviet State and Nationalities Policy,” in Graham Smith, eds., The
Nationalities Question in the Post-Soviet States.London: Longman, 2-22.
457
In late 1980s, the Soviet Union was consisted of 15 Union Republics (RSFSR and 14 SSRs) and
administratively divided among 20 Autonomous Republics, 8 Autonomous Oblasts (AO). In
addition to that, there were 6 Krais and several numbers of Okrugs.
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