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71 
 
“The members of the Central Committee held a meeting and concluded that 
with such a crowd it would be impossible for the congress of accredited 
delegates to meet. …It was decided that the congress itself would be held in 
Vedeno and the delegates would return there from Andi.”
180
 
 
This Congress was being perceived as the revitalization of the period and of 
the state of Imam Shamil, which was interrupted by the capture of Shamil
181
, and 
the Constitution of the Union, which was prepared by the First Congress, was 
finalized and ratified. The basic provisions and the charter on the basis of civil 
codes and local traditions were prepared. Najmuddin Gotsinskiy was elected as the 
Mufti of the entire population of the North Caucasus and Dagestan.
182
 Following 
the formation of the new Central Committee, which was consisted of five 
members, under the leadership of Abdulmejid Chermoev, the works of the 
Congress was ended.
183
 
In this early period the leaders of the movement, despite their varying 
ideologies had worked towards the ideal of establishing a unified administrative 
structure that would encompass the entire North Caucasus within a federal-
democratic Russia. In order to represent the rights and interest of the North 
Caucasian peoples in the best manner possible they tried to create a unified body. 
 
                                                 
180
 Kosok, “Revolution and Sovietization II,” 47. 
181
 Ahmed Magoma, 1957. “Komünistlerin İmam  Şamil Hakkında Fikir Değiştirmeleri ve Onun 
Sebepleri,” Dergi, (Munich), 3(8): 28, Hereafter ‘Şamil’ and Aziz Meker, “Kafkas,” 10. 
182
 The other names which were elected as Najmuddin Gotsinskiy’s religious staff as follows: Ali 
Haji Akushinskiy, Hasan Efendi Kakhibskiy, Abusufiyan Kazanishchenskiy, Ulagay Kadi 
Urakhinskiy and Ali Kadi Kayaev. Kashkaev, Ot Fevralya, 45. 
183
 For the passed resolutions of the Congress see Kosok, “Revolution and Sovietization II,” 47-8. 

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72 
 
C-Cossacks and the Mountaineers: 
By September, nevertheless, the situation in the North Caucasus, in line 
with Russia in general, became more problematic. It is important to note that the 
Mountaineers were not alone in their struggle of self-governance within the North 
Caucasian territory. The forced emigration of the Mountaineers and the forced 
settlement of the Cossack and Russian populations already changed the 
demographic balance of the region. The living standards of the Cossacks were 
much higher than that of the Mountaineers. They were also better educated, had 
more land and greater privileges, and more importantly retained their military 
organizations.
184
 After the revolution in February, through their own representative 
assemblies, called Krug in the Don and Rada in the Kuban, the Cossacks already 
started their own struggle in the region.
185
 
The Central Committee of the Union of the Mountaineers had been 
following the activities of the Cossacks closely and had close contacts with the 
newly establishing Cossack organizations. On the eve of the Bolshevik coup, the 
Central Committee officially asked for negotiations with the Cossacks in 
Vladikavkaz. As a result, in the same month, October 1917, the Alliance of the 
Mountain Peoples and the Terek Military Government established a new political 
                                                 
184
 In the course of the time, in late eighteen century the Cossacks lost their autonomy. And more 
than that, the central government no longer allowed them to choose their atamans. Nevertheless, 
because of their primary role as the main servants of the Russian Tsars during the expansion of the 
Russian Empire towards southward, they allowed organizing themselves into eleven voiskas (an 
autonomous territory or community in which there were no class distinctions and no private land)–
Don, Kuban, Terek, Astrakhan, Ural, Orenburg, Siberia, Transbaikal, Semirechie, Amur and Ussuri. 
Among them the Don and the Kuban were by far the most important. See James Bunyan and H. H. 
Fisher, 1934. The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1918. Documents and Materials, California: Stanford 
University Press, 401-402. Peter Kenez, 1971. Civil War in South Russia, 1918: The First Year of 
the Volunteer Army, Berkeley: University of California Press, 37-39. 

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73 
 
body, Terek-Dagestan Government (Tersko-Dagestanskoe Pravitel’stvo)
186
, (which 
was to join the Southeastern Union (Yugo-vostochniy soyuz),
187
 to counter the 
Bolshevik threat.  The objectives of this new organ were the same as those of the 
congresses of Mountaineers and Cossacks previously determined: the 
establishment of the Russian Federal Democratic Republic, the approval of the 
autonomous position of the constituent members, and establishing administrative 
order over the territories of the new organ.
188
 
 
However, this new government did not last long. The Bolshevik coup took 
place, and on 6 November 1917, the Central Committee together with the Military 
Government of Terek Cossacks issued an extraordinary resolution.
189
 They 
abolished their stillborn government, or union, and shared the responsibilities and 
sovereignty over their own regions with unclarified borders.
190
 Then the majority 
of the Terek Cossacks, fearing that they would have to cede part of their land to the 
Mountaineers began to support the Bolsheviks. Thus, in November 1917 the 
                                                                                                                                        
185
 Olga Andriewsky, spring 1979. “The Triumph of Particularism: The Kuban Cossacks in 1917,” 
Journal of Ukrainian Graduate Studies, 6: 29-41. Also see W. G. Glaskow, 1972. History of the 
Cossacks, New York: R. Speller and Sons, 98-132. 
186
 In that government, from the side of the Mountaineers, Pshemaho Kotsev, Haydar Bammatov, 
Reshid Khan Kaplanov, Vassan Girey Jabagiev, B. Malachkhanov, Ibrahim Haydarov, H. 
Shakhsuvarov and A. Butayev were chosen as the ministers, and Ali Khan Kantemir was nominated 
as the Speaker of the Parliament. Sbornik, 57; and Kashkaev, Ot Fevralya, 229-232. 
187
 Richard Pipes, 1997. The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917-
1923. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge Un. Press, 97 and Kurtatag, “Zadachi,” 5-6. Related 
with the formation of this union also see Sefer E. Berzeg, November/January 1964-1965. “General 
Sultan Kılıç Girey (1917-1921 Yıllarında Kuzey Kafkasya- Bolşevik Rusya Mücadelelerinden 
Sahneler),”  Birleşik Kafkasya, (İstanbul), 2: 50. Mirza Bala, 1958. “Kafkasya İstiklâl  İlânının 
Kırkıncı Yıldönümü Münasebetile,” Dergi, (Munich), 4(12): 9. 
188
 Sbornik, 56-57. 
189
 Sbornik, appendix no. 3, 75. This resolution was being signed by M. A. Karaulov, B.I. Abramov, 
D. I. Elanskiy, S. A Cherkasov, D. S. Tkachev and M. I. Gujev on behalf of Cossacks, and A. T. 
Chermoev, P. Kotsev, T. Alhazov, R Kaplanov, V. G. Jabagiev and T. Pensulayev on behalf of the 
Central Committee. 

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