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According to the Ministry, the organisation encompassed as collective members, 
eight associations and political parties in the North Caucasus, and had set itself the 
task of bringing together various public and political forces to achieve peace and 
reconciliation in the region and to develop friendship and cooperation there.
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 The 
Association’s general-secretary was Schimidt Dzoblayev, and its executive 
committee was located in Moscow. 
 
In addition, Moscow began to be closely interested in the economic 
problems of the North Caucasus republics. Through the Council of Associations of 
Socio-economic Cooperation of the Republics, Territories and Regions in the North 
Caucasus, Moscow implemented a socio-economic development program, which, 
in fact, aimed to control the region and establish a foothold to prevent any kind of a 
separatist activity. 
 
7- The Cossack Factor and the CPC: 
During the October 1992 Congress, the Confederation renamed itself the 
Confederation of the Caucasian Peoples (CCP) (Konfederatsiia Narodov Kavkaza), 
representing a comprehensive and powerful consolidated body of organization, 
comprising mainly Cossacks and other peoples. In Shanibov’s words, this decision 
made this congress a turning point in the history of the entire Caucasus. At this 
very moment, he said, “the Caucasus was facing the acute question: to be or not to 
be”. 
                                                 
528
 “New organization set up to promote peace in Northern Caucasus,” SWB SU/1661, B/11, 13 
April 1993. 

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Initially, membership of the Assembly was restricted to mountaineers and 
native non-Slavic population of the North Caucasus. However, the reputation had 
been growing Confederation in parallel with the size of its member peoples. At last, 
the Confederation opened itself to the Cossacks of the region. By so doing, the 
Confederation’s leadership aimed to change the extremely negative view the 
Russian population of the North Caucasus had of it, and to neutralise Russian 
reservations about its activities. In fact, the Cossacks and other Slavic populations, 
during that period, were among the component parts of the North Caucasus and had 
a lot of power in the region, causing some territorial disputes with other North 
Caucasian groups. 
 
The Cossack revival went back to the period of 1989 and 1990. As Hill 
pointed out, Cossack clubs first began to spring up in the North Caucasus in 1989 
with Kuban Cossack clubs formed in Krasnodar and Don Cossack clubs in 
Stavropol. The first Congress of the Cossacks of the North Caucasus took place in 
December 1991. These clubs focused on ethno-cultural revival, encouraging a dual 
Russian-Cossack identity among the region’s Slavic inhabitants, and promoting 
Cossacks as indigenous inhabitants of the North Caucasus on a par with the non-
Russian “titular nationalities”.
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Thus, the interests of these Cossack groups’ coincided with those of the 
peoples of the North Caucasus and their clubs inevitably clashed with nationalist 
organisations of the peoples of the North Caucasus. Summer 1992 to winter 1993 
saw the peak of confrontation between the Cossacks and the governments and 

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peoples of the North Caucasian republics. Following the meeting of the Union of 
Cossack Armies of Russia in Moscow in January 1992,  at which Sergey Shakhray 
participated a loose coalition of the Cossacks of Terek, Kuban, Don and Stavropol 
was established. 
In its early period, the Union of Cossacks of South Russia presented itself 
as a direct competitor to the Confederation. It issued demands on the recognition of 
the Cossacks as a repressed people, to the creation of national-territorial formations 
headed by an elected ataman with representation in organs of local governments at 
all levels. In addition, the Union offered to form a Cossack military force to guard 
Russia’s international borders in the region. 
To prevent this revival causing armed clashes with the North Caucasian 
peoples, the Confederation tried to accommodate the Cossacks as an “indigenous 
people” of the region. Then, in early 1993, the renamed Confederation met with 
Cossacks’ representatives to negotiate a cooperation agreement. The first official 
meeting of these groups was held in Pitsunda, Abkhazia on 4-5 April 1993. In this 
conference, the representatives from the Confederation and the Cossacks’ Union of 
the South Russia, decided there was to be roundtables of the Confederation and the 
Cossacks’ Union, with an agreement on different issues ensuing.
530
 
On 28 April 1993, in Stavropol, the representatives of the Confederation 
and the Cossacks’ Union signed an agreement on the principles of cooperation and 
                                                                                                                                        
529
 Fiona Hill, Russia’s Tinderbox, 67-73. 
530
 See Stanislav Lakoba, 1995. “Abkhazia is Abkhazia,” Central Asian Survey, 14(1): 103 and 
Gueorgui Otyrba, 1994. “War in Abkhazia: The Regional Significance of the Georgian-Abkhazian 
conflict.” In Roman Szporluk, ed., National Identity, 301. 

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mutual assistance.
531
 This document guarantees collective security in case of the 
danger of the use of force against the Confederation and the Cossacks. 
The agreement proposed cooperation in defending rights and freedoms in 
the region, eliminating the use of force in solving territorial problems, and 
respecting the right of peoples to self-determination, without raising any territorial 
claims on each other. It stressed in particular that neither the roundtables, nor the 
agreement contradict the Russian Federation Treaty or the new principles.
532
 
 
The conclusion of this agreement was disturbed mainly to the authorities in 
Moscow. While Yeltsin and his cadre were seeking to co-opt the Cossacks against 
the secessionist movements and organizations in the North Caucasus, thıs initiative 
of reconciliation with the well-defined enemy of Moscow’s interests in the region 
provoked Russian interference. In June 1992 Yeltsin issued a decree supporting the 
Cossacks revival movement and the restoration of Cossack economic, cultural and 
patriotic forms of self-governance in the Russian Federation. The decree 
recognized the rights of Cossacks to practice traditional forms of local 
administration and land ownership in areas that would be defined by plebiscite. 
Under the provisions of the decree, Cossacks were to be given grants of land and 
Cossack regiments were to be created by the Ministry of Defence to defend 
international borders and maintain law and order. In March 1993, while the 
Confederation’s leaders were continuing their efforts to establish an alliance with 
                                                 
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 While Yusup Soslambekov and Musa Shanibov were signing the document on behalf of the 
Confederation, Vladimir Gromov, ataman of the all-Kuban host, Petr Fedesov, ataman of the 
Stavropol  Krai Union of Cossacks, Pavel Shirminzhinov, ataman of the Union of Cossacks of 
Kalmykia, and Vasiliy Kaledin, ataman of the Don signed the document in the name of the 
Cossacks. However, ataman of the Tersk Starodubtsev refused to sign the agreement. 

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