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113 
 
In summary, the Russian forces, in this case Bolsheviks, once more ruined 
the second main attempt of the Mountaineers to establish a unified, sovereign 
North Caucasian State. In this struggle, Mountaineers did not have the chance to 
create a long-lasting, effective, and comprehensive state structure and bureaucracy. 
Moreover, in different parts, as in Shamil’s period, the Mountaineers took varying 
attitudes towards the existing authorities of the various groups, or the peoples who 
declared their own rules and could easily establish contradicting and ephemeral 
alliances with one another. 
In this period, again in contrast to Shamil’s, the foreign powers participated 
directly. The Turkish advance provided the opportunity to establish a Mountaineer 
Republic, but the collapse of the Ottoman Empire halted the activities of the 
Mountaineers for that period. Thus, until then each party, in pursuit of its own 
interests, usually chose one of the powerful external powers. The religious groups 
on the other hand, although they had a considerable power base among the native 
population, didn’t establish contacts with foreign powers and because of their 
discourse, which has constructed solely on the religious motives alienated other 
initial support groups. Moreover, some other groups that were closely associated 
with Denikin caused the emergence of Bolshevik dominance and lost their prestige 
among the Mountaineers. 
With the exception of the first Congress of May 1917, the North Caucasian 
Mountaineers, because of the continuing military clashes, never had a chance to 
deal with the social dimensions of the North Caucasian unity and found themselves 
in a scattered position. 

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CHAPTER III 
THE FOUNDATION OF THE SOVIET UNION AND THE 
ACTIVITIES IN EXILE 
 
1- The Establishment of Soviet Power: 
By 1920 the Bolshevik forces controlled the entire region. The 
Mountaineers last resistance movement, led by Said Shamil, (great-grandson of 
Imam Shamil) and the religious leaders, Uzun Haji and Najmuddin Gotsinskiy 
continued until summer 1921. Some of the former tsarist army officers who fought 
sided with Denikin now, head by Colonel Kaitmas Alikhanov, an Avar, also joined 
this last attempt together with them. Although, initially, they achieved some 
success, with the arrival of the 11
th
 Red Army, the Bolshevik forces suppressed the 
movement in spring 1921.
305
 However, “from 1922 to 1943, the history of 
Chechnia and Daghestan was an almost uninterrupted succession of rebellions, 
counter-expeditions and ‘political-banditism’ –uprisings took place in 1924, 1928, 
1936-…”.
306
 
 
                                                 
305
 For a detailed account of uprising see Marie Bennigsen Broxup, 1992. “The Last Ghazawat: The 
1920-1921 Uprising.” In M. B. Broxup, eds., The North Caucasus Barrier: The Russian Advance 
Towards the Muslim World, London: C. Hurst, 112-145. Alexandre Bennigsen, July 1983. “Muslim 
guerilla Warfare in the Caucasus (1918-1928),” Central Asian Survey, 2(1): 45-56. Also see N. 
Samurskii, “Grazhdanskaia Voina v Dagestane,” Novyi Vostok, (Moscow): 230-240. Al. Todorskii, 
1924. Krasnaia Armiia v gorakh: Deistviia v Dagestane, Moscow: Izdatel’stvo ‘Voennyi Vestnik’. 
Daniyalov, 58-9. 
306
 Broxup, “The Last Ghazawat”, 143. For a detailed account of above-mentioned uprisings see 
Abdurahman Avtorkhanov, “The Chechens and the Ingush during the Soviet Period and its 
Antecedents,” in The North Caucasus Barrier, 146-194. 

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115 
 
In this atmosphere of uprisings and disorder in the North Caucasus, the 
Bolsheviks initiated the process of establishing Communist rule.
307
 Stalin and his 
commissariat of Nationalities, Narkomnats
308
, took the lead by 1920. 
Stalin, formulated the nationalities policy of the Bolshevik party as a 
response to Lenin’s request in his article titled ‘Marxism and the National and 
Colonial Questions’ against the Austro-Marxist theory of ‘extra-territorial cultural 
autonomy’ for national minorities
309
 and the policy of assimilation. In this article 
Stalin provided a restrictive conception of nationhood: “A nation is an historically 
evolved, stable community of people arising on the basis of a community of 
language, territory, economic life, and psychological make up as manifested in a 
community of culture.”
310
 
 
Based on this definition, and directed by Lenin, he developed the Soviet 
interpretation of self-determination. In resolving the Russia’s nationality question, 
Lenin’s main concern was the adoption of a political strategy through which the 
                                                 
307
 For the establishment of Soviet rule in the North Caucasus see Stephen Blank, 1993. “The 
Formation of the Soviet North Caucasus 1918-24,” Central Asian Survey, 12(1): 13-32. Hereafter 
“the Soviet North Caucasus”. Stephen Blank, 1994. The Sorcerer As Apprentice: Stalin as 
Commissar of Nationalities, 1917-1924, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. Hereafter The 
Sorcerer. 
308
 The Narkomnats was established on 25 October 1917 during the Second All-Russian Congress of 
Soviets. On the activities and the history of the Commissariat see Blank’s above mentioned book 
The Sorcerer In addition see Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, 1987. The Great Challenge: Nationalities 
and the Bolshevik State, 1917-1930, transl. by Nancy Festinger, New York: Holmes & Meier, 101-
106. 
309
 For Otto Bauer and Karl Renner, the most prominent Austro-Marxists, the multiethnic character 
and growing political salience of ethnic divisions made the role of nations in the establishment of 
socialism and their future position in a socialist society a far more problematic affair than in the 
established nation-states of Western Europe. There was also the problem of those nationality groups 
living outside their national territories. For them territory was not to be a prerequisite feature of the 
nation; rather, the nation was deemed to be a product of a common history. Consequently, nations 
should be granted cultural autonomy without regard to the compactness of their geographical 
settlements. 

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