Terek Cossacks - Terek Cossacks During The Soviet Times

Terek Cossacks During The Soviet Times

The arrival of the February and later the October Revolution caught most Cossacks on the front lines in Kurdistan. The unrequited mountainous peoples took full advantage of the crises, Chechens and Ingush on the Sunzha line wiping out several Cossack stanitsas. The Bolsheviks were able to establish themselves in Grozny and Vladikavkaz, though Denikin's Volunteer Army drove them out across the Caucasian lands to Astrakhan.

Although Cossacks did form a substantial part of Denikin's units, the Terek Cossacks were mostly involved in fighting the Caucasus insurgency against their traditional adversaries (Denikin's units became known among native Caucasians for their brutality and their association with the Cossacks). In 1920 many Terek Cossacks were deported to Ukraine and the northern part of European Russia and a new Mountain ASSR was formed. This left the former Sunzha-Terek Mesopotamia triangle split by the returned Chechen land stretching through the middle. The remaining portions were formed by the Sunzha Cossack District which also encompassed lands around Grozny. However, the Sunzha's importance to the Vainakh peoples as their historical territorial heart ensured that the early communists, mindful of the claims of indigenous peoples, would return it in order to turn them from the Mensheviks toward the Bolsheviks (to balance out the anti-Bolshevik Cossacks). A deadlock formed in the Northern Caucasus. On one hand, the Cossacks were very adverse to Bolshevism, and the latter responded with a Decossackization policy. On the other hand, many mountainous peoples were hostile to any Russian rule, Red or White (most originally looked to the Reds as a force also fighting against their foes, the Cossacks, but after the Reds began adopting similar policies as their Tzarist predecessors, resentment resurfaced), and continued fighting Russian/Cossack populations. In the end, the Red Army had to use Cossack tactics and hire local population to police the region. The idea of sandwiching a Cossack district within a Chechen autonomy was seen as a solution.

In the 1930s, to make the mountainous autonomies more sustainable in economical terms, they were united with the remaining Cossack holdings: the Sunzha district was retaken by the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, the former capital of the Terek Oblast, Vladikavkaz became the administrative centre for North Ossetia, likewise the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous Oblast was also awarded to Cossack territories. On the lower Terek, between 1923 and 1937, the Dagestan ASSR administered the extensive territory there (Kizlyar, Terek Delta). Thus by the start of the Second World War only the historical Terek Left-bank was not administered by autonomies. However, on the other hand, all these lands (northern Chechnya, Kizlyar, Little Kabarda, historical North Ossetia, East Prigorodny/Western Ingushetia, etc.) had historically been inhabited by Caucasian peoples before the end of the Caucasian Wars.

Thus by the start of the Second World War only the historical Terek Left-bank was not administered by autonomies, however, most of the administration and urban population of those regions was dominated by ethnic Russians. This was paralleled with the gradual down-folding of anti-Cossack repressions and their eventual rehabilitation by the mid-1930s, including forming numerous units in the Red Army.

During the Second World War, Cossacks fought on both sides of the conflict. Many Cossack emerges POWs joined Nazi Germany who promised to free their lands from Bolshevism. Terek Cossacks made up the Vth regiment of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Cossack Division. Soon the war came to Cossack lands themselves, in 1942 the Nazi offensive Case Blue, and by autumn, the western regions of the former Terek Cossack Hosts, were occupied. By November, the Battle of the Caucasus reached North Ossetia, and were Germans were already making plans to lease the oilfields in Grozny. Most of the Cossack population took part in repelling the invader.

During the 1920s and 30s, despite efforts of Soviet Union of pacify the mountainous peoples via different programmes, such as Korenizatsiya, there was still low-level criminal secession movements in the highlands. Nazi Germany decided to use this friction in creating a fifth column out of them. In the central Caucasus, these were the Karachay and Balkars who carried out low-level insurgency. Further east, these were the Vainakhs and an existing insurgency by a Khasan Israilov was fuelled by supplies via Nazi paradrops. By autumn 1942, the insurgency diverted significant Red Army resources, including aviation.

However, after the Battle of Stalingrad the Germans began a mass evacuation from the Caucasus. The price that mountainous people paid was dear, in late 1943 as part of Soviet Collective punishment, Operation Lentil began, which saw a total deportation of all Chechens, Ingush, Karachay and Balkar people to Kazakhstan. In the aftermath, most of the land was portioned, between loyal mountainous peoples such as Kabardins, Ossetians and Dagestanis, and Russians and Cossacks. For example a vast Grozny Oblast was created encompassing almost all of the historic lower-Terek Cossack lands, whilst North Ossetia took the Sunzha and Kabardin ASSR had central line cossack stanitsas.

This status quo continued until the second half of the 1950s, when there was once again a cool-down in Soviet government towards Cossacks after the death of Joseph Stalin. In 1957, all of the deported mountainous people were rehabilitated, and their republics restored. However this was not done in previous borders, for example, the historic homeland of lower Terek, Naursky and Schyolkovsky districts were incorporated into the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, whilst the Kizlyar district was passed onto Dagestan. Old problems of land ownership quickly resurfaced, and many returning Chechens and Ingush, forbidden to re-settle in the mountains, were settled in Cossack stanitsas.

The politics of Stagnationed USSR, towards titular nations was also two-faced, on one hand all signs of nationalism were repressed, on the other hand Soviet authorities actively encouraged assignation of jobs and selection to the minorities rather than Russians. As a result, of the positive discrimination and better economic prospects in other regions of the USSR, many Russians migrated from the Northern Caucasus to other regions, such as the Tselina, Russian Far East and the Baltic Republics. Naturally, the high birth rate, of the mountainous peoples, meant that many sold their homes to them.

Although this hid the historic adversity between Russians and Caucasus people, it never removed the tension, as both sides saw each other gaining favours at their expense.