Operation Lentil (Caucasus) - Background

Background

During World War II, despite the fact that about 40,000 Chechens and Ingush fought in the Red Army (50 of them received the highest recognition of the Hero of the Soviet Union), the Soviet government accused them of cooperating with the Nazi invaders, who had controlled the western parts of Chechnya-Ingushetia for several months of the 1942/1943 winter. It was claimed that some Chechens were eager to show the Nazis mountain passes leading to Azerbaijan SSR, whose oil reserves were the goal of Operation Blue. In 1940, another Chechen insurgency, led by Khasan Israilov, started in Galanchozh. In February 1942, Mairbek Sheripov's group rebelled in Shatoysky and Itum-Kalinsky Districts. They united with Israilov's army to rebel against the Soviet system. The key period of the Chechen guerilla war started in August–September of 1942, when the German troops approached Ingushetia, and ended in the summer-autumn of 1943, with the Soviet counter-offensive that drove the Wehrmacht from the North Caucasus.

Various authors dispute the Chechens' ties with the Germans. They did have contact with the Germans. However, there were profound ideological differences between the Chechens and the Nazis (self-determination versus imperialism), neither trusted the other, there was an influential Jewish clan among the Chechens (who were not considered as "Aryan" to begin with), the German courting of the Terek Cossacks was not pleasing at all to the Chechens (their traditional enemies which with they still had numerous land disputes and other conflicts) and Israilov certainly had a strong dislike for Hitler. Sheripov reportedly gave the Ostministerium a sharp warning that "if the liberation of the Caucasus meant only the exchange of one colonizer for another, the Caucasians would consider this only a new stage in the national liberation war." These authors note there were also many Chechens (17,413) in the Red Army (and, coincidentally, also much less than the number of Russians and Cossacks fighting for the Nazis). However, others argue that the number of Chechens in the military was much smaller than other groups, demonstrating that there was widespread desertion and draft evasion. The number of Chechens and Ingush killed or missing from service in the Red Army numbered about 2,300 men, compared to how the much less numerous Buryats suffered 13,000 deaths and 11,000 deaths among the Ossetians.

On orders from Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the NKVD, the entire Chechen and Ingush population of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic were to be deported by freight trains to remote areas of the Soviet Union. The operation was called "Chechevitsa" (Operation Lentil), its first two syllables pointing a finger at its intended targets (though while the Chechens were the main targets, they were not the only victims). The operation is referred to by Chechens often as "Aardakh" (the Exodus). Alexander Yakovlev argued that the eviction of the population was a part of Stalin's program designed for suppression of rebellions in the Soviet Union. In October 1943, a group of NKVD officers led by Bogdan Kobulov was sent to Chechnya to prepare materials for justification of repressions. In November, they sent a letter to Beria claiming that "there are 38 religious groups in Chechnya with membership of at least 20,000 people, who conduct active anti-Soviet work, help the bandits and German saboteurs, and call for armed resistance to the Soviet power." Beria then ordered to prepare the operation. The Chechen-Ingush republic was never occupied by the German army, therefore the repressions were officially justified by "an armed resistance to Soviet power".