The Caucasus Under Soviet Rule The Caucasus is a strategically and economically important region in contempo- rary global affairs. Western interest in the Caucasus has grown rapidly since 1991, fuelled by the admixture of oil politics, great power rivalry, ethnic separatism and terrorism that characterizes the region. However, until now there has been little understanding of how these issues came to assume the importance they have today. This book argues that understanding the Soviet legacy in the region is critical to analysing both the new states of the Transcaucasus and the autonomous territories of the North Caucasus. It examines the impact of Soviet rule on the Caucasus, focusing in particular on the period from 1917 to 1955. Important questions cov- ered include how the Soviet Union created ‘nations’ out of the diverse peoples of the North Caucasus; the true nature of the 1917 revolution; the role and effects of forced migration in the region; how over time the constituent nationalities of the region came to redefine themselves; and how Islamic radicalism came to assume the importance it continues to hold today. A cauldron of war, revolution and foreign interventions – from the British and Ottoman Turks to the oil-hungry armies of Hitler’s Third Reich – the Caucasus and the policies and actors it produced (not least Stalin, ‘Sergo’ Ordzhonikidze and Anastas Mikoian) both shaped the Soviet experiment in the twentieth century and appear set to continue to shape the geopolitics of the twenty-first. Making unprecedented use of memoirs, archives and published sources, this book is an invaluable aid for scholars, political analysts and journalists alike to understanding one of the most important borderlands of the modern world. Alex Marshall is currently Convenor of the Scottish Centre for War Studies, University of Glasgow, UK. His other publications include The Russian General Staff and Asia, 1800–1917 (also published by Routledge). Routledge Studies in the History of Russia and Eastern Europe 1 Modernizing Muscovy 8 Cossacks and the Russian Reform and social change in Empire, 1598–1725 seventeenth-century Russia Manipulation, rebellion and Edited by Jarmo Kotilaine and expansion into Siberia Marshall Poe Christoph Witzenrath 2 The USA in the Making of 9 The Many Deaths of Tsar the USSR Nicholas II The Washington Conference, Relics, remains and the Romanovs 1921–1922, and ‘uninvited Russia’ Wendy Slater Paul Dukes 10 Popular Religion in Russia 3 Tiny Revolutions in Russia ‘Double belief’ and the making of Twentieth-century Soviet and an academic myth Russian history in anecdotes Stella Rock Bruce Adams 11 Eastern Christianity and the 4 The Russian General Staff and Cold War, 1945–91 Asia, 1800–1917 Edited by Lucian N. Leustean Alex Marshall 12 The Caucasus Under Soviet Rule 5 Soviet Eastern Policy and Turkey, Alex Marshall 1920–1991 13 Rural Women in the Soviet Union Soviet foreign policy, Turkey and and Post-Soviet Russia communism Liubov Denisova Bülent Gökay Edited and Translated by Irina 6 The History of Siberia Mukhina Igor V. Naumov Edited by David N. Collins 7 Russian Military Intelligence in the War with Japan, 1904–05 Secret operations on land and at sea Evgeny Sergeev The Caucasus Under Soviet Rule Alex Marshall First published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2010 Alex Marshall All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Marshall, Alex, 1976- The Caucasus under Soviet rule/Alex Marshall. p. cm. – (Routledge studies in the history of Russia and Eastern Europe) “Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada”–T.p. verso. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Caucasus, Northern (Russia)–History–20th century. 2. Caucasus, Northern (Russia)–Politics and government–20th century. 3. Caucasus, Northern (Russia)–Ethnic relations–History–20th century. 4. Caucasus, Northern (Russia)–Relations–Soviet Union. 5. Soviet Union–Relations–Russia (Federation)–Caucasus, Northern. 6. Soviet Union–Foreign relations–1917-1945. 7. Soviet Union–Foreign relations–1945-1991. I. Title. DK511.C2M295 2010 947.5’20841–dc22 2010003007 ISBN 0-203-84700-8 Master e-book ISBN ISBN: 978-0-415-41012-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-84700-8 (ebk) Dedicated to Agafia Trifonofna Ivanova and her granddaughter Contents Map 1 The Caucasus, 1917–18 ix Map 2 The Caucasus, 1922–28 x Map 3 The Caucasus in the Second World War xi Introduction 1 1 The North Caucasus: between gazavat and modern revolution, 1700–1905 10 2 1905–17: the first crisis of modernity in the Caucasus 35 3 1917–18 in the Caucasus: from world war to civil war 51 4 1919–20: the British and Denikin’s Caucasus 101 5 Insurgency, corruption and the search for a new socialist order, 1920–25 147 6 Decossackization, demarcation, categorization: creating the Soviet Caucasus, 1920–27 175 7 Forging the proletariat: women, collectivization and repression, 1928–34 195 8 Dreams of unity, myths of power: the Caucasian diaspora 217 9 The purges and industrial modernization: the Soviet Caucasus in the 1930s 225 10 Dealing with ‘bandits’: war, ethnic cleansing and repression in the Soviet Caucasus, 1941–45 244 viii Contents 11 The final structural crisis of the Soviet state, 1953–91 272 12 Three dystopias of the post-Soviet Caucasus, 1991–2008 293 Afterword: the North Caucasus as a regional security complex – Vladimir Putin, pipelines and the rebuilding of the Russian federal state 315 Notes 325 Bibliography 366 Index 385 DON TERRITORY SEA OF AZOV Astrakhan KUBAN Tikhoretsk TERRITORY Ekaterinodar Armavir Stavropol TEREK Sviatoi Krest Novorossiisk Maikop PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC Tuapse (March 1918– CASPIAN Black Mineraral’nyi Vody February 1919) Sea Kizliar SEA Coastal Piatigorsk Strip Mozdok Prokhladnyi Sochi Khasaviurt Nal’chik Beslan ABKHAZIA Groznyi Port Petrovsk Sukumi Vladikavkaz BLACK Temir-Khan-Shura SEA GEORGIAN DEMOCRATIC Poti DAGESTAN Derbent REPUBLIC Batum Tbilisi Kars Giandzha AZERBAIJAN U ARMENIAN REPUBLIC BAK REPUBLIC Erivan OTTOMAN EMPIRE IRAN Map 1 The Caucasus, 1917–18 DON OKRUG SEA OF LOWER VOLGA KRAI Astrakhan AZOV KUBAN OKRUG ARMAVIR STAVROPOL OKRUG Krasnodar OKRUG Novorossiisk Stavropol Adygel Armavir KIZLIAR (Cherkessk) AO OKRUG Cherkess Annexed to Dagestan AO Mineraral’nyi Vody Tuapse 16/11/22 Piatigorsk k TEREK Kislovodsk Kizliar CASPIAN OKRUG SEA Karachai Sochi Groznyi AO MOUNTAINEER ABKHAZ ASSR Khasaviurt Makhachkala TREATY CHECHEN Sukhum Vladikavkaz BLACK SSR AO Buinaksk SEA SOUTH Gunib GEORGIAN OSSETIAN AO Derbent Poti SSR DAGESTAN ASSR Batum Tbilisi ADZHARISTAN ASSR ARMENIAN Baku SSR TURKEY Erivan AZERBAIJAN SSR Nagorno-Karabakh (contested territory) IRAN Map 2 The Caucasus, 1922–28 ROSTOV Astrakhan SEA OBLAST KRASNODAR OF KRAI AZOV Krasnodar ORDZHONIKIDZE KRAI Voroshilovsk (Stavropol) Novorossiisk Maikop CASPIAN SEA Tuapse Mineral'nyi Vody CHERKESSK AO Piatigorsk Kislovodsk Kizliar Mozdok Sochi KARACHAI AO KABARDINO-BALKAR ASSR Groznyi BLACK ABKHAZ Nal’chik CHECHEN-INGUSH ASSR SEA ASSR NORTH Makhachkala Sukhum OSSETIAN Ordzhonikidze Buinaksk ASSR SOUTH Derbent GEORGIAN OS. AO DAGESTAN SSR ASSR Tbilisi Batum ADZHAR ASSR ARMENIAN SSR BAKU Erivan AZERBAIJAN SSR TURKEY Nak hic heva n Mountain range IRAN Map 3 The Caucasus in the Second World War Introduction This book is concerned with the formation and development of the North Caucasus between approximately 1800 and the present, with a particular focus on the Soviet period between 1917 and 1944. The final chapters also detail the causes and back- ground to both the First and Second Chechen conflicts, both of which have their roots in the Soviet period, as well as territorial conflicts in the Transcaucasus. In terms of pure military history alone, therefore, the text spans what are in effect already three distinct generations of warfare, opening with the rattle of horse- drawn machine-gun carts across the steppe during the Russian Civil War, and ending with cyberspace conflict and the roar of Russian Su-25 jets over Georgian airspace in 2008.1 Broad generalizations are therefore a necessity throughout, but I have aspired to a certain analytical logic by both consistently interrogating pre- vious assumptions in the literature, and offering my own assessments. As a whole, the book seeks to be neither a paean for every aspect of Soviet policy in the region, nor at the other extreme a political tract condemning Russia’s ‘hidden hand’ in the region, or campaigning for Chechen independence (the latter approach having so far characterized much Western writing on the subject).2 Rather, it seeks to analyse, in as objective a way as is possible at present, the man- ner that Soviet policy in the Caucasus, particularly during the 1920s and 1930s, interacted with regional trends to largely ‘create’ modern national identities that have continued to exist in that region right down to the present. For this reason, much emphasis is put on the revolution, civil war, and inter-war period, since it was during this time that key events and processes that continue to have contem- porary relevance took place. Later events from the 1950s to the 1980s retain an importance and significance all of their own, but they were also in many ways only a natural playing out of patterns and phenomena already initiated in that ear- lier period.