this heritage. They guaranteed the right of secession to all such
peoples who had come under the sway of Czardom.
EXCERPTS FROM SOVIET DOCUMENTS
A Report by the Commissioner of the People�s Commissariat of Finance Who Visited Daghestan in April 1923
�Special attention should be paid to attacks by Chechens. When we spent a night at the railroad station in Chir-Yurt, the neighbouring station Khasavyurt was attacked, two train attendants were killed, a road repairman was wounded, and a cargo train was plundered. Such attacks are a well-nigh daily occurrence.
�I am enclosing reports by the Avar and Andi executive committees in which they request the permission to form their own anti-Chechen units and demand Chechnya�s disarmament. The sentiments, which I noted in conversations with rural dwellers, were clearly hostile. If Chechen banditry is not put an end to in the immediate future, one cannot exclude that some districts would spontaneously rise against Chechnya.�
Reports by the Intelligence Department Of the Staff of the North Caucasus Military District, 1924 and 1925
�There are notable continuous conflicts between the populations of Chechnya and Daghestan resultant from plunders and abduction of women for ransom. On November 29, 1924, there was a collision between the communities of the village of Khimoy of the Shatoy District and the village of Gako of the Andi District.
�Another conflict took place in March 1925 when Chechens neutralized a Daghestani border checkpoint in the vicinity of the village of Biychi, following which the local population intended to stage armed attacks on the neighbouring Chechen villages. Lastly, the staff of the North Caucasus Military District reports an armed conflict on July 12 of the same year, �for reason of a dispute over a pasture located in between the border communities of the villages of Gogotl and Andi, the Daghestani Republic, and the village of Benoy. Two Chechens were killed and six wounded; on the Daghestani side, one was killed and one wounded. Chechens stole 165 heads of cattle from the people of Gogotl.��
MANUAL ON THE DISARMING OF THE POPULATION OF THE CHECHEN AUTONOMOUS REGION
August 4, 1925
�The operation of the disarming of the Chechen Autonomous Region shall be wholly the responsibility of military commanders of all ranks of army units allocated for the purpose and bodies of the Joint State Political Department, or OGPU, who will be acting through their representatives in situ�A village to be disarmed shall be encircled by an army unit in order to preclude any communication between its dwellers and the neighbouring parts� After the village is fully encircled, representatives of the Chechen Central Executive Committee, or CEC, OGPU and the military command shall gather a general meeting and present the demand of surrendering arms. No more than two hours shall be given for the surrender of arms. The village dwellers shall be advised for responsibility for failure to surrender arms. In case the village population refuses to surrender arms, the unit�s command shall, as a means of frightening, open artillery fire for ten minutes, with shells either bursting high in the air or aiming to do little harm, following which they shall, together with representatives of OGPU and CEC, demand that arms be surrendered within a shorter period of time.
�After the announced time period is over, an operational OGPU group shall start an all-out search and shall arrest bandit elements�In case arms are surrendered before the end of the term, the all out search shall not be conducted, but illicit and bandit elements shall be seized.
�Depending on the situation, artillery fire may be opened several times, but fire to kill shall be opened only in case of resistance to the troops.
�After all the above listed means are exhausted, the operation shall be deemed as concluded even in cases of non-surrender of arms and fruitless search. In exceptional cases, when the troops encounter malicious active or passive resistance, the influential people of the village may be arrested, but this measure shall be a means of last resort, and shall be resorted to with maximum tactfulness.�
REPORT ON AN OPERATION
1925
�The operation in the valley began on August 25, when Korol�s group surrounded the village of Achkhoy. They gathered a meeting of the village population to offer the people to surrender arms within two hours. Since no arms were surrendered at the announced time, 15 shrapnel shells were fired at the village, of which ten were intended to kill. After two Chechen women were wounded, the population began surrendering arms. An operational OGPU group began a parallel search. As a result, they seized 228 rifles and 32 revolvers, following which the regiment built a camp 2 versts North of the village. At night, the regiment was fired at. The fire stopped after machineguns opened fire. The disarmament proceeded in exactly the same manner in the subsequent days. The only difference was the stubbornness of the local population and the number of shells fired.
�In some places, the population actively prepared to resist; the price of a bullet went up by a half, and at night two young Chechens tried to disarm a sentry of the 83rd regiment, another sentry was offered a woman for a rifle by an unknown Chechen.
�On August 27, Apanasenko�s group approached the village of Zumsoy whose population had offered the worst resistance to the Soviet power in the West and South. At a meeting, they were told to surrender 800 rifles and 200 revolvers, and surrender bandits. At noon, when the Southern convoy reached Zumsoy, the people were told to return home all those who had fled to the mountains. The next day Zumsoy was subjected to artillery and aircraft fire again, which produced the needed effect: when they saw that the troops would not give up their demands or stop repression, the people surrendered, within an hour, 102 rifles, while they had surrendered only 27 rifles the previous day. Also, the houses of the Atabi, the rebel leader, were blown up.
�On that day in the morning, Kozitsky�s group approached the village of Keloy where they demanded that arms should be surrendered; only 9 rifles were brought to them. Artillery fire was then opened at the village. Right after the first shells were fired, crying and shouting females rushed to the group�s staff. Elders came later to promise that all arms had been surrendered. Yet in between houses men with arms in hands could be seen, and the artillery fire continued. After an hour�s shelling, 15 more rifles were surrendered, a search was immediately launched to produce more arms than ha been surrendered, and the artillery repression was repeated. In all, 59 rifles and 9 revolvers were surrendered before nightfall.
�Revel leader Gotsinsky surrendered on September 5 after four days of artillery fire at the villages of Khimoy and Khakmaloy. The village of Day was shelled and bombed on August 29: four people were killed, five were wounded and 20 houses were destroyed.
�The demand was that the people of Day should surrender Ansaltinsky. The planes which were supposed to bomb Day on August 28, dropped bombs on Nakhchu-Keloy, following which its people decided to voluntarily surrender arms that they had.
�Kozitsky�s group had to depart for Day on September 2, after the announced time frame of surrendering Ansaltinsky was over. The village was immediately subjected to artillery fire, following which he was delivered to the staff at 5 p.m.
�Special mention should be made of resistance offered in Urus-Martan, which is in effect Chechnya�s capital. Comrade Korol demanded that the town should surrender 4,000 rifles and 800 revolvers, but a little over 1,000 rifles and close to 400 revolvers were surrendered in actual fact. The demand to surrender sheiks was resisted by Urus-Martan passively and briefly (from 6 to 9). To convince the town, it had to be shelled with 90 projectiles and be subjected to bombing from the air which destroyed 12 houses; five people were wounded in Urus-Martan.�
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