ABSTRACT
The Russian army is suppressing resistance in Chechnya with a great effort, shedding blood and bearing losses. The Chechens’ guerrilla warfare against Russian troops may drag on for many years. The Chechens’ logic was quite the opposite: they wanted to live in an independent state. The Chechens fought against Russia in the nineteenth century and in the 1920s, and then suffered Josef Stalin’s genocide in the 1940s. The difference between the union republics and autonomous republics of the Soviet Union was seen by the Chechens as a mere formality. The Russians were ready only to talk about Chechen disarmament. The Chechens only wanted to talk about independence. These structures strengthened military organization in Chechen society during Russia’s Caucasian war in the mid-nineteenth century. The Ingush, a people akin to the Chechens, then seceded from Chechnya and proclaimed a separate republic as a part of Russia.
