ABSTRACT
Banditry and resistance are deeply ingrained within the Chechen national
identity. From the seventeenth century, Chechens and the Cossack soldier-
settlers who had established their fortified farms north of the Terek River had
routinely clashed and raided each other, although in fairness the Cossacks
were, unusually for them, more often the victims than the aggressors. The
nineteenth century saw the Russian Empire make a concerted effort to bring
the rest of the Caucasus region under its control, by conquest, punitive
massacre and deportation. However, this was always a tenuous grip on a
region eager to assert its independence given the opportunity. In 1918, for
example, the fragmentation of the tsarist empire allowed the creation of a
Republic of the North Caucasus Federation, which in due course fell to the
Red Army in 1922. The Chechens had lost a battle, but not the war. They
rebelled fiercely against Stalinist collectivization in 1929, and while the Soviet
state was able to crush the main risings relatively quickly, sporadic revenge
killings, sabotage and protests would continue for a decade.
