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Russia and Chechnya: From One War to Another

Russia and Chechnya: From One War to Another

By Mikhail Sokolov

Guryanova Street. The long, white block of flats I know so well has lost its middle. Only two wings remain. The central entrance halls have been replaced by a smoky void. The site, full of ruins, is teeming with rescuers. Onlookers pass by. The aftermath of the first bomb explosion in Moscow.

The house, with its smelly entrance halls in urgent need of repair and its views of cranes at the goods port and the grey fences of the Lenin Komsomol car factory, was home to friends of mine. Fortunately, they made money during the “Perestroika” mayhem and had left the proletarian district Tekstilstshiki. As would become evident later, they abandoned the place in time, having left behind peripheral workers in a place where it is unthinkable to run into a sober man on Saturday evenings and where the sound of a small accordion at a beer kiosk can be heard on Sundays.

On another day, bags with an explosive device were found in the cellar of a house at the standard housing estate Brateyevo. Then came one more explosion - in the Kashirskoye Shosse… A brick tower, built in the 70s for the workers, turned into a heap of ruins one morning.

Moscow was overwhelmed by shock. Scared people guarded the entrances to their buildings. Unapprehended bombers, having targeted civilians for some reason instead of officials and politicians, were a different story to the invasion of Shamil Basayev's bandits into Dagestan.

The newspapers published portraits of the “Caucasians” allegedly involved in the explosions. So-called democrats and defenders of human rights urged war…

A tough and massive campaign against Chechens began. They were arrested for the usual wrongdoings: possessing soft drugs like “grass”, a piece of trotyle or a few bullets… Tens of people were accused of being the bombers’ accomplices. Then they were quietly released.

Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, promised that all of the capital’s unregistered would be turfed out. Frowning policemen, going from one flat to another in our building, were asking people whether they knew anything about our neighbour of Karachay nationality…

Hysteria in the newspapers grew. Only a few were dismayed by the case in Ryazan: the militia finds an explosive device in a cellar, but suddenly some KGB officials appear saying they are doing a training exercise.

The state TV channels called for revenge. The independent NTV, headed by Oleg Dobrodeyev, who left soon after to get a top post with state TV, for a while became “military television”.

Vladimir Putin, the Prime minister, promised the terrorists would be "drowned in a restroom" for their actions.

Chechen leaders denied their being connected to the explosions. Russian troops were moving slowly towards Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. The authorities duly promised the troops would stop at the Terek, the river at the foothills of the Caucausus.

Thus the second Chechen war, a revengeful one, began.

As a matter of fact, I was in the white block of flats on Gurjanova Street several times. Furthermore, I used to pass the brick tower in Kashirskoye Shosse for a few years on my way to work. For some time, I even lived just next to the house in the Brateyevo housing estate, where the explosive device was found.

Clearly, these targets were an excellent choice. Noone of any importance became a target; it was just a crowd – those who have recently been drafted in to Moscow to work for big factories and live in cheap hostels.

The anonymous terrorists' task was to make people scared stiff and to show them that the war may be everybody’s business.

As a result of this, flabbergasted Russians were willing to ignore any casualties or genocide, hoping the bomb attacks against the common people would not be repeated. A colonial war became a patriotic one. Whoever could fight with unprecedented and undefeatable power would receive the gratitude of the nation. V. V. Putin, a previous Chekist thus appeared. As a matter of fact, the feeling of apprehension instilled throughout the country got him elected.

…Now, almost one and a half years after the blasts, it is not important whether somebody consciously ordered the explosions or randomly used terrorists. It is even possible to accept the feeble official version. It is actually the result, needed by the election winners, which becomes significant.

Opinion polls show that during the first war in Chechnya (1994 – 1996) the majority of Russians, by virtue of differing circumstances, felt a negative attitude toward the politics of Chechen leaders and Chechens themselves.

The reasons were various. The first group were just victims of xenophobia; the second abhorred the activities of Chechen criminal gangs; the third considered the stable Chechen communities living in cities unscrupulous competitors in business; the fourth group opposed separatism. Others were disgusted by violations of human rights in Chechnya during the former presidency of Jokhar Dudayev as well as by the recent “business” practices of seizures, ransoms and a slave trade.

However, that vast majority (60 – 70 percent) was apparently divided into two groups: “activists” and “isolationists”.

The “activists” backed Boris Yeltsin in his leading of the war and approved of fighting to a victorious end, regardless of civilian casualties. As the survey suggests, this group makes up about a third of the population.

However, a similar number of people recommended a different policy. They advocated shutting Russia off from the strange, Muslim Chechnya that tends to extreme forms of Islam, declaring border and visa restrictions, and sending disloyal Chechens back to their own country.

This group’s view is understandable. If we did not fight even for real “Russian” regions (where they speak our language at least), such as southern Siberia (Kazakhstan nowadays), Kharkovsthina, Donbass, Novorossiya and the Russian-speaking Crimea (part of the Ukraine), why should we insist on keeping Islamic Chechnya (where they speak a different language)? Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a famous writer and the most significant holder of this view, expressed it some time ago. He suggested joining the “Cossack” part of Chechnya to Russia, stretching a border along the river Terek and thus giving the mountainous land of Imam an opportunity of living according to its own savage laws.

It was just these people purveying Solzhenitsyn’s opinion, together with the quarter of the population that firmly opposed the war itself, that became the majority in 1996 surveys. The two camps forced Boris Yeltsin to give general Alexander Lebed carte blanche to sign the peace Treaty of Khasav-Yurt (a shameful Treaty-of-Brest-Litovsk-like one).

Opinion polls carried out in 1997 showed that if a referendum were held, the majority of Russians would vote for the independence of mountainous Chechnya, or more precisely, its exclusion from the federation. Indeed, this will happen one day…

The question of 1999 was whether the terror-stricken atmosphere shakes up the “isolationist” population. Using an overall fear of mass terrorism, the authorities’ agitation made the “isolationists” join the “activists”. The authorities, backed by the two federal TV channels using a blanket brain-washing campaign, managed to accomplish a temporary national-patriotic majority which welcomes any means of force by Putin’s military apparatus.

Surveys carried by the All-Russian Centre for Opinion Polls (ARCOP) suggest the following: December 1999 (general election to the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, takes place; the victory of “Unity” and other Kremlin allies) - 70 percent of those polled agree with the continuation of the war to a victorious conclusion; April 2000 (the presidential election; Vladimir Putin’s victory) – 67 percent hold the same view. Putin’s policy in Chechnya, as the main stimulus for their backing him, was decisive for 21 percent of those surveyed. Considering the patriotic front, the former Chekist and lieutenant colonel Vladimir Putin outplayed the communist Zyuganov. The leader of the Communist Party of Russian Federation could defeat the present president only if he repeated Stalin and Beriya’s campaign of banishing all Chechens from Chechnya.

Time goes on and support starts to weaken. As the war continues, the reports of casualties emerge and of guerrillas holding their posts. Leaders collaborating with criminals embezzle federal funds. The cleverest of them disclose Russian troop violations that slowly lead to demoralization. “Triumphant” generals hurry to become politicians. Having received posts, they stand as candidates for governorship.

The number of those who support the war in Chechnya slowly falls: from 56 percent in April to 49 percent in September.

Even commander Putin seems to show less interest in Chechnya. When in talks with western leaders, he presents Russia as a sort of bastion against international Islamic terrorism, Bin Laden and Afghan Talibs.

There are increasingly more reports suggesting that Moscow does not really know what should be done with Chechnya.

The psychological turning point comes in October 2000. For the first time, the majority of those polled, as many as 47 percent, call for peace talks, while only 44 percent want the military campaign to continue. As casualties mount, the war is backed only by 34 percent, while as many as 55 percent of the population support peace talks.

The practice of suppressing passions is failing to work. The divide between “activists” and “isolationists” is coming to end. However, it would be hopeless to expect any serious peace-making acts from Putin’s present apparatus established in the wake of fatalities in the Moscow explosions and war in Chechnya.

Although Putin’s Russia is not completely based on military performance, it lends itself easily to restoring imperial-Soviet practices. 46 percent of the population welcome the idea of rehabilitating the former USSR anthem. More than half of those surveyed want the results of privatisation to be investigated and federal liberties to be abolished. Facing such feeling among the people, the power of Vladimir Putin, like that of Belorussian dictator Lukashenko, may strengthen.

In order to calm people, Moscow will pretend to lead peace-talks, putting mere marionettes in the spotlight. This is how Mr. Putin plans to ingratiate himself with 80 percent of those polled, who are dismayed with the failure to tackle the Chechen crisis and not end the military campaign.

The propagandist echo of the blasts in Moscow is fading in Russian hearts. However, today’s Russia has no political power able to oppose the absurd campaign in Chechnya; what is more, Europe feels no interest in having disputes with Russia. To conclude, the bloodshed will continue for a long time – with Russia and the World facing an outcome similar to the aftermath of the war in Afghanistan.

Mikhail Sokolov is RFE/RL correspondent.