Hassan Israilov

Hassan Israilov ( Chechen Исраил КӀант Хьасан / Israil K'ant Hasan (Israils son Hasan), Russian Хасан Исраилов , even Hassan Terlojew * 1903 or 1907 or 1910 in Aul Nikaroj at Naschhoj , Rajon Galantschosch (southwestern Chechnya ); † 15. December 1944 ) was a Chechen poet, journalist, lawyer, Communist Party functionary and leader of a guerrilla uprising 1940-44 against Soviet rule, founder of the so-called Special Party of Caucasian Brothers . Israilov led an uprising against the Soviet Union with the aim of establishing an independent Chechen national state or a supranational Caucasian state. Whether Israilov should be seen as a collaborator with the Wehrmacht is a controversial and sometimes politically charged discussion. Due to the few direct contacts between the two sides in the short period from August to December 1942, during which Israilov probably kept little distance, this question is of little practical relevance over longer periods of the uprising, in which there was no possibility of collaboration.

Life

Early life

Israilov was born in the village of Nikaroj in 1903 or 1907 or 1910. He was probably the youngest of six sons in his family. After attending the Koran elementary school and according to information perhaps from a Soviet school, he is said to have worked as a teacher in his village during the first literacy studies in 1925-27, but after the family's cattle were stolen into an escalating feud , which later earned him intrigues because his enemies also made careers in the Communist Party. Israilov was arrested in 1925, 1927, 1931, 1935 and 1939, and convicted in 1931 and 1935, but rehabilitated. While his friend Avtorkhanov and booklet 4 of the “Diaries” only describe political charges, booklet 1 only gives the political reason for protests and resistance to collectivization for the arrest in 1931 ; in the others, personal intrigues are said to be behind the formal charges, in 1939 too have confessed to their own violations of criminal law. In the years 1927-30 Israilov attended middle school and legal studies in Rostov-on-Don and joined the Communist Party around 1929, previously he had been a member of the Komsomol . Israilov then devoted himself mainly to literature, but also worked as a people's judge for two districts of Grozny until 1931 . He later became a correspondent for the Moscow farmers' newspaper and wrote articles on the pillage of the Chechen people by Soviet politicians. In the spring of 1931 Israilov was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "counter-revolutionary slander" and "contact with gangs". In 1933 he was released, rehabilitated and allowed to rejoin the party. He then studied at the Communist University for the Workers of the East in Moscow , where he came into contact with some young Chechen intellectuals and functionaries, including his closest confidante Avtorkhanov. During this time, two of the books he wrote in prison were published. In Moscow, Israilov is said to have made a motion to the Soviet government with the thesis that a continuation of the current policy would lead to a popular uprising. For this reason, he is said to have called for the removal of the General Secretary of the Chechen-Ingush Communist Party and the Regional People's Commissar for Internal Affairs ( NKVD ). As a result, Israilov, along with his colleagues, was sentenced to five years in a labor camp. The “diary”, volume 1, shows the arrest as the result of a conflict with the deputy party secretary Khasi Wachajew. In 1937 he was rehabilitated and returned from Siberia. Issue 1 of the “Diaries” claims that afterwards he was Communist Party Secretary of his homeland, Galantschosch, but was deposed from this post because of violating the law and worked as a journalist and lawyer in Grozny.

revolt

Parallel to the winter war , which revealed military weaknesses in the Soviet Union, the unrest intensified in discussion rounds in Israilov's environment and Israilov went on an advertising tour for an uprising through the villages of the mountainous region. Various times between January 1940 and January 1941 are given about the start of the uprising. During the Second World War , the Chechen rebels maintained contact with the Wehrmacht. Between August 25 and December 10, 1942, the Shamil operation was carried out in which members of the “ Brandenburg ” special unit carried out a commando operation behind the front line against the Soviet power. Two of the Chechen resistance groups agreed to fight with the Germans against the Red Army . However, this failed due to the inadequate organization of the necessary weapons supplies by the responsible Wehrmacht departments, which were not informed about the deployment. After the Wehrmacht could not penetrate into Chechnya, the uprising was suppressed after initial successes. Israilov himself was killed by enemy Chechens on December 15, 1944, and the body was handed over to the NKVD on December 29 .

Traditionally, it is believed that the Israilov uprising was the cause of the complete deportation of the Chechens and Ingush to Kazakhstan and Central Asia by NKVD units, in which hundreds of thousands of people were deported and some tens of thousands were killed.

Historical and public assessment

Controversial judgment

In the literature of the Soviet era, the Chechen nationalist, separatist uprising movement of Israilov was not discussed because its research ran counter to the official goal of friendship between peoples , a line that has been observed again in recent years in Russia under President Vladimir Putin . In Western history, an image of Israilov dominated until the 1990s, which goes back to his closest confidante, the historian Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov (1908–1997), who managed to escape across the front line and who was considered to be during the Cold War recognized historian of Caucasian and Russian history lived in Munich. Avtorkhanov does not deny that there were contacts with the Wehrmacht during the Shamil operation, but that they soon fell asleep, and describes the Israilov uprising as primarily anti-Stalinist and Chechen nationalist motivation. His main argument is that the uprising began in the winter of 1940/41, when the German attack on the Soviet Union was not yet in sight. Some historians adopted this perspective from the 1990s onwards.

In the Chechen and Russian public and historical scholarship, the dispute with Israilov began in the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, with very contradicting evaluations formed. In the Chechen and Ingush public, it is often pointed out that the Israilov uprising was not a large movement (max. 5000 armed men, but only a few hundred active at the same time, with over 600,000 Chechens and Ingush at the time) and emphasized - about the illegality of the subsequent deportation of all Chechens and Ingush to Central Asia - that far more Chechens and Ingush served in the Red Army than among the rebels. Israilov never became a national hero in the Chechen and Ingush public. “In the pantheon of Chechen culture of remembrance, he is still far less present than Imam Mansur, Bajsungur or Zelimchan, for example. No epics have been written about him and he is not sung about in any folk songs. ”A current of Chechen historians refers to internal contradictions in Israilov's“ diaries ”captured by the NKVD and judges them to be“ compromises ”( suitcase word for“ compromising material ”) of the NKVD or even considers Israilov to be an agent of the NKVD who should provide the pretext for the deportation. Israilov is partly unknown to the Russian public, or it is assumed that his uprising was insignificant. Parallel to the Chechnya wars, a third conservative Russian extreme interpretation emerged, "although it is more likely to be assigned to the popular scientific genre, but is currently enjoying the greatest widespread use ...", according to which Israilov was a staunch Nazi collaborator, which with a few passages from the "diaries" is justified. You place the Israilov uprising in a long tradition of Chechen uprisings against Russia. "Accordingly, these authors hardly hide their sympathy for Stalin's decision to deport these peoples, and show just as much understanding for the massive military interventions by Russia in the 1990s and 2000s."

The "Diaries"

In order to get closer to the questions of whether the Israilov uprising was a minor movement and whether Israilov was primarily anti-Stalinist and Chechen-nationally motivated, a supporter of the NKVD or a willing Nazi collaborator, the Zurich Eastern Europe historian Jeronim Perović tried to to look again at Israilov's diaries. These "diaries", actually written later life descriptions in five booklets with a total of 680 pages, are said to have been captured in August 1943 by an NKVD unit of the Georgian SSR under Grigory Karanadze. Unfortunately, the original diaries have disappeared, Perović suspects that they were destroyed with all other files on Israilov in the civil war between Zviad Gamsakhurdia and his opponents (1991/92) in the fire of the Georgian KGB archive in Tbilisi , which is why final investigations into their authenticity were carried out Handwriting comparison u. Ä. Methods are no longer possible today. However, Perović was able to evaluate a detailed report by Karanadze to Lavrenti Beria from September 1943 in Moscow, which also contains copies of large parts of diary books 1, 2 and 4 with comments by Karanadse. These files were removed from the Russian State Archives before 2009. Perović considers it unlikely that the very detailed diaries with precise knowledge of Chechen circumstances and personalities are forgeries of the NKVD, because they evidently emerged in a short time (if no longer worked on them) and especially because Karanadze gave a lot of information from Diaries contradicts, but final clarification is not possible.

In these diaries, the role and goals of Israilov are portrayed in a contradicting manner. In issues 2 and 4, Israilov is portrayed as an anti-Soviet personality who had a career in the Soviet state apparatus in order to gather resistance in the fight against the Soviet regime. The uprising is described as a tightly organized, large movement under Israilov as the undisputed leader, which Karanadze characterizes as far exaggerated. There are also echoes of racial theory and the official surname Israilow (formed from the patronymic ) is often replaced by the surname Terlojew (from the name of his Taip, his clan the Terloj). If these booklets really come from Israilov, he was in the process of recommending himself to the Wehrmacht as a politically and militarily potent ally, i.e. developing himself into a collaborator. The fact that there was no permanent collaboration is perhaps more related to German assessments and the military conditions. A survivor of the uprising reported that the special unit of the "Shamil Company", active behind the front, distributed weapons to 300 fighters, whereupon they went home with the new weapons against Israelov's will. Unauthorized behavior was common among North Caucasian fighters, but it showed the Germans that Israel's tight leadership could not be far off. In a report, the company's commander, Reinhard Lange, writes that there are six smaller “gangs” active in the Chechen highlands, “... which have come into conflict with the ruling government primarily because of their cattle robbery. They therefore enjoy a low reputation among the population ... ”He distinguishes two larger movements from“ politically ostracized ”, whose leaders he judges contrary. He judges Israilov as the leader of the larger uprising negatively ("babbler ...", who "... brutally rounded up his followers ..."), while that of the smaller Majrbek Scheripow uprising is positive (the "most intelligent leader"). Even beyond such reservations, a permanent collaboration was hardly possible because the Wehrmacht only briefly reached the far northwest of Checheno-Ingushetia in the lowlands, but the rebellious guerrilla groups were all active in the protection of the rugged high mountains in the south.

Israilov's career and motivation are described in a completely different way in issue 1 of the “Diaries”. Here his career is described, in which he kept falling, was temporarily imprisoned, but also repeatedly pardoned and rehabilitated (allegedly also through bribery), was increasingly isolated. The causes of the biographical breaks were entanglement in cattle-stealing feuds (which were previously common in Chechen society), blood feuds and intrigues.In 1930/31 he is said to have been involved in a minor uprising against the forced collectivization of agriculture , for which he was imprisoned until 1933. In Checheno-Ingushetia, as well as in Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria , the resistance to collectivization was so broad and militant that it was temporarily broken, especially in the mountain regions. Now, he was covertly opposed to the opposition and is said to have fallen again over intrigues and feuds, but then increasingly came into conflict with the law through his own misconduct, which he openly admits (“sins” - especially fights under alcohol). Perović interprets Issue 1 rather as a “personal testimony” that he possibly wrote during the uprising “knowing that every day could be his last…”, which is why he “reports relatively openly about his life”, with “this diary being traits of a will ... could form a kind of confession of guilt ”. However, inconsistencies remain, which further raise questions about the authenticity of the booklets - as did representatives of the "Kompromat" interpretation: contradictions between the curriculum vitae in booklet 1 and booklet 2/4, between the stated outbreaks of the Israilov uprising (in booklet 2 / 4 in January / February 1940, in issue 1 suddenly after the German attack in July 1941), some information that can probably be explained by a tendency to exaggerate one's own importance. It is also alleged that in Checheno-Ingushetia in the mid-1930s there were two hidden oppositional groups of important functionaries, artists and intellectuals, one under Israilov and Avtorkhanov, the other under the deputy party secretary of the republic, Khazi Vakhayev, who did not cooperate for that very reason because Israilov and Wachayev, both from the Terloj clan, had a blood feud that several high-ranking Communist Party commissions were unable to resolve. Avtorkhanov does not report this hostility in his memoirs, who portray Wachayev as a sympathetic friend with a sense of humor and does not even mention that he was secretly opposition.

However, the consensus remains that the Israilov uprising was not very large. Avtorkhanov estimates up to 5,000 fighters, but only a minority active, and up to 25,000 supporters, mostly relatives. The diaries mention 5000 and 25,000 participants, which Karanadze considers exaggerated in both cases. The Shamil report estimates only 900 active armed men in seven armed groups. Perović therefore considers it possible that it was not just the limited uprisings and collaborations that caused Stalin to classify some North Caucasian ethnic groups ( Karachay , Balkars , Ingush, Chechens) as collectively anti-Soviet and resort to the state terrorist method of complete deportation, but probably already Problems with the collectivization and the same with the recruitment after the German attack. The general mobilization (as is so often the case) only a part of the North Caucasians followed, which is not always to be seen as sympathy for the Wehrmacht. It is known that expensive punitive expeditions into the high mountains are rare. As a result, North Caucasians were exempted from conscription in August 1942 and only recruited voluntarily. While North Ossetia and Dagestan achieved good volunteer quotas, the three republics that had problems with collectivization also had too low quotas here, which is why Checheno-Ingushetia switched to the forced recruitment of "volunteers", some of whom deserted again. A spiral of mistrust between the Kremlin and (many members of some) North Caucasian ethnic groups could have formed through collectivization, recruitment and the uprisings, ending with the deportations with high numbers of victims.

literature

• Jeronim Perović : The North Caucasus under Russian rule. Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-412-22482-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Perović, p. 460.
2. ↑ Alternative names were the United Party of Caucasian Brothers or “in the sources” also the National Socialist Party of Caucasian Brothers , cf. Perović, pp. 457-58 (footnote 32) .
3. ↑ Perović, p. 472.
4. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, biographical data from the history magazine "Chronos", most of which come from the information provided by his friend Avtorkhanov .
5. ↑ There are various details of the year of birth. While Avtorkhanov writes that he was the youngest brother, the diary, booklet 1, states that his brother Hussein was younger. Perović, pp. 460, 463.
6. ↑ So it claims issue 1 of the "Diaries", Perović, pp. 460–465.
7. ↑ The information about joining the party and what exactly he learned in Rostov differ between the sources.
8. ↑ Perović, p. 466.
9. ↑ Perović, p. 467.
10. ↑ Perović, p. 468.
11. ↑ Perović pp. 451, 461, 469, this Chechen side claims a widespread uprising as early as January 1940, but this hardly fits with the other information. ( Memento from March 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
12. ↑ The Brandenburger - Kommandotruppe and Frontverband ( Memento from March 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on bundesarchiv.de on March 28, 2016.
13. ↑ Perović, p. 373, “Chronos” claims that he was killed by the NKVD on December 29th.
14. ↑ Perović, pp. 449 and 452.
15. ↑ Perović, p. 449, Avtorkhanov explains this point of view in his memoirs and in “The Chechens and the Ingushs.” In Chechnya this interpretation is represented by Jabrail Gakajew (died 2005).
16. ↑ Perović, pp. 450–451.
17. ↑ Perović, p. 454.
18. ↑ Perović, p. 452, Wachid Akayev or the historians Chatujew and Ibragimow and somewhat more moderate Musayev and Mankiev arrive at this extreme interpretation.
19. ↑ Perović, p. 453, the authors Sergej Tschujew and Pychalow are named as representatives.
20. ↑ Perović, pp. 454–455.
21. ↑ Perović, p. 455. After a memo, they were moved to the secret archive of the FSB , at Perović's request the FSB denied having them, cf. Footnote 23.
22. ↑ Perović, pp. 455-56.
23. ↑ Perović pp. 456–58, he describes these issues 2 and 4 as "propaganda writings ... which were apparently ... aimed primarily at the advancing Germans."
24. ↑ Perović, p. 459.
25. ↑ Perović, pp. 472-473.
26. ^ Gerhard Simon : Nationalism and Nationality Policy in the Soviet Union: From Dictatorship to Post-Stalinist Society. P. 120.
27. ↑ Summary of the description in Perović, pp. 462–469.
28. ↑ Perović, p. 459.
29. ↑ Perović does not comment on this contradiction, but he does raise some questions about Israilov's closeness to the Germans or about the authenticity of the diaries.
30. ↑ Perović, p. 467, 469-470, it is noticeable that both diary versions were very negative from the Soviet point of view and that the assertion of long-term, secretly opposition clusters within the CP corresponded to typical Stalinist paranoia. A confirmation of hostility to Wachayev by third sources did not succeed Perović.
31. ↑ Map in the formerly secret report at the Federal Archives ( Memento of the original from May 22, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
32. ↑ Perović, pp. 430-441.