Separatism in the Soviet Union: who most wanted to secede
The Soviet principle “every nation has the right to self-determination” assumed the creation of a unitary multi-ethnic state.
However, some nations wanted to self-determinate in their own way, including by secession from the USSR.
Cut to the quick
The division of the state along national lines was new in world history. In practice, according to the British historian Eric Hobsbawm, “the communist regime began to consciously and deliberately create ethnolinguistic territorial “national-administrative units” where they had not previously existed or where no one had seriously thought about them, for example, among Muslims Central Asia or Belarusians."
One of the leaders of the revolutionary movement in the Caucasus Stepan Shaumyan warned Lenin: « Nations have become so intermingled with each other that there are no longer national territories within which national federal or autonomous regions could easily be established." However, the leader of the proletariat did not heed the warning and began to cut borders to the quick, even where it was impossible to draw them.
Having received a certain freedom, the heads of national-territorial entities began to think about greater autonomy, up to the acquisition of state sovereignty. In some regions of the country this resulted in an aggravation of internal political and interethnic relations. Separatist sentiments flared up with particular force during the Great Patriotic War, first of all, this affected such multi-ethnic regions as the Caucasus, the Baltic states and Western Ukraine.
Echoes of separatism also swept across the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. There is information about uprisings of the Yakuts and Nenets, which were suppressed, including with the help of aviation. After the end of the war, until perestroika, the “independents” practically did not show themselves in any way, and only with the advent of glasnost, when the central authorities allowed certain freedoms to the regions, separatism went on the offensive.
Siberia
The history of Siberian separatism dates back to the 1860s, when independence-hungry Siberians published a proclamation declaring that “A special territory demands the independence of Siberia, and it must separate from Russia.” In December 1917, not wanting to strengthen the position of the Bolsheviks, supporters of Siberian autonomy - regionalists - held an emergency congress in Tomsk, at which they decided to create an independent government body - the Provisional Siberian Government (VSP). And in 1918, the VSP, which received broad powers, publishes “Declaration on state independence of Siberia” However, by the middle of 1918, the regionalists were losing their positions and leaving the political arena, despite the desperate calls of the radicals to take up arms against the Bolsheviks. Novosibirsk historian M.V. Shilovsky will note that this is what everything was leading to. According to him, regionalism failed to create an effective program of action; they did not propose any specific ways for the region to exit the current political and social crisis.
Caucasus
With the establishment of Soviet power in the Caucasus, active armed resistance began in the mountainous regions of Chechnya, Dagestan and Karachay-Cherkessia, one of the organizers of which was the grandson of Imam Shamil, Said Bey. According to historians, this rebellion largely revived the goals and objectives of Caucasian War XIX century. In addition to the Caucasian component itself, the liberation struggle contributed to the maturation of the ideology of pan-Turkism, which substantiates the unity of all Turkic peoples and the need for their unification in the so-called “Great Turan” state, stretching from the Balkans to Siberia.
However, Napoleonic plans quickly narrowed to the idea of separating exclusively the Caucasus from Soviet Russia. However, this struggle had far-reaching consequences: continuing until the start of the war, it was transformed into the activities of pro-fascist gangs. According to the OGPU, from 1920 to 1941, 12 armed uprisings took place in Checheno-Ingushetia alone, in which from 500 to 5,000 militants took part. Three more major anti-Soviet protests were prevented thanks to the operational work of the Cheka. As a rule, the gangs were led by former party workers from local authorities.
For example, at the beginning of 1942, in Shatoi and Itum-Kale, the former prosecutor of Checheno-Ingushetia Mairbek Sheripov started a rebellion. Together with the troops of the collaborator Khasan Israilov, he organized a joint headquarters and a rebel government. In their appeal to the peoples of the Caucasus, the separatists called for welcoming German troops as guests, in return expecting to receive recognition of the independence of the Caucasus from the occupiers. By the end of 1944, the NKVD forces defeated almost 200 gangs that existed in the territories of Checheno-Ingushetia. Isolated clashes continued until 1957, when deported Chechens and the Ingush returned home.
Turkestan
In the early 1920s, the ideology of pan-Turkism also spread to Soviet Turkestan, stimulating such an anti-Soviet movement as the Basmachi movement. The leader of the Turkish nationalist organization “Teshkilyati Mahsus” Enver Pasha, who headed the Basmachi, seriously hoped to implement the “Turan strategy” under the leadership of Istanbul. However, his dreams of uniting Turkey, the Caucasus, Iran, Turkestan, the Volga region and Crimea into one state were not destined to come true. It was not possible to bring the idea of free Turkestan to life. Almost all pockets of Basmachiism were eliminated by 1932.
Baltics
Separatist forces awoke in the Baltic states during its liberation from Nazi troops. In the summer of 1944, following the troops of the 3rd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts, NKVD formations entered the territory of Lithuania. Their task was to clear the front line from the Wehrmacht soldiers, Nazi collaborators, deserters, looters and anti-Soviet elements who remained there.
The most serious resistance to the Soviet border guards was provided by the Lithuanian liberation army, which was led by the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania. This organization existed underground from the moment Lithuania joined the USSR, and now, taking advantage of the favorable moment, it set Lithuanians against pro-Moscow activists and representatives of the Soviet government. The fight against the separatists continued until 1956. It is interesting that in addition to conducting hostilities, Beria proposed evicting the families of the leaders of the anti-Soviet underground to the logging areas of the Perm and Sverdlovsk regions. However, this measure was not necessary.
Ukraine
Ukrainian separatism intensified literally immediately after Galicia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia became part of the Ukrainian SSR. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) specialized in the fight against the Soviets, declaring its main goal as “the national liberation of the Ukrainian people and the creation of an independent Ukrainian state.”
In their geopolitical appetites, the OUN members were not inferior to the supporters of the “Great Turan”. Their dream was a “sovereign conciliar Ukrainian state,” which was supposed to stretch from the Carpathian Mountains to the Volga and from the foothills of the Caucasus to the upper reaches of the Dnieper. What failed with the Lithuanians, they did with the Ukrainian nationalists. Since 1947, active eviction of the leaders of the rebel groups, as well as members of their families, to remote areas of the country began. Over two years, more than 100 thousand people were displaced.
Parade of sovereignties
At the end of perestroika, it was the places of separatist fault lines – the Baltic states and the Caucasus – that began to crack first. Gorbachev took too long with the decision national question. The plenum took place in September 1989, but the republican elites had already started. It is curious that the Nakhichevan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was the first to declare its independence - this is how it responded to the forceful suppression of the political opposition in Baku.
Before the August putsch, the Baltic republics, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia took the path of independence. Kyrgyzstan was the last country to break away from the USSR on December 15, 1990. Echoes of the parade of sovereignties echoed in the Volga region. However, the activities of the nationalist party “Ittifak”, which campaigned for the independence of Tatarstan, were stopped in time.
********
Republic of Zueva: how the Old Believers contacted the Nazis
The Zuev Republic was a form of Old Believer self-government in German-occupied territory.
The Zuevites fought off the partisans, the fascists, and the Estonian police, but then began to cooperate with the Reich.
Occupation of Belarus
P. Ilyinsky in his memoirs “ Three years under German occupation in Belarus” describes how Belarusians collaborated with the German government. Whether the occupation was always the way it was presented in Soviet history textbooks is a controversial question. Historian A. Kravtsov believes that “ that occupation was different. It happened that they went to the Germans for help. For bread, for shelter. Sometimes even for weapons. We have the right to call some of those collaborators. But do we have the right to condemn?" In Belarus, as in other regions of the USSR, various partisan formations emerged, speaking both for and against the Red Army.
Republic of Zueva
Describing the partisan movement in occupied Belarus, Ilyinsky talks about one of the newly formed republics during the war - the Zuev Republic. From the studies of D. Karov and M. Glazk back in Soviet time it became widely known about other republics - the democratic Republic of Rossono, consisting of Red Army deserters, and fought both against the Germans and the Red Army, as well as about the so-called Lokot self-government - a republic the size of Belgium, located in the Bryansk region and in parts of modern Kursk and Oryol region, with a population of 600 thousand people. However, much less has been written about the mysterious Republic of Zuev. Where did it come from and how long did it last?
Zuev's motives
In the book " Partisanism: myths and realities“V. Batshev describes that since Polotsk, Vitebsk and Smolensk were occupied by the Germans at the very beginning of the war, they needed their own people in the newly formed government of the occupied territories. The burgomaster in the village of Zaskorka near Polotsk was the Old Believer Mikhail Zuev, who had recently been imprisoned for anti-Soviet activities. He was loyal German occupiers- two of his sons were exiled by the NKVD to Siberia, and he had long had scores to settle with the Soviet authorities, so he met the Germans with great enthusiasm: “In the 1930s, he was imprisoned twice for anti-Soviet activities (5 and 3 years, respectively), and Only in 1940 did he return from the dungeons of the NKVD to his village. His two sons were also arrested by the NKVD for armed struggle against Soviet power. One son eventually died in the camp, the second managed to leave for Australia in the early 1960s.”
Ilyinsky says that at that time about three thousand Old Believers lived in the village, and it was located in swamps and forests, far from any road. According to D. Karov (who wrote the book “ Guerrilla movement in the USSR in 1941-1945"), under the leadership of Zuev and with the support of the German government, the Old Believers lived quite calmly, enjoying self-government, the return of private property and the opening Old Believer churches– but then something happened. Zuev's War In November 1941, seven partisans came to Zaskorka and asked for support. Among them was an NKVD worker known to Zuev, famous for his cruelty.
Having given the partisans shelter and food to disguise themselves, the village council soon secretly killed them and took away their weapons: “Zuev placed the new arrivals in one hut, supplied them with food, and he himself went to consult with the old people on what to do. At the council, the old people decided to kill all the partisans and hide their weapons.” When soon she came to the village a new group partisans, Zuev gave them food and asked them to leave their territory. When the partisans came again, Zuev sent Old Believers armed with rifles to meet them. At night, the partisans returned again - only to retreat, encountering unexpectedly powerful resistance from the awake and armed Zuevites.
After these attacks, Mikhail Zuev decided to organize special paramilitary units in his own and neighboring villages. They were armed with captured partisan weapons, organized vigils at night and repelled attacks. Until 1942, the Zuevites, according to Ilyinsky, repelled 15 partisan attacks. The most important problems began after - at the end of December, the Old Believers ran out of ammunition. Zuev had to go to the German commandant - and after the New Year, one of the German generals, taking advantage of the disagreements between the Old Believers and the Soviet government, decides to arm the Belarusian villages controlled by Zuev with fifty Russian rifles and cartridges.
Zuev was ordered not to say where he got the weapon from, and was denied machine guns, apparently for security reasons. Neighboring villages themselves sent their representatives to Zuev, asking for protection - this is how his “republic” expanded. Counteroffensive In 1942, Zuev and his troops launched a counteroffensive and drove out the partisans from the surrounding villages, and then included them in his republic. In the spring he takes out four more machine guns (according to different versions- buys from the Hungarians, from the Germans, gets them in battles with partisans) and introduces the most severe discipline: for serious offenses they were shot based on the vote of the Old Believers.
In the winter of 1942-1943, Zuev repelled serious attacks by partisans, and they began to stay away from his republic. He also drove out the Estonian police from his region, who were looking for partisans and wanted to live in his village on this basis: “Zuev answered the Estonian officer that there were no partisans in the area. And therefore, the police have nothing to do here. While the matter was limited to words, the Estonian insisted, but as soon as Zuev’s own detachment approached the house and Mikhail Evseevich decisively declared that he would use force if the police did not leave, the Estonians obeyed and left.” Zuev supplied Polotsk with resources - game, firewood, hay, and was very convenient for the German government, since he regularly paid the food tax. They didn’t even look into the Republic of Zuev and had no influence on internal self-government.
The end of the Old Believers Republic
Soon german army retreated to the west. Zuev retreated after them: as historian B. Sokolov writes, “Zuev with part of his people went to the West. Other Old Believers remained and began partisan warfare against the Red Army. For this purpose, the Germans supplied them with weapons and food. Partisan groups stayed in the forests near Polotsk until 1947.” Ilyinsky writes that all the people cried when leaving their native villages, carried the most valuable things on carts, and saved ancient books and supplies.
The German commandant, leaving the encircled Polotsk, decided to make his way to Zuev in order to leave the encirclement with him - only his people knew the forest like the back of their hand. With the help of Zuev, the German troops and the Old Believers traveling with them (from one to two thousand - information varies) managed to reach Poland, and from there to East Prussia. Some people actually remained in their native lands and began to fight with the Red Army. The few hundred remaining are taken to the camps, while the Old Believers who left with the Germans leave for South America from Hamburg in 1946 (some of them later, in the sixties, moved to the USA - where Ilyinsky, the author of the memoirs, also lived).
In Prussia, Zuev's group broke up. He himself went to A. Vlasov and began to fight in the Russian Liberation Army. Further, his traces are lost - according to various sources, Zuev either went to France, and from there he left for Brazil in 1949, or surrendered to the British in 1944. No one knows what happened to him next. There is no reliable information left about him, and there is not even a photograph of the ruler of the Old Believers republic. Thus ended the century of the Republic of Zuev.
The division of the state along national lines was new in world history. In practice, according to British historian Eric Hobsbawm, “the communist regime began to consciously and deliberately create ethnolinguistic territorial “national administrative units” where they had not previously existed or where no one had seriously thought about them, for example among the Muslims of Central Asia or the Belarusians.” .
One of the leaders of the revolutionary movement in the Caucasus, Stepan Shaumyan, warned Lenin: “Nations have become so mixed up with each other that there are no longer national territories within which national federal or autonomous regions could easily be established.” However, the leader of the proletariat did not heed the warning and began to cut borders to the quick, even where it was impossible to draw them.
Having received a certain freedom, the heads of national-territorial entities began to think about greater autonomy, up to the acquisition of state sovereignty. In some regions of the country this resulted in aggravation of internal political and interethnic relations.
Separatist sentiment flared up with particular force during the Great Patriotic War, primarily affecting such multi-ethnic regions as the Caucasus, the Baltic states and Western Ukraine. Echoes of separatism also swept through the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. There is information about uprisings of the Yakuts and Nenets, which were suppressed, including with the help of aviation.
After the end of the war, until perestroika, the “independents” practically did not show themselves in any way, and only with the advent of glasnost, when the central authorities allowed certain freedoms to the regions, separatism went on the offensive.
Siberia
The history of Siberian separatism dates back to the 1860s, when Siberians yearning for independence published a proclamation in which they declared: “ A special territory requires the independence of Siberia, and it must separate from Russia».
In December 1917, not wanting to strengthen the position of the Bolsheviks, supporters of Siberian autonomy - regionalists - held an emergency congress in Tomsk, at which they decided to create an independent government body - the Provisional Siberian Government (VSP). And in 1918, the VSP, which received broad powers, issued the “Declaration on the State Independence of Siberia.”
However, by the middle of 1918, the regionalists were losing their positions and leaving the political arena, despite the desperate calls of the radicals to take up arms against the Bolsheviks. Novosibirsk historian M.V. Shilovsky notes that this is what everything was leading to. According to him, regionalism failed to create an effective program of action; they did not propose any specific ways for the region to exit the current political and social crisis.
Caucasus
With the establishment of Soviet power in the Caucasus, active armed resistance began in the mountainous regions of Chechnya, Dagestan and Karachay-Cherkessia, one of the organizers of which was the grandson of Imam Shamil, Said Bey. According to historians, this rebellion largely revived the goals and objectives of the Caucasian War of the 19th century.
In addition to the Caucasian component itself, the liberation struggle contributed to the maturation of the ideology of pan-Turkism, which substantiates the unity of all Turkic peoples and the need for their unity in the so-called “Great Turan” state, stretching from the Balkans to Siberia.
However, Napoleonic plans quickly narrowed to the idea of separating exclusively the Caucasus from Soviet Russia. However, this struggle had far-reaching consequences: continuing until the start of the war, it was transformed into the activities of pro-fascist gangs.
According to the OGPU, from 1920 to 1941, 12 armed uprisings took place in Checheno-Ingushetia alone, in which from 500 to 5,000 militants took part. Three more major anti-Soviet protests were prevented thanks to the operational work of the Cheka.
As a rule, the gangs were led by former party workers from local authorities. For example, at the beginning of 1942, in Shatoi and Itum-Kale, the former prosecutor of Checheno-Ingushetia Mairbek Sheripov started a rebellion. Together with the troops of the collaborator Khasan Israilov, he organized a joint headquarters and a rebel government. In their appeal to the peoples of the Caucasus, the separatists called for welcoming German troops as guests, in return expecting to receive recognition of the independence of the Caucasus from the occupiers.
By the end of 1944, the NKVD forces defeated almost 200 gangs that existed in the territories of Checheno-Ingushetia. Isolated clashes continued until 1957, when deported Chechens and Ingush returned home.
Turkestan
In the early 1920s, the ideology of pan-Turkism also spread to Soviet Turkestan, stimulating such an anti-Soviet movement as the Basmachi movement. The leader of the Turkish nationalist organization “Teshkilyati Mahsus” Enver Pasha, who headed the Basmachi, seriously hoped to implement the “Turan strategy” under the leadership of Istanbul. However, his dreams of uniting Turkey, the Caucasus, Iran, Turkestan, the Volga region and Crimea into one state were not destined to come true. It was not possible to bring the idea of free Turkestan to life. Almost all pockets of Basmachiism were eliminated by 1932.
Baltics
Separatist forces awoke in the Baltic states during its liberation from Nazi troops. In the summer of 1944, following the troops of the 3rd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts, NKVD formations entered the territory of Lithuania. Their task was to clear the front line from the Wehrmacht soldiers, Nazi collaborators, deserters, looters and anti-Soviet elements who remained there.
The most serious resistance to the Soviet border guards was provided by the Lithuanian Liberation Army, which was led by the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania. This organization existed underground from the moment Lithuania joined the USSR, and now, taking advantage of the favorable moment, it set Lithuanians against pro-Moscow activists and representatives of the Soviet government.
The fight against the separatists continued until 1956. It is interesting that in addition to conducting hostilities, Beria proposed evicting the families of the leaders of the anti-Soviet underground to the logging areas of the Perm and Sverdlovsk regions. However, this measure was not necessary.
Ukraine
Ukrainian separatism intensified literally immediately after Galicia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia became part of the Ukrainian SSR. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) specialized in the fight against the Soviets, declaring its main goal as “the national liberation of the Ukrainian people and the creation of an independent Ukrainian state.”
In their geopolitical appetites, the OUN members were not inferior to the supporters of the “Great Turan”. Their dream was a “sovereign conciliar Ukrainian state,” which was supposed to stretch from the Carpathian Mountains to the Volga and from the foothills of the Caucasus to the upper reaches of the Dnieper.
What failed with the Lithuanians, they did with the Ukrainian nationalists. Since 1947, the active allocation of leaders of rebel groups, as well as members of their families, to remote areas of the country began. Over two years, more than 100 thousand people were displaced.
Parade of sovereignties
At the end of perestroika, it was the places of separatist fault lines - the Baltic states and the Caucasus - that began to crack first. Gorbachev delayed too much in resolving the national issue. The plenum took place in September 1989, but the republican elites had already started. It is curious that the Nakhichevan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was the first to declare its independence - this is how it responded to the forceful suppression of the political opposition in Baku.
Before the August putsch, the Baltic republics, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia took the path of independence. Kyrgyzstan was the last country to break away from the USSR on December 15, 1990. Echoes of the parade of sovereignties echoed in the Volga region. However, the activities of the nationalist party “Ittifak”, which campaigned for the independence of Tatarstan, were stopped in time.
The Soviet principle “every nation has the right to self-determination” assumed the creation of a unitary multi-ethnic state. However, some nations wanted to self-determinate in their own way, including by secession from the USSR.
Cut to the quick
The division of the state along national lines was new in world history. In practice, according to British historian Eric Hobsbawm, “the communist regime began to deliberately and deliberately create ethnolinguistic territorial “national administrative units” where they had not previously existed or where no one had seriously thought about them, for example, among the Muslims of Central Asia or the Belarusians "
One of the leaders of the revolutionary movement in the Caucasus, Stepan Shaumyan, warned Lenin: “Nations have become so mixed up with each other that there are no longer national territories within which national federal or autonomous regions could easily be established.” However, the leader of the proletariat did not heed the warning and began to cut borders to the quick, even where it was impossible to draw them.
Having received a certain freedom, the heads of national-territorial entities began to think about greater autonomy, up to the acquisition of state sovereignty. In some regions of the country this resulted in aggravation of internal political and interethnic relations.
Separatist sentiments flared up with particular force during the Great Patriotic War, primarily affecting such multi-ethnic regions as the Caucasus, the Baltic states and Western Ukraine. Echoes of separatism also swept through the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. There is information about uprisings of the Yakuts and Nenets, which were suppressed, including with the help of aviation.
After the end of the war, until perestroika, the “independents” practically did not show themselves in any way, and only with the advent of glasnost, when the central authorities allowed certain freedoms to the regions, separatism went on the offensive.
The history of Siberian separatism dates back to the 1860s, when independence-hungry Siberians published a proclamation declaring that “A special territory demands the independence of Siberia, and it must separate from Russia.”
In December 1917, not wanting to strengthen the position of the Bolsheviks, supporters of Siberian autonomy - regionalists - held an emergency congress in Tomsk, at which they decided to create an independent government body - the Provisional Siberian Government (VSP). And in 1918, the VSP, which received broad powers, issued the “Declaration on the State Independence of Siberia.”
However, by the middle of 1918, the regionalists were losing their positions and leaving the political arena, despite the desperate calls of the radicals to take up arms against the Bolsheviks. Novosibirsk historian M.V. Shilovsky will note that this is what everything was leading to. According to him, regionalism failed to create an effective program of action; they did not propose any specific ways for the region to exit the current political and social crisis.
With the establishment of Soviet power in the Caucasus, active armed resistance began in the mountainous regions of Chechnya, Dagestan and Karachay-Cherkessia, one of the organizers of which was the grandson of Imam Shamil, Said Bey. According to historians, this rebellion largely revived the goals and objectives of the Caucasian War of the 19th century.
In addition to the Caucasian component itself, the liberation struggle contributed to the maturation of the ideology of pan-Turkism, which substantiates the unity of all Turkic peoples and the need for their unity in the so-called “Great Turan” state, stretching from the Balkans to Siberia.
However, Napoleonic plans quickly narrowed to the idea of separating exclusively the Caucasus from Soviet Russia. However, this struggle had far-reaching consequences: continuing until the start of the war, it was transformed into the activities of pro-fascist gangs.
According to the OGPU, from 1920 to 1941, 12 armed uprisings took place in Checheno-Ingushetia alone, in which from 500 to 5,000 militants took part. Three more major anti-Soviet protests were prevented thanks to the operational work of the Cheka.
As a rule, the gangs were led by former party workers from local authorities. For example, at the beginning of 1942, in Shatoi and Itum-Kale, the former prosecutor of Checheno-Ingushetia Mairbek Sheripov started a rebellion. Together with the troops of the collaborator Khasan Israilov, he organized a joint headquarters and a rebel government. In their appeal to the peoples of the Caucasus, the separatists called for welcoming German troops as guests, in return expecting to receive recognition of the independence of the Caucasus from the occupiers.
By the end of 1944, the NKVD forces defeated almost 200 gangs that existed in the territories of Checheno-Ingushetia. Isolated clashes continued until 1957, when deported Chechens and Ingush returned home.
Turkestan
In the early 1920s, the ideology of pan-Turkism also spread to Soviet Turkestan, stimulating such an anti-Soviet movement as the Basmachi movement. The leader of the Turkish nationalist organization “Teshkilyati Mahsus” Enver Pasha, who headed the Basmachi, seriously hoped to implement the “Turan strategy” under the leadership of Istanbul. However, his dreams of uniting Turkey, the Caucasus, Iran, Turkestan, the Volga region and Crimea into one state were not destined to come true. It was not possible to bring the idea of free Turkestan to life. Almost all pockets of Basmachiism were eliminated by 1932.
Baltics
Separatist forces awoke in the Baltic states during its liberation from Nazi troops. In the summer of 1944, following the troops of the 3rd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts, NKVD formations entered the territory of Lithuania. Their task was to clear the front line from the Wehrmacht soldiers, Nazi collaborators, deserters, looters and anti-Soviet elements who remained there.
The most serious resistance to the Soviet border guards was provided by the Lithuanian Liberation Army, which was led by the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania. This organization existed underground from the moment Lithuania joined the USSR, and now, taking advantage of the favorable moment, it set Lithuanians against pro-Moscow activists and representatives of the Soviet government.
The fight against the separatists continued until 1956. It is interesting that in addition to conducting hostilities, Beria proposed evicting the families of the leaders of the anti-Soviet underground to the logging areas of the Perm and Sverdlovsk regions. However, this measure was not necessary.
Ukrainian separatism intensified literally immediately after Galicia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia became part of the Ukrainian SSR. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) specialized in the fight against the Soviets, declaring its main goal as “the national liberation of the Ukrainian people and the creation of an independent Ukrainian state.”
In their geopolitical appetites, the OUN members were not inferior to the supporters of the “Great Turan”. Their dream was a “sovereign conciliar Ukrainian state,” which was supposed to stretch from the Carpathian Mountains to the Volga and from the foothills of the Caucasus to the upper reaches of the Dnieper.
What failed with the Lithuanians, they did with the Ukrainian nationalists. Since 1947, active eviction of the leaders of the rebel groups, as well as members of their families, to remote areas of the country began. Over two years, more than 100 thousand people were displaced.
Parade of sovereignties
At the end of perestroika, it was the places of separatist fault lines - the Baltic states and the Caucasus - that began to crack first. Gorbachev delayed too much in resolving the national issue. The plenum took place in September 1989, but the republican elites had already started. It is curious that the Nakhichevan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was the first to declare its independence - this is how it responded to the forceful suppression of the political opposition in Baku.
Before the August putsch, the Baltic republics, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia took the path of independence. Kyrgyzstan was the last country to break away from the USSR on December 15, 1990. Echoes of the parade of sovereignties echoed in the Volga region. However, the activities of the nationalist party “Ittifak”, which campaigned for the independence of Tatarstan, were stopped in time.
The Soviet principle “every nation has the right to self-determination” assumed the creation of a unitary multi-ethnic state. However, some nations wanted to self-determinate in their own way, including by secession from the USSR.
Cut to the quick
The division of the state along national lines was new in world history. In practice, according to British historian Eric Hobsbawm, “the communist regime began to deliberately and deliberately create ethnolinguistic territorial “national administrative units” where they had not previously existed or where no one had seriously thought about them, for example, among the Muslims of Central Asia or the Belarusians "
One of the leaders of the revolutionary movement in the Caucasus, Stepan Shaumyan, warned Lenin: “Nations have become so mixed up with each other that there are no longer national territories within which national federal or autonomous regions could easily be established.” However, the leader of the proletariat did not heed the warning and began to cut borders to the quick, even where it was impossible to draw them.
Having received a certain freedom, the heads of national-territorial entities began to think about greater autonomy, up to the acquisition of state sovereignty. In some regions of the country this resulted in aggravation of internal political and interethnic relations.
Separatist sentiments flared up with particular force during the Great Patriotic War, primarily affecting such multi-ethnic regions as the Caucasus, the Baltic states and Western Ukraine. Echoes of separatism also swept through the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. There is information about uprisings of the Yakuts and Nenets, which were suppressed, including with the help of aviation.
After the end of the war, until perestroika, the “independents” practically did not show themselves in any way, and only with the advent of glasnost, when the central authorities allowed certain freedoms to the regions, separatism went on the offensive.
Siberia
The history of Siberian separatism dates back to the 1860s, when independence-hungry Siberians published a proclamation declaring that “A special territory demands the independence of Siberia, and it must separate from Russia.”
In December 1917, not wanting to strengthen the position of the Bolsheviks, supporters of Siberian autonomy - regionalists - held an emergency congress in Tomsk, at which they decided to create an independent government body - the Provisional Siberian Government (VSP). And in 1918, the VSP, which received broad powers, issued the “Declaration on the State Independence of Siberia.”
However, by the middle of 1918, the regionalists were losing their positions and leaving the political arena, despite the desperate calls of the radicals to take up arms against the Bolsheviks. Novosibirsk historian M.V. Shilovsky will note that this is what everything was leading to. According to him, regionalism failed to create an effective program of action; they did not propose any specific ways for the region to exit the current political and social crisis.
Caucasus
With the establishment of Soviet power in the Caucasus, active armed resistance began in the mountainous regions of Chechnya, Dagestan and Karachay-Cherkessia, one of the organizers of which was the grandson of Imam Shamil, Said Bey. According to historians, this rebellion largely revived the goals and objectives of the Caucasian War of the 19th century.
In addition to the Caucasian component itself, the liberation struggle contributed to the maturation of the ideology of pan-Turkism, which substantiates the unity of all Turkic peoples and the need for their unity in the so-called “Great Turan” state, stretching from the Balkans to Siberia.
However, Napoleonic plans quickly narrowed to the idea of separating exclusively the Caucasus from Soviet Russia. However, this struggle had far-reaching consequences: continuing until the start of the war, it was transformed into the activities of pro-fascist gangs.
According to the OGPU, from 1920 to 1941, 12 armed uprisings took place in Checheno-Ingushetia alone, in which from 500 to 5,000 militants took part. Three more major anti-Soviet protests were prevented thanks to the operational work of the Cheka.
As a rule, the gangs were led by former party workers from local authorities. For example, at the beginning of 1942, in Shatoi and Itum-Kale, the former prosecutor of Checheno-Ingushetia Mairbek Sheripov started a rebellion. Together with the troops of the collaborator Khasan Israilov, he organized a joint headquarters and a rebel government. In their appeal to the peoples of the Caucasus, the separatists called for welcoming German troops as guests, in return expecting to receive recognition of the independence of the Caucasus from the occupiers.
By the end of 1944, the NKVD forces defeated almost 200 gangs that existed in the territories of Checheno-Ingushetia. Isolated clashes continued until 1957, when deported Chechens and Ingush returned home.
Turkestan
In the early 1920s, the ideology of pan-Turkism also spread to Soviet Turkestan, stimulating such an anti-Soviet movement as the Basmachi movement. The leader of the Turkish nationalist organization “Teshkilyati Mahsus” Enver Pasha, who headed the Basmachi, seriously hoped to implement the “Turan strategy” under the leadership of Istanbul. However, his dreams of uniting Turkey, the Caucasus, Iran, Turkestan, the Volga region and Crimea into one state were not destined to come true. It was not possible to bring the idea of free Turkestan to life. Almost all pockets of Basmachiism were eliminated by 1932.
Baltics
Separatist forces awoke in the Baltic states during its liberation from Nazi troops. In the summer of 1944, following the troops of the 3rd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts, NKVD formations entered the territory of Lithuania. Their task was to clear the front line from the Wehrmacht soldiers, Nazi collaborators, deserters, looters and anti-Soviet elements who remained there.
The most serious resistance to the Soviet border guards was provided by the Lithuanian Liberation Army, which was led by the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania. This organization existed underground from the moment Lithuania joined the USSR, and now, taking advantage of the favorable moment, it set Lithuanians against pro-Moscow activists and representatives of the Soviet government.
The fight against the separatists continued until 1956. It is interesting that in addition to conducting hostilities, Beria proposed evicting the families of the leaders of the anti-Soviet underground to the logging areas of the Perm and Sverdlovsk regions. However, this measure was not necessary.
Ukraine
Ukrainian separatism intensified literally immediately after Galicia, Bukovina and Transcarpathia became part of the Ukrainian SSR. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) specialized in the fight against the Soviets, declaring its main goal as “the national liberation of the Ukrainian people and the creation of an independent Ukrainian state.”
In their geopolitical appetites, the OUN members were not inferior to the supporters of the “Great Turan”. Their dream was a “sovereign conciliar Ukrainian state,” which was supposed to stretch from the Carpathian Mountains to the Volga and from the foothills of the Caucasus to the upper reaches of the Dnieper.
What failed with the Lithuanians, they did with the Ukrainian nationalists. Since 1947, active eviction of the leaders of the rebel groups, as well as members of their families, to remote areas of the country began. Over two years, more than 100 thousand people were displaced.
Parade of sovereignties
At the end of perestroika, it was the places of separatist fault lines – the Baltic states and the Caucasus – that began to crack first. Gorbachev delayed too much in resolving the national issue. The plenum took place in September 1989, but the republican elites had already started. It is curious that the Nakhichevan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was the first to declare its independence - this is how it responded to the forceful suppression of the political opposition in Baku.
Before the August putsch, the Baltic republics, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia took the path of independence. Kyrgyzstan was the last country to break away from the USSR on December 15, 1990. Echoes of the parade of sovereignties echoed in the Volga region. However, the activities of the nationalist party “Ittifak”, which campaigned for the independence of Tatarstan, were stopped in time.
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Now it is already clear to the naked eye: the separatists are not interested in the true aspirations of the people, speculating on sacred feelings, they strive to realize their plans. One cannot ignore the fact that other nationalist-minded figures, proclaiming slogans about a “great” Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldova, etc., begin to openly declare claims to certain territories. We all know well what this can lead to and is already leading to. I’ll say it straight: now there is no more serious danger in the country than full-blown extremist nationalism and the escalation of ethnic hatred.
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