2. The essence of the Russian-Chechen relationship problem
“About the current moment” №10, October 2002. Calling things by their proper names · перевод (English) · раздел 3 из 5
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2. The essence of the Russian-Chechen relationship problem
First of all one should not think that Chechnya came to be a part of the Russian Empire solely as a consequence of the Tsarist policy of conquest. The Russian tsarism simply turned out to be more capable of conquering the Caucasus than Turkey, Iran or Great Britain. At the time prior to “subduing the highland peoples of the Caucasus ” those peoples and the Russian society were on different stages of social development:
· The highlanders lived within a tribal social system, which permitted slave-owning. It was maintained not only by enslaving paupers from among their own people but also through taking captives from the neighbouring territories including the territory of the Russian Empire. The idea of the kidnapping was getting a ransom or turning humans into slaves.
· Russia lived within a system of classes and castes, which also included slave-owning in the form of serfdom.
At the same time, the highlanders’ social system was quite steady while the system of classes and castes in the Empire was undergoing a deep crisis that Russia needed to overcome in order to move toward declaring all her people to be of equal dignity. But even after “subduing the Caucasus ” the problem of highlanders systematic kidnapping for ransom or slavery remained unresolved. The captures continued, and though the imperial state system helped to restrict this customary practice, the police authorities were incapable of eliminating it completely and therefore often preferred to shut their eyes on such incidents.
Whether the “liberals” like it or not the establishing of the Soviet regime was aimed not at replacement of one form of human exploitation by another form but at eliminating such exploitation and those conditions that might help to restore the system when someone goes parasitic on the lives and labour of others.
Some highlanders supported this Idea of Civilizational Build-Up, some remained loyal to the customs of their ancestors. This slave-owning tradition was the source of their resistance to the Soviet government in the pre-WWII years which later developed into collaboration of some of the tribal leaders with Hitler’s troops while a large part of their people was indifferent or acquiescent, continuing to stick to the norms of tribal ethics that conflicted with the Soviet state policies.
In order to destroy the slavery-bound tribal structures, and not for other reasons a part of the highland peoples was removed from their historic homeland in 1944. Due to the new life conditions of the “special migrants” in their new homeland their customary tribal way of life was disrupted. But it was not a genocide of the whole people - as the abstractionist “humanists” or representatives of “the repressed people” might be yelling: for if it had been a genocide, there would have been no one to yell and lament half a century after it had taken place.
In the new life conditions, in a different ethnic environment “special migrants” obtained cultural skills which had not been characteristic of them before. Basically, it was a renewal of an ancient Russian practice: captured steppe nomads were taken into the heart of the Russian territory, where they were given land and in a generation or two they turned into Russians, bringing into the multinational Russian culture something of their own, something viable in a community of people with different backgrounds united by common culture.
But Nikita Khrustchev put an end to this process before it had reached a point of no return. In the post-Stalin era the regime of the USSR became an antisocialist one, parasitic on the country’s peoples. Therefore it was forced to play the hypocrisy games, pretending to build a society of justice and freedom where there was no place for a man exploiting another man. In accord with the hypocritical policies by the central regime the leaders of the highlanders who had returned to their historic motherland gradually went back to their custom of taking Soviet citizens as prisoners in order to enslave them or get ransom while the ruling regime pretended that in a socialist society such things could not and did not happen. That is exactly why in the course of the current anti-terrorist operation we now and then hear news of slaves rescued in Chechnya and Ingushetia who had been taken prisoners as far back as the 80’s. Is there any accounting for those people who had been turned into slaves and were killed for resistance or died in slavery during the past 20 years?
On the other hand in the 1960-80s the Gosplan (State planning agency) of the USSR and the Gosplans of the Soviet republics were running the USSR’s economy and industry in such a way that many areas of the Caucasus and Middle Asia, which that later turned into “turmoil spots”, faced hidden unemployment. It contributed to the relatively high by Soviet standards local welfare, resulting from good natural resources and geographical status as well as from regional consumer basket price advantages and the governmental policy on taxes, subsidies and investments. Excessful vacant time along with low cultural level created favourable conditions for local people to get involved into criminal activities, especially for representatives of those peoples that kept intact the foundations of their tribal social structure. This tribalizm serves today as an organisational basis for mafias all over the world.
If one forgets about this factor and is appalled at hearing many people, especially average people, say directly that organized crime in Russia has a clear ethnic slant, one is either a fool or is trying to deliberately obscure the essence of the problem: these criminal statistics prove that ethnic criminal communities follow the tribal way of life. This important factor brings about a significant conclusion for further discourse:
All actions taken by police authorities according to legislation of a European or American type - based on a belief that an individual acts independently and takes all responsibility for committed crime - will be always and by far ineffective against criminals who use the principles of clan-type organisation where many people are made companions in one crime [2]. Legislation should be organised in such a way that if this fact is discovered, charges must be brought not only against the juniors of the clan hierarchy but also against the seniors. In European or American legal practicies the seniors remain above suspicion or beyond the reach of police authorities due to absence of witnesses (intimidated or murdered by their order) or inconsistency between reality and the legal system. The charges against the seniors must be more serious.
It was a historical reality that supporters of the Idea of Civilizational Build-Up without anyone being parasitic on life and labour of others in the 1980s USSR were not a self-organising social force, unlike the opponents of socialism. These supporters believed to the betrayers of the Idea who emerged as leaders of the Communist Party and the country after the years known as “ottepel” (political thaw) and “zastoi” (stagnation). That is why after the traitors deserted and abandoned their posts, state structures in all regions of the USSR were seized by political forces that were self-organised on this or that cultural basis. The variety in such cultural bases of self-organisation among the opponents to society without human exploitation defined the final pattern of the USSR ’s splitting up into a multitude of “souvenir” states.
Accordingly, when one correlates the problem of Russian-Chechen relationship with the Idea of Civilizational Build-Up without anyone being parasitic on life and labour of others, particularly without parasitism openly or covertly proclaimed as the foundation of the country’s life, one can clearly see that the Russian-Chechen conflict is a conflict between the two “elites” on the disputed “best” methods of slavery.
The Kremlin’s side. The “democratisers” of Russia who have seized the Kremlin, advocate a “highly civilised” global kind of slavery, exercised by means of a monopoly on usury held by Jewish clans in all countries. Loan interest exceeds the growth rate of social labour productivity, generates an increase of prices that outrun production growth, devalues assets and savings, creates a debt that nobody has a chance to pay. Managing the volume, distribution and clearing off of those debts by means of stock exchange quotations system, bank-rates and insurance rates the clans that control the global financial system hold everyone else captive. This very concept of slavery was the reason for murdering Cheushesku in Romania (Romania had no debts by the time when Cheushesku’s regime was overthrown) and assigning a 200% per year interest rate in Russia, which was done in the times of Gaidar, Livshits and Chernomyrdin and had a devastating effect on Russia’s science and industry.
Chechnya’s side. “Freedom-loving” Chechen elders who used general Djohar Dudajev and company as a cover-up were not freedom-loving in reality. When they sensed the government’s weakness (as far back as the Soviet times) robbing transit trains became almost a nation-wide business employing a fairly large part of the autonomy’s population. Covert unemployment created by the USSR ’s Gosplan some time before helped this business to get started and flourish. Taking captives for enslaving them or getting ransom started to happen more often as the government composed of the “perestroika”-era traitors remained passive. But when the Chechen leaders faced a demand from the Kremlin “democratisers” to pay their debts on equal terms with other Russian citizens, Chechnya started along the separatist line.
To make a long story short, the Kremlin followed the concept of “civilised cultured slavery” exercised by means of financial and usurious yoke. And the Chechen “pahanat” (leaders with criminal background) followed the primitive concept of slavery exercised by means of brutal force (zindans, iron collars and manacles, intimidation, mutilation and killing slaves). And both sides of the conflict are unjust in their devotion to slavery.
A conclusion follows: Chechnya is right in putting up resistance to the regime of financial and usurious slavery that the Kremlin is seeking to establish; the Kremlin is right in putting down an attempt to establish a primitive society with slave-owning system and to form a separate slavery state equipped with modern technical means on the territory of Russia.
It also follows that lord Judd, the European parliament and other foreign “supporters” of Chechen separatists are either scoundrels and hypocrites or idiots. The same goes to those inside Russia who are bent on protecting the “human rights” of Chechens presumably violated by federal troops, advocate withdrawing federal troops and granting “independence” to “Ichkeria”. But it is fair that the politicians and common people of Russia who are sure that the Russian government is the only just party who has proved its case in this conflict and that its’ local representatives thus enjoy the “privilidge” for unlawful actions and bear no responsibility for abuse of state power and armed force, - in the face of people and God - are no less hypocrites.
If both sides keep their current vision and ambitions to exercise the “pseudo-right” of slavery in the conflict for control over Chechnya between the Kremlin and the Chechen tribal “elite” will find the task insoluble. Being controlled from outside Russia the conflict can evolve to the detriment of both sides as long as the “world backstage” needs or until it, unless it is cut off from controlling this process.