The Chechen Revolution was a series of anti-government protests in the Checheno-Ingush Soviet Socialist Republic of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic against the local Communist Party officials.
The event occurred during the Dissolution of the Soviet Union and was brought by the failed 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev intended to save the Union from collapse. While the coup was opposed by many union republics, including Russia, local Soviet Chechen leadership was seen as supporting the coup, which triggered demonstrations and calls to resign from anti-Soviet and nationalist opposition led by All-National Congress of the Chechen People and its chairman Dzhokhar Dudayev. Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, who played the crucial role in the failure of the coup and subsequently emerged as a dominant leader, also turned against the local Soviet Chechen leadership of Doku Zavgayev.
The chain of events led to the collapse of Zavgayev's authority and assumption of power by the Provisional Supreme Soviet consisting of Dudayev's supporters and former Communist Party members. However, the subsequent confrontation between the Russian leadership and Dudayev's supporters led to Dudayev's faction withdrawing from the Provisional Supreme Soviet and declaring the National Congress as a sole legitimate authority in the republic. The snap elections were held and Dudayev declared Chechnya's independence from Russia, which ushered the republic into a decade of de facto but internationally unrecognized self-rule.
Background
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev, a new leader of the Soviet Union, launched the series of reforms which became known as Glasnost and Perestroika. The increasing decentralization brought by these reforms, however, led to a power struggle between the Soviet central government and the leaderships of its constituent republics, which included ex-Communist Boris Yeltsin of Russian SFSR. From 1988 to 1991, the constituent republics passed "declarations of sovereignty", which asserted the priority of the constituent republics' authority in their territory over the central power (but not complete independence). In June 1990, the Russian SFSR passed the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Gorbachev designed a New Union Treaty for preserving the Soviet Union with a less centralized federal system, but Yeltsin called for a far more decentralized model and accused Gorbachev's reforms of being a "sham". Yeltsin denounced Gorbachev as a "conservative" and "reactionary", especially after his use of force in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Baltics. He attacked the Soviet leader for "failing to implement" his liberal reforms and accused him of leading the country into a "dictatorship".
Along with the USSR's constituent republics, all federal units within the RSFSR also passed proclamations of sovereignty. In an attempt to undermine the Yeltsin's rule, Gorbachev supported these efforts of the republics of Russia, including the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic. Gorbachev even promised the Russian autonomies more rights. On 26 April 1990, the Soviet law was passed which granted the autonomies full power in their territories and made them "subjects of the USSR", thus upgrading their status so they could participate within "renewed federation" on "equal footing" with the union republics. Yeltsin sought to counter this tactic by declaring Russia's sovereignty.
During the Glasnost reforms, a nationalist opposition began to grow in Chechnya demanding more national self-determination for Chechen people, with some calling for independence. In July 1989, Bart (Unity) was established as a first overtly oppositional political organization in the republic. It was later renamed into the Vainakh Democratic Party in February 1990. It was instrumental in assembling the Chechen National Congress in November 1990. On 25 November the Congress declared the republic's sovereignty, albeit lacking legal authority. It proclaimed the sovereign Chechen Republic Nokhchi-cho. The National Congress elected Dzhokhar Dudayev, the Soviet air force major general serving in Estonia, as the chairman of its executive committee. The National Congress asked the Supreme Soviet of the Checheno-Ingush Soviet Socialist Republic "to ratify the declaration of sovereignty". On 27 November, the Supreme Soviet passed the declaration of sovereignty, which was thus one of the last ones in the "parade of sovereignties". While most of the Russia's federal units ultimately declared about their sovereignty within the Russian SFSR, thus supporting Yeltsin rather than Gorbachev, Chechnya-Ingushetia and Tatarstan did not do so. Chechen declaration of sovereignty did not have reference that Chechnya was declaring sovereignty within Russian SFSR or USSR, as was the norm with the other republics, and it established the conditions under which the republic would sign Gorbachev's New Union Treaty. Despite the ambitious tone of the declaration, Soviet Chechen leader Doku Zavgayev only intended it to provoke economic and political concessions from Moscow. While Zavgayev grew defiant to central authorities, he still did not want Chechnya to secede from Moscow. Still, Gorbachev and his government were worried about Chechen claims, considering them to be excessive.
Yeltsin also promised greater recognition to autonomies within the sovereign Russia, but Zavgayev refused to hold the Russian referendum to create the Russian presidency in March 1991, obeying Gorbachev's instructions. This led to Yeltsin's circle criticizing Zavgayev. Instead, Chechnya took part in Soviet referendum to preserve the USSR. This led to further criticism, since Yeltsin claimed that the referendum was called by Gorbachev to "fight against the Russian republic's independence".
Gorbachev tried to present himself as a defender of "Soviet multiculturalism" against Yeltsin's Russian nationalism. The Russian ASSR (Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) leaders feared that the revitalized strength of the Russian SFSR threatened to relegate their place in the Russian and Soviet hierarchy. Also, the ASSR leaders, which were propelled through corruption and clan hierarchy, feared Yeltsin's brand of populism, which could sweep away the corrupt Party networks painted by nationalist populist democrat Yeltsin as "atavistic remnants of communism".
Yeltsin presented himself as a "democratic" and "anti-communist" leader. He visited Chechnya in March 1991. In April 1991, the RSFSR Supreme Soviet proceeded to pass the Law on the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples, which was popular among Chechens, who had been deported en masse by Soviet authorities in 1944. During his presidential campaign, Yeltsin promoted the self-determination and used the slogan "Take as much sovereignty as you can swallow". According to Emil Pain and Arkadii Popov, Yeltsin's team "promised to maximize the autonomy of Russia's constituent republics, and was willing to ignore the anti-constitutional games played by republican authorities and nationalist movements that advocated different versions of ethnic sovereignty". In June 1991, Chechnya took part in the Russian presidential elections, and 80% of Chechens voted in favor of Yeltsin.
While the National Congress did not want the election to be held in Chechnya, considering it to be sovereign from Russia, according to Dr. Tracey German, "the election issue demonstrated the extent of Zavgayev's resolve in his confrontation with the centre". He endorsed the elections and one week before it even supported Yeltsin's candidacy.
The National Congress intensified its activity in March 1991, when Dudayev retired from the Soviet Air Forces and returned to Chechnya to hold the second session of the National Congress. In May 1991, the Congress declared that the Supreme Soviet had "fulfilled its historical mission" by declaring the republic's sovereignty. It urged the Supreme Soviet to disband and announced that the Congress would assume all power in the republic up to the new elections in Chechnya.
1991 Soviet Coup
On 19 August, a coup was carried out in Moscow, where the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP), a group of Communist Party functionaries, KGB officials and Soviet generals, took over and stripped the country's president, Mikhail Gorbachev, of his power. The group accused Gorbachev and his leadership of implementing political and economic reforms which, as they argued, caused chaos in the country and threatened the collapse of the Soviet Union. On 20 August, New Union Treaty was planned to be signed, which would have effectively transformed the Soviet Union into a loose confederation. Though the treaty was intended to save the union, the hardliners feared that it would increase the power of constituent republics and encourage them to press for full independence. GKChP announced that it would take "necessary steps" to preserve the Soviet Union.
The coup caused mixed reactions in the union republics. Independence-minded republics, such as Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia etc., condemned the coup and supported its main opponent, Boris Yeltsin. Some republics supported the coup, such as Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan etc. Ukraine, Kazakhstan and others choose to hold a neutral position.
History
Protests in Chechnya
The Moscow coup happened when Soviet Chechen leader Doku Zavgayev was in Moscow to sign the New Union Treaty. Almost all officials in Grozny either favored the attempted coup or avoided taking sides. Neither did Zavgayev in Moscow take a clear position. In contrast, on August 19, All-National Congress of the Chechen People issued a decree denouncing the GKChP as "a group of government criminals" and called for mass protests to oppose the coup in Chechnya. In early morning, a large demonstration began in Grozny led by Dudayev. The Chechen National Congress and the Vainakh Democratic Party led by Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev set up operation head-quarters in the former building of the gorkom (city committee of the Communist Party) to lead a resistance against GKChP. Dudaev stated that had the GKChP succeeded in taking power, it "was preparing an especially refined genocide for the Chechen people".
In the late morning or early afternoon of 19 August, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was arrested by the secret police and the protest meeting was forcibly dispersed by the republican militia. Later the same day Yandarbiyev and his fellow activist were released.
The National Congress issued an appeal, calling for an "indefinite general political strike". The same day the National Congress started to form "battle detachments and strike groups" to "repulse the GKChP". The armed formations of Congress established the National Guard.
On 20 August, the republican militia attempted to raid the headquarters of the National Congress. The joint KGB-MVD force tried to take control of the gorkom building but failed as they were driven out by national guards loyal to the National Congress.
On August 21, Zavgayev returned to Chechnya, but could not regain control over the situation. On 22 August, Dudayev and National Congress led the mass rally in Grozny calling the Supreme Soviet to resign, accusing it of failing to take a principled position regarding the coup. On August 22, Dudayev's armed supporters clashed with the republican militia and seized the television station in Chechnya. Dudayev made an appeal on television which was followed by the mass influx of rural Chechens into capital to overthrow the Supreme Soviet. John Dunlop describes this as a "social revolution" against "detested Communist Party nomenklatura". The religious and clan leaders in the villages helped to swing the rural populace over the side of Dudayev, believing that Dudayev, a secular leader, would eventually be induced to establish an Islamic republic in Chechnya. The new entrepreneurial class, which represented the republic's "shadow economy", was also involved in the protests and financially backed Dudayev.
On 24 August, the protesters pulled down the Lenin's statue in the town center. On 25 August, the emergency session of the Supreme Soviet rejected the National Congress's ultimatum. Chechnya fell into diarchy.
Zavgayev's downfall
On 26 August, the member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, General Aslambek Aslakhanov, an ethnic Chechen, and Inga Grebesheva, the deputy chairwoman of the RSFSR Council of Ministers, arrived in Grozny. They warned Zavgayev not to use force to resolve the political crisis. According to professor Matthew Evangelista, demonstrations in Grozny and Zavgayev's dubious position during the Moscow coup convinced Yeltsin's circle that Zavgayev had to go. Yeltsin himself played a crucial role in the failure of the Moscow coup and emerged as a dominant leader, surpassing Gorbachev. Consequently, Yeltsin and his team wanted to jettison Zavgayev from power. According to then acting RSFSR Supreme Soviet chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov, Yeltsin called him and informed him on his plan "to replace Zavgayev with Salambek Khadzhiyev". Khasbulatov and others believed that their candidate would be able to win election against Dudayev. Also according to Khasbulatov, he convinced General Petr Deinekin, commander of the Soviet Air Forces, and others to fly to Grozny in an attempt to convince Dudayev to return to a career in the military. These attempts were not successful.