19. Struggle on the edge of the nuclear abyss Since January 1959, when jubilant rebels marched into Havana in columns, the United States has repeatedly wondered about the reasons for the persistent anti-American sentiment of the vast majority of Cubans. Apparently for

12. Deportation of small nations During the Great Patriotic War, deportations of entire nations became widespread. If the resettlement of Soviet Germans was of a “preventive” nature, “to prevent serious bloodshed” during the advance of the German army,

Vadim Infantiev. AT THE VERY EDGE People tend to get carried away. Some are completely absorbed in their work; such people grow into great scientists, artists, and masters; others are obsessed with a passion for music, fishing or collecting, these are happy people - love burns in them, it does not

Many Karachais from national villages went to the front. Those who remained in the rear worked on the construction of defensive structures, collecting money and things for the front. During these war years, residents of the region collected and sent over 6 wagons of collective and individual gifts and 68,650 items - felt boots, short fur coats, burkas, hats with ear flaps, woolen socks. In mid-August 1942, German troops entered the region. In the battles for the passes of the Main Caucasus Range, 17 partisan detachments took part, in which there were about 1,200 people, including about a hundred women. “Brave partisans and partisans M. Romanchuk, 3. Erkenov, M. Isakov, 3. Erkenova, I. Akbaev, Kh. Kasaev, Y. Chomaev and others gave their lives in the name of victory.”

Already in the first period of occupation, the Karachay region suffered significant losses in human and material resources. Representatives of many nations were shot: Russians, Karachais, Ossetians, Abazas. 150 thousand heads of livestock were destroyed, businesses were destroyed, and local schools were turned into stables.

On the territory of the Ordzhonikidze region occupied in August, the Germans established a “new order”: a curfew from 7 pm to 4 am. Along with the ruble, German Reichsmarks and Pfennigs began to be accepted, the names of settlements and institutions were written in German and Russian. The occupation authorities paid special attention to the “reform” of agriculture. Leaflets were published addressed to peasants, they stated that in the liberated regions the German government had already liquidated collective farms. This meant the transition of peasants to individual land use, thanks to which. According to the promises of the Germans, the peasants had the opportunity to live many times better than under collective farms. The occupation of the region lasted 5.5 months.

The situation during the war was tense, accompanied by a deterioration in the financial situation, a tightening of the regime, and mobilization. The advance of German troops to the Caucasus caused new repressions. As a result, many people from wealthy classes who fought against the Bolsheviks during the Civil War, participants in anti-Soviet movements, dispossessed people, and their families found themselves in the ranks of collaborators. Many of them counted on changing the existing order with the help of the Germans and deliberately agreed to cooperate.

From representatives of just such a social environment, the majority of the “Karachay National Committee” was formed, headed by K. Bayramukov, the foreman of Karachay, and the “Circassian Council”, headed by A. Yakubovsky.

With the beginning of the occupation of the region and regions, opponents of Soviet power came out of hiding and began to act openly, forming pseudo-national organizations on behalf of their peoples, forming detachments to support the occupiers and fight the partisans.

The main reason for the deportation of the Karachais were accusations of collaboration and banditry among some of the population. But if we take into account the scale of the repressions, the Soviet leadership assigned collective responsibility to the entire Karachay people, half of whom were children and teenagers.

The text of Decree of the PVS of the USSR No. 115/13 “On the liquidation of the Karachay Autonomous Region and on the administrative structure of its territory” stated that “many Karachais behaved treacherously” and also “joined detachments organized by the Germans to fight Soviet power.” There were accusations of extraditing Soviet citizens to the Germans, serving the Germans as guides on the passes, and after the establishment of Soviet power, the Karachais “... counteracted the measures carried out by the Soviet government, hid bandits and agents abandoned by the Germans from the authorities, providing them with active assistance.”

As in other countries and regions they occupied, the Nazi command resorted to creating various kinds of organizations such as the “Karachay National Committee” to locally support the German occupation regime. This turned out to be enough to justify the decision to deport the entire Karachay people.

The purpose of the deportation, in a broader sense, was to cleanse society of current and potential enemies of Stalinism.

Its individual participants went underground, for example, the Dudov brothers Hadji-Islam and Islam-Magomed, former princes and participants in the armed uprising, hid for 13 years, etc. Illegal operating “gangster-rebel organizations” were created.

Despite the arrest at the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942 of many active participants in the uncovered rebel organization on the territory of Karachay and Kabardino-Balkaria, the operational security measures for the final liquidation of the rebel underground of the NKVD of the Ordzhonikidze Territory were not carried out decisively enough. Bayramukov Kady, Islam Dudov, Guliyev Tasha and others grouped a “bandit-deserter element” around themselves and carried out raids. In the first half of 1942 alone, NKVD officers in the region “identified 21 gangs with 135 participants.” Before the summer offensive of German troops in the Caucasus in 1942, enemy intelligence began sending its agents to Karachay.

Almost simultaneously with the German offensive in the Caucasus, “anti-Soviet elements” began to take active action in the region in an organized manner, attacking individual units of the retreating Red Army as part of detachments. According to historian N. Bugay, “the Karachais themselves best characterized the situation. According to them, several rebel groups were active in the region.” The rebels were led by people who had graduated from German intelligence schools.

The report of the head of the OBB NKVD of the USSR A. M. Leontyev addressed to the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR S. N. Kruglov stated that after the occupation, the German command in Karachay “established close ties with local nationalists, gang leaders, leaders of the Muslim clergy and Murid sects and their representatives and created the so-called Karachay National Committee." Bayramukov Kady and Laipanov Muratbi, who later worked in the German intelligence school in Beshui (Crimea), were approved at the head of the committee.

The committee received a promise from the occupation authorities for the right to dissolve collective farms in the future, Soviet state and public property, as well as economic and cultural management (under German control), were transferred to its care. The Karachay Committee was under the patronage of the former German military attache in Moscow, General E. Köstring.

According to the German historian J. Hoffmann, administrative leaderships were formed under the control of German authorities. The result of this policy was “recognition, on the basis of non-interference, of the independent republics of the Karachays and Kabardino-Balkarians in the North Caucasus, who rose up to fight Soviet power even before the arrival of the Germans.”

In his telegram to I. Stalin, L. Beria argued that the agreement between the Balkars and Karachais on the unification of Balkaria with Karachay was “at the direction of the Germans and the emigrants Shokmanov and Kemmetov they brought with them.”

The occupation authorities created a controlled “administrative apparatus”, for example, city and district burgomasters were appointed. The elders were subordinate to them, as the heads of the local civil administration. The headman was obliged to bring the orders of the German command to the attention of the population. Residents submitted requests and petitions only through the headman. The headman had the right to punish residents, impose a fine, send them to forced labor and put them under arrest. However, not all of the appointed elders were German supporters. Thus, the head of the Verkhnyaya Mara village, A. Ebzeev, hid intelligence officer M. Khutov and state security officer L. Uzdenov in his home. The occupiers considered one of the main tasks in organizing governance in the occupied territory to be the creation of a police force from local residents. There was 1 police officer for every 100 residents in the state.

The occupying German authorities also attached importance to counterinsurgency warfare. The punitive detachment under the command of the former “kulak” V. Ponomarev operated in the Pregradnensky, Zelenchuksky districts, the village of Kurdzhinovo, and fought against the partisans of the Stavropol and Krasnodar territories. The punishers, among whom were Y. Mikhailov, deputy commander of the Kurdzhinovsky punitive detachment, M. Sergeev - chief of police of the Krugloy Pregradnensky district village, I. Simakov, V. Glushko, I. Lakhin, S. Turetsky, I. Glushko and others, tortured and shot more than 170 patriots and burned the workers' village of Upper Beskes. They mocked the Soviet people, robbed them, and drove them in hundreds to Germany.

In January 1943, the Karachay region was liberated from German troops, which led to the resumption of the fight against anti-Soviet rebels. In January, the rebels of the Chereksky district of the KB ASSR and the Uchkulansky district of the Kaliningrad Autonomous Okrug organized an open protest against the Soviet government for the preservation of the “New Order” established by the Germans. The operations carried out in the Cherek and Uchkulan regions partially liquidated the rebel organizations.

The organizers of the protest in the Uchkulan region, according to the report of A. M. Leontiev, were “leaders of bandit rebel formations,” “Muslim clergy and nationalists.” 400 people took part in it; after the liquidation of the performance, many participants in small groups went underground. They were given great assistance by parachute agents, dropped in by German intelligence agencies with the active participation of the Karachay National Committee, who had fled from the region.

To lift up the people during the speech, national slogans were used: “for a free Karachay”, “for the religion of Karachay”. The “administrative apparatus” (elders, district elders, police), in the region, managed, at the expense of the population of not only the Uchkulan district, but also the Malokarachaevsky, Zelenchuksky, Mikoyanovsky districts, to organize a detachment totaling up to 153 people in the Uchkulan district: Uchkulan - 17 people, Kart-Jurt - 30 people, Upper Uchkulan - 57 people, Khurzuk - 40 people, Jazlyk - 9 people.

During military operations from February 10 to February 25, 1943, 115 soldiers and officers of the Red Army and state security officers were killed by the rebels of the Uchkulan region who resisted.

About 2 thousand military personnel of the internal troops and police officers were involved in the liquidation of the NKGB-NKVD uprising.

A repeated operation in the Uchkulan region was carried out from February 21 to 25 by units of the 284th, 273rd and 290th rifle regiments, the 18th cavalry regiment, the 177th separate rifle battalion, reconnaissance and fighter battalions of the Ordzhonikidze division of the NKVD. 60 rebels were killed, not counting those who surrendered and were captured. The NKVD troops lost 17 people killed, and there were casualties among the wounded and frostbite.

In April 1943, NKVD troops undertook an expedition to the Balyk area (Kabardino-Balkaria), where, according to intelligence data, up to 400-500 armed Karachais and Balkars were hiding, armed with heavy and light machine guns, grenades, machine guns, rifles, revolvers and ammunition. The organizers and leaders of the rebel headquarters were M. Kochkarov, I. Dudov, and others. The NKVD KB of the ASSR, Stavropol Territory, the task force of the Headquarters of the Grozny Division of the NKVD, 170 and 284 joint ventures and the 18th CP were involved in the operation.

The Chekist-military operation was carried out from April 7 to April 19 in the upper reaches of the Malka River to eliminate the so-called “Balyk Army,” which, according to other sources, numbered more than 200 people. 59 rebels were killed and about seventy were captured. The losses of the Soviet side amounted to 18 soldiers killed.

From January to October 10, 37 operations were carried out in the Karachay region alone, 99 anti-Soviet rebels were killed and 14 wounded, and 380 were captured. In battles with them, 60 NKVD employees were killed and 55 were wounded.

On April 15, 1943, Directive No. 52-6927 of the NKVD of the USSR and the USSR Prosecutor's Office was issued, according to which “573 family members of the rebel leaders” were identified for eviction. However, due to the fact that “67 bandit leaders confessed to the Soviet authorities, the number of families subject to deportation was reduced to 110 (472 people).” On August 9, 1943, they were evicted outside the Karachay Autonomous Region. Subsequently, this measure was extended to the entire Karachay people.

According to the NKVD of the USSR, 62,842 Karachais, on the basis of Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR No. 115-13 of October 12, 1943 and Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR No. 1118-342ss of October 14, 1943, were to be resettled in the Kazakh and Kyrgyz SSR.

By Decree of the PVS of the USSR No. 115/13 of October 12, 1943 on the liquidation of the Karachay Autonomous Region and on the administrative structure of its territory, it was decided that all Karachais living in the region should be resettled to other regions of the USSR, and the Karachay Autonomous Region should be liquidated. The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was entrusted with providing the Karachais with land in new places of settlement and providing them with the necessary state assistance for economic development on the spot. Mikoyan-Shahar was renamed the city of Klukhori.

The territory of the former Karachay Autonomous Okrug was subsequently divided between neighboring entities and was intended to be settled by “verified categories of workers.”

On the night of November 2, at two o'clock, NKVD troops cordoned off the villages, blocked exit routes, and set up ambushes. From four o'clock in the morning, state security and police officers also began making arrests; in the first days of the eviction, more than 1,000 people were arrested. Minimum deadlines (3-6 hours) were established for the eviction of each Karachay settlement. During the arrests, there were cases of resistance.

The deportation took place on November 2-5, 1943. To provide forceful support for the deportation of the population, military units numbering 53,327 people were involved.

A total of 34 trains were sent, each with 2000-2100 people, there were about 58 cars in each train, the last 3 trains left on November 5 and on November 19 were still on the way.

The first echelons arrived by November 10 and from November 11 to 22, special settlers were received. By December 1943, 15,987 families - 68,614 people from the former Karachay Autonomous Okrug, including 12,500 men, 19,444 women and 36,670 children - were resettled in the Dzhambul and South Kazakhstan regions of the Kazakh SSR and in the Frunzensk region of the Kirghiz SSR. Previously, special commandant's offices of the NKVD were organized in the resettlement areas to serve special settlers; NKVD and NKGB workers were sent to the areas to identify empty premises and prepare apartments in collective farm and state farm houses, as well as carry out activities related to the reception and resettlement of arriving special settlers. However, most of the special settlers remained without satisfactory shelter.

In 7 districts of the South Kazakhstan region of the Kazakh SSR, 6,689 families were settled - 25,142 people, including 3,689 men, 6,674 women and 14,679 children. Of these, in 9 state farms - 1491 families - 5713 people.

In addition to the deportation of the bulk of the population, there were facts of “additional identification” of Karachais who escaped deportation both in the region and in other regions of the Caucasus.

By the time the trains arrived, horse-drawn transport was promptly concentrated at the unloading stations. The unloading of the trains took place in an organized and systematic manner. Both during the reception of the trains, and when moving into the collective and state farm houses, there were no excesses or incidents, either from the arriving Karachais or the local population. In the very first days after resettlement, the overwhelming majority of special settlers began working on state and collective farms, harvesting cotton, beets, and cleaning the irrigation system.

According to the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars No. 1221-368ss "On the procedure for settling the areas of the former Karachay Autonomous Region of the Stavropol Territory" dated November 6, 1943, the following territorial changes were prescribed:

After the eviction of the Karachays, on December 10, 1943, in the region, in addition to outbuildings, agricultural implements, poultry, bees and vegetables, 156,239 heads of Karachay cattle and horses were taken into account and accepted by the Zagotskot system. Regional organizations squandered 4,361 heads of cattle and 26,446 heads of sheep and goats.

The cattle, poultry and grain accepted from the special Karachai settlers were to be used primarily to cover state supply obligations of 1943 and arrears; the rest was to be compensated in kind in new places of settlement until 1945 inclusive.

The department of special settlements of the NKVD of the USSR was created on March 17, 1944; the basis for the creation of an independent department was the significant resettlement of new contingents of special settlers from the North Caucasus, the former Kalmyk Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and other regions during the Patriotic War. In the Kazakh SSR, 488 special commandant's offices were created, in the Kyrgyz SSR - 96 special commandant's offices, each was assigned corresponding military units consisting of 5-7 soldiers of the NKVD internal troops, led by sergeants and officers. In 1944, much attention was paid to preventing the escape of special settlers and detaining those who fled. For example, for Karachays, as of June 1, “anti-escape work” was characterized by the following data: 77 people fled from settlement sites, 19 were detained, 19 escapes were prevented.

Families of Karachais, Balkars, Kalmyks, and Crimean Tatars, as of September 1944, mainly lived on living space due to the “densification” of local collective farmers, workers and employees of enterprises, as well as state farms. The special settlers transferred to industry and construction sites found themselves in especially unsatisfactory living conditions. Many managers of industrial enterprises and construction sites were unable to provide the displaced people with the necessary living space, which is why their families were often placed in uninhabitable premises, club buildings, temporary barracks, dugouts, and dilapidated houses. As a result of the measures taken by the NKVD of the USSR, there was a “significant improvement in the economic and everyday life of the special settlers,” but in general the situation remained difficult.

Most of the special settlers resettled from the North Caucasus did not have shoes or warm clothing. There was a need to allocate the possible amount of cotton fabric to specially needy special settlers for sewing winter clothes and to provide them with the simplest shoes. However, the measures taken by the Council of People's Commissars to satisfy the full needs of the special settlers were not enough.

All able-bodied special settlers were required to engage in “socially useful labor.” For these purposes, local “Councils of Working People’s Deputies” organized the placement of special settlers in agriculture, industrial enterprises, construction sites, economic cooperative organizations and institutions.

Special settlers did not have the right, without the permission of the commandant of the special commandant's office of the NKVD, to leave the area of ​​the settlement served by this commandant's office. Unauthorized absence was considered as escape and entailed criminal liability. Special settlers - heads of families or persons replacing them, were obliged to report to the special commandant's office within three days about all changes that occurred in the composition of families (the birth of a child, the death of a family member, escape, etc.). For violating the regime and public order in places of resettlement, special settlers were subject to a fine of up to 100 rubles, or arrest for up to 5 days.

Among the repressed peoples, especially those resettled in 1944, there was a significant mortality rate, amounting to 23.7% of the total number of the initial number of settlers and before 1953, among the Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachais.

In the first years of life in a special settlement, during the adaptation process, the mortality rate significantly exceeded the birth rate. From the moment of the initial settlement until October 1, 1948, 28,120 people were born and 146,892 people died among the evicted North Caucasians (Chechens, Ingush, Karachais, Balkars, etc.); since 1949, the birth rate has exceeded the death rate for all of them.

In order to “strengthen the settlement regime” for those evicted, Decree PVS No. 123/12 of November 26, 1948 established that the resettlement was carried out “forever” without the right to return them to their previous places of residence. For unauthorized departure (escape) from places of compulsory settlement, the perpetrators were subject to criminal liability - up to 20 years of hard labor.

At the end of 1948, 15,425 Karachay families numbering 56,869 people were registered, of which 29,284 were adult special settlers.

The number of Karachai special settlers, as of January 1, 1953, was 62,842 people, in addition, 478 people were under arrest, and seven were on the wanted list.

In 1954, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR ordered to remove from the register of the Ministry of Internal Affairs the children of special settlers of all categories born after December 31, 1937 and not to register children in special settlements. Children over 16 years of age were allowed to travel to any point in the country to enroll in educational institutions, and those enrolled in educational institutions were ordered to be deregistered.

According to the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated July 16, 1956 “On lifting restrictions on special settlements for Chechens, Ingush, Karachais and members of their families evicted during the Great Patriotic War,” restrictions on the Karachay people were lifted.

By the time this decree was adopted, the number of special settlers had greatly decreased due to the previously deregistered children under 16 years of age, teachers, students, disabled people, etc. For example, the number of Karachais released under the Decree of July 16, 1956 was only 30,100 people.

The decrees on the abolition of the special regime in relation to deported peoples and other groups of people were characterized by half-heartedness, the desire not to expose the slightest criticism to the previously pursued policy of mass deportations. The point was that people were evicted “due to wartime circumstances,” and now, they say, their stay in the special settlement “is not caused by necessity.” It logically followed from the last phrase that previously this was “caused by necessity.” There was no talk of any political rehabilitation of the deported peoples. They were considered criminal peoples and remained so, with the difference that from punished peoples they turned into pardoned peoples.

National autonomy was restored in a different form, the Circassian Autonomous Okrug was transformed by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on January 9, 1957 into the Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Region as part of the Stavropol Territory of the RSFSR. Decree of the PVS of the USSR No. 115/13 of October 12, 1943 on “the liquidation of the Karachay Autonomous Region and on the administrative structure of its territory” and Article 2 of the Decree of July 16, 1956 regarding the prohibition of Karachais returning to their former place of residence were cancelled.

The Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Okrug was also transferred to Zelenchuksky, Karachayevsky (at that time Klukhorsky, by the Decree of the PVS of the USSR of March 14, 1955, transferred to the RSFSR and became part of the Stavropol Territory

Anniversary of the deportation of Karachais: memories of victims of repression

In Karachay-Cherkessia, on November 2 and 3, events were held to mark the 66th anniversary of the deportation of the Karachay people. Residents of the republic who became victims of political repressions in November 1943 shared their memories of the mass resettlement of Karachais to Central Asia with the correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot".

A resident of the city of Karachaevsk, Fatima Lepshokova, born in 1936, remembered the day of eviction for the rest of her life.

“It was a frosty morning, my mother went to milk the cow, and I was feeding the bird in the yard,” the woman recalls. “Suddenly a man in a soldier’s overcoat entered the gate. I called my mother, she sent me into the house, they talked for a short time, and my mother returned, her face was in tears. We got ready quickly. Warm clothes and bread were wrapped in a large scarf; they were not allowed to take anything else with them. There were livestock in the barn, poultry and lambs in the yard. They didn’t explain anything to us, not even where they were taking us and why.”

According to Fatima Lepshokova, there were eleven children in their family; only five returned from exile in 1959. Grandfather and grandmother were also buried in Kazakhstan. My father didn't come back from the war.

“I remember how two younger ones died of typhus at once; typhus then killed many people. Mom buried them wrapped in a blanket. Then another one - from hunger,” says a woman who survived deportation.

Having learned that they could return to their homeland, the Lepshokova family decided to return without hesitation. “We were going home, although our houses were no longer ours, and we bought them, because before leaving Kazakhstan, we signed papers stating that we would not claim our previous housing,” the woman said.

Mumiat Bostanov, who also survived the mass deportation of Karachais to foreign lands in 1943, also told his story to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. An elderly man recalls how, during the famine years in Central Asia, his mother stretched out a glass of corn flour for a week, preparing gruel soup from it for seven people.

“Now, when I see how stale bread is taken out to the cattle, I really swear at the children. We dreamed of bread. We were at the level of cattle being transported in boxcars. Everyone was transported together - old people, children, and women. We wrapped the dead on the road in blankets and gave them to people at the stations, but not as many died on the road as there in the steppe from hunger. I remember how a Kazakh woman let us spend the night in the barn on the first night, but did not let us into the house. That night her mother asked her for food, but she said there was no food. We fell asleep hungry and in the morning we went with her to the field to collect the remaining beets, which my mother grated and added to the soup. Hunger at that time was the very first enemy; people were swollen from hunger, but they worked. Hundreds died from diseases; there were no medicines, there was no one to treat them,” said Mumiat Bostanov.

According to his recollections, the most difficult time was before 1946, and after the end of the war, life began to improve: work appeared in the fields, labor became needed. For work they gave bread, flour, sugar.

“We returned home as wealthy people,” the old man smiles. - Georgians who came from across the pass lived in our houses then. They say that this is why Stalin evicted our people - he needed land. And everything that is said about the betrayal of the people (accusing the Karachays of collaboration - approx. "Caucasian Knot") is only the official version, which has no justification for all the atrocities that occurred, even if there were such a few. There was a war, there was a famine, anything could have happened - people are different, but “the whole flock is not judged by a black sheep,” much less destroyed.”

Meanwhile, historian Murat Shebzukhov, an ethnic Circassian, believes that the eviction had a detrimental effect on the Karachay people only during the years of eviction, and after that it only united the people.

“These people have learned to survive in any conditions. They will learn unity. Most of them returned to their homeland, but after the Caucasian war, thousands of Circassians were unable to return from Turkish territory. In different historical periods, the peoples of the Caucasus suffered actual destruction in different ways. And it takes hundreds of years to be reborn,” the historian noted.

In turn, Abaza Shamil Tlisov noted that a person’s grief has no nationality. “When you see a person’s pain in his eyes, what certainly doesn’t come to mind is to ask him about his nationality. The grief of one people is the grief of all. And the strings of national pride often become the main instrument of political dirty games that destroy warm neighborly relations,” he believes.

In 1991, the Law “On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples” was adopted. However, the application of this document in practice turned out to be complicated by many factors, which does not yet allow us to consider the law implemented in all respects to all peoples who were subjected to mass repressions in the USSR.

On the occasion of the 74th anniversary of the deportation of the Karachay people to Central Asia and Kazakhstan in Karachay-Cherkessia, officials made public statements one after another.

The head of the region, Rashid Temrezov, the speaker of the parliament of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, Alexander Ivanov, and the chairman of the government of the republic, Aslan Ozov, addressed the residents of the republic, the website of the head and government of the republic reports.

In his address, Rashid Temrezov spoke about the hard lot that befell the Karachais on the long journey to a foreign land.

Karachay-Balkar writer Fatima Bayramukova, citing official data, writes that about 42,000 Karachays died during the years of deportation, a little more than half of them were children.

Taking into account the catastrophic losses for the small people, the question of rehabilitation of the Karachais still remains open.

Thus, the head of the Congress of the Karachay People, Kady Khalkechev, believes that there are areas in which rehabilitation has not been fully carried out.

“If political and legal rehabilitation have generally been achieved, then economic rehabilitation has not been achieved. In addition, cultural rehabilitation has not been completely achieved. In this regard, it can be noted that there are no republican magazines, including children’s, in the native language. Broadcasts on television and radio a scant amount of time is allocated in Karachay. Not all Karachays who participated in the Great Patriotic War, nominated for the title of Hero, received their awards due to belonging to a repressed people, and in recent years, documents of three more Karachays nominated for this high title have been discovered,” shares Karachay. social activist from "Caucasus.Realities".

According to Khalkechev, no further measures are currently being taken. And in 2009, the Karachay-Cherkess Republican Commission for the Rehabilitation of the Karachay People under the Government of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic was liquidated.

This is probably why in his address the head of Karachay-Cherkessia Rashid Temrezov said nothing about the rehabilitation of the deported people.

But the Karachay Congress proposes to continue work in this direction.

“We proposed to the head of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic to restore this commission, to extend the Resolution of the Council of Ministers - Government of the Russian Federation of October 30, 1993 No. 1100 regarding economic rehabilitation, which was drawn up in pursuance of the relevant Decree of the President of the Russian Federation and the implementation of which would serve for the benefit of all the peoples of Karachay-Cherkessia" , says Khalkechev.

"Caucasus.Realities" addressed not only the Karachais themselves, but also the representative of the Circassian people. Thus, the head of the Circassian organization “Adyghe Khase” of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, Ali Aslanov, believes that in the political sense the Karachais have not been fully rehabilitated.

“The rehabilitated people should have their own separate republic. Probably, the Karachais did not achieve everything they wanted. They themselves need to be asked whether they are satisfied with the rehabilitation measures. The Karachais were expelled from the Karachay Autonomous Region, so I think they had the right to their own Karachay Republic.” , notes the Circassian social activist.

At the same time, Aslanov believes that in general the Karachais have been rehabilitated. According to him, today among the Karachay public there are no calls for the creation of a Karachay Republic, although in the 1990s, as the leader of the local Circassians admits, they were heard.

In turn, blogger from the Karachay-Cherkess Republic Amar Zhuzhuev explains why he believes that the Karachais have been rehabilitated.

“The Karachay people, like many other peoples in the past, unfortunately, experienced deportation. As a person and as a resident of our republic, I, of course, do not approve of such actions, and no matter what people they occurred in relation to. However, today the Karachay the people, like everyone else, live, develop and move freely throughout the territory of Russia. The people have the opportunity to develop their culture and follow their traditions and no one is stopping this. Based on this, then I believe that the people have been rehabilitated and conditions have been created for them. its further development,” he notes.

Chairman of the regional national-cultural autonomy of the Nogais of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic "Nogai El" Valery Kazakov believes that it is impossible to fully rehabilitate after such a crime against an entire people.

“When one person is deprived of his homeland, it is a tragedy, but here we are talking about an entire people. If by rehabilitation we mean the restoration of lost property, then yes, the Karachais have been rehabilitated,” he believes.

One thing is obvious here - the results of the rehabilitation process are assessed differently by different groups, and as long as there is a pluralism of opinions on this matter, the issue will remain relevant. Even if the authorities won’t talk about it.

02.11.2012 1 22699 Gnutova O.V.

O.V. Gnutova,
Saint Petersburg

Any suffering experienced, meaningful and passed through the soul of a people, turns into its spiritual experience. They wanted to make the Karachays feel their smallness, in a day, by depriving them of their homeland. But they survived, preserved the language, customs, their culture, the living soul of Karachay. Scattered, like the stones of a destroyed temple, they began to gather again into a single whole - into a nation, for the temple of the people's spirit helps a person to find himself.

M.A. Suslov, who directly controlled the operation, subsequently, welcoming the eviction of an innocent people, declared: “We survived the Karachais from the mountain gorges, now we need to survive their spirit from there.” On this mournful path, the Karachais lost a lot, but retained faith in life, and the spirit did not leave them. This special spirit, inherent in the Karachay people, like every other people on Earth, moves them on the path to revival.

The forced relocation of people - deportation - is not new to history; The first “scatterer” can be considered the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, and the first special settlers are the Jews. After 2500 years, J.V. Stalin repeated Nebuchadnezzar’s experiment, only on a scale that the former had never even dreamed of. The deportation of entire peoples turned into an instrument of national policy at the end of the Stalin era, and this was one of the most important symptoms and evidence of the deep political and moral crisis experienced by the Soviet state. This inhumane action was not caused by any military necessity.

The echoes of that terrible tragedy can still be heard today. This is where the tangle of national problems rolls out these days, and it’s not so easy to unravel it, but it’s definitely necessary. The problem of deported peoples during the Great Patriotic War - one of the most burning and until recently closed topics - today is becoming increasingly important and increasingly requires careful study and coverage.

In 1991 The Karachay-Cherkess Republican Commission for the rehabilitation of the Karachay people was created. And scientists had the opportunity to work with secret documents of the former Karachay-Cherkess regional party committee and regional executive committee and the Stavropol regional executive committee, as well as top secret documents of the central Moscow archives. In 1993 The book "Karachais. Eviction and return (1943-1957). Materials and documents" was published.

In the first months of the war, 15 thousand 600 people, i.e. every 5th Karachai, almost the entire adult male population, was drafted into the Red Army. In addition, about 2 thousand women and men were mobilized to build defensive lines. In June 1943, after the liberation of Karachay from the fascist occupiers, in its address to the workers of Karachay, the Stavropol regional party committee noted that the sons of Soviet Karachay were also fighting hand in hand with the great Russian people: Brave mountaineers did not spare their lives in fierce battles. The people of Karachay widely supported the call for help to the front. By January 1, 1942 workers collected and sent over 6 wagons of collective and individual gifts and 70 thousand warm clothes for the Red Army.

From August 12, 1942 to January 18, 1943 the territory of the KAO was occupied by fascist troops. Over the course of 5.5 months, the Nazis shot thousands of citizens, destroyed and deported 150 thousand. heads of livestock

At a time when the Karachay people devoted all their strength to restoring the destroyed economy of the region, a detailed plan for the deportation of peoples was being prepared in the offices of L.P. Beria’s department. Under the guise of “rest,” NKVD troops were stationed in Karachay villages, secretly collecting information about the people. The recruitment of Karachais into the army was also suspended. August 12, 1943 The Stavropol regional party committee and the regional executive committee adopt a resolution “On facts of political carelessness in relation to persons who actively collaborated with the Germans during the occupation of the region.” This resolution intensified the process of identifying “new traitors to the motherland” and intensified the work of punitive authorities.

The highest echelons of power were preparing legislative acts on the eviction and resettlement of the peoples of the North Caucasus in new places. Even before the official Decree on the eviction of the Karachais in the Kazakh and Kyrgyz SSRs, active preparations were underway to receive settlers in new places. So, October 9, 1943. The Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Kazakh SSR ordered the Dzhambul regional committee and the regional executive committee to prepare for the reception, placement and employment of special settlers from the North Caucasus. NKVD Commissioner Popov was sent to provide “practical assistance to special settlers.” Thus, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated October 12, 1943. on the eviction of the Karachays drew a line under all the preparatory work. And the Decree itself was only a formal legal act that made it possible on November 2, 1943. evict the entire Karachay people to Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

In the Decree, the main accusation and reason for the eviction was total collaboration with the enemy. This blatant lie does not stand up to scrutiny. According to official data from the KAO prosecutor's office, 673 lawsuits were initiated throughout the region for treason and collaboration with the Nazis. Of these, 449 cases were referred to court, 127 were dismissed, 97 were not investigated. 250-270 people were brought to criminal responsibility for treason, which is 0.3% of 88 thousand. Karachai population. It should be noted that the Karachais did not create any formations that, together with the fascists, would conduct punitive operations against the Red Army and the people. Crimes were committed by individuals who served the Nazis.

The department of L.P. Beria condensed even minor events in Karachay in order to provide justification for its long-developed plans, or simply made up accusations against the Karachay people. The main ones were false accusations about the alleged capture of 530 Red Army soldiers by the Karachais before the arrival of the Germans and their execution, as well as complicity in the murder of sick children in Nizhnyaya Teberda, and about the formation of 65 gangs by the Karachais. “It was not possible to establish the number of operating gangs,” noted a document from the former KGB of the USSR. In the official response, the deputy. The RSFSR Prosecutor's Office notes that isolated gangs of 5-6 people operated on the territory of the Kaliningrad Autonomous Okrug. The KGB of the USSR, in turn, also refuted the false accusations brought against the Karachay people. In the official response of the KGB of the USSR to the request of People's Deputy of the USSR I. Khachirov, it is noted that “during the additional investigation, data on the murder of children and teachers in the area of ​​​​the village of N.-Teberda was not confirmed. The fact of the execution of Red Army soldiers in the village of Uchkulan was also not confirmed.” .

As you can see, the above documentary data suggests that a small number of traitor Karachais served the German occupiers. Then the question arises: why was the entire Karachay people accused? Why was genocide based on ethnicity applied to some peoples and not to others? Why were peoples selectively evicted? Many scientists explain this by the unspoken desire of I.V. Stalin and L.P. Beria to expand the territory of the Georgian SSR. Thus, Doctor of Historical Sciences H.-M. Ibrahimbayli, J.J. Gakaev, Candidate of Economic Sciences M. Uzdenov believe that the eviction of the peoples of the North Caucasus was associated with the desire to expand the ethnic territory of historical Georgia. Available documents, official responses of government bodies to requests and information published in scientific publications allow us to identify 3 main reasons for the eviction of Karachais, Balkars, Chechens and Ingush: 1) expansion of the ethnic territory of the Georgian SSR; 2) the desire to shift the blame onto the Karachays for military failures in an important military-strategic sector and thereby remove the blame from M.A. Suslov and 3) to punish the peoples for opposing the government from the first days of Soviet power. events.

In November 1943 the beginning of the wholesale resettlement of the “traitor peoples” of the North Caucasus was laid. The Karachay people were the first to be expelled within two days - 69,267 people (15,980 families); including 12,500 men, 19,444 women, 36,670 children were loaded onto trains of freight cars and sent to the east of the country.