Chechnya: Russia's East Timor
Boris Kagarlitsky
Green Left Weekly, 15 November 1999
In the East there is a proverb: ``Don't brag when you're on your way to
war''. Russian President Boris Yeltsin's generals have obviously never
come across this saying.
They still have not won a major battle in Chechnya; in fact, there has
not yet been a single serious encounter. Nevertheless, the media have
relayed boasts that thousands of Chechen fighters have been killed, while
admitting that it has not been possible to find the bodies. On other
channels, meanwhile, reports tell of aircraft bombing friendly troops, and
of chaos in carrying out the simplest activities.
This year's operation in Chechnya began with a saturation media
campaign, to the refrain of ``we will not repeat the mistakes we made in
1994''. However, neither the soldiers nor the politicians show signs of
having made a serious analysis of the 1994-1996 war.
General Pavel Grachev's strategic plan in 1994 centred on making a
single powerful thrust, in order to break through to the Chechen capital,
Grozny, in the shortest possible time. Grachev then aimed to capture the
city and smash the Chechen armed forces and political structures before
the Chechens could organise themselves to conduct a partisan war.
From a strictly military point of view, this was the only way to
proceed. But, as always, the execution of the plan was miserably inept.
The assault on Grozny failed, and a lengthy siege of the city began.
This allowed the Chechen president at the time, General Dzhokhar
Dudayev, to prepare a military and political base for prolonged resistance
in the mountains of southern Chechnya. The failure of the initial plan
doomed the Russian army to a drawn-out war that was impossible to win with
the forces and money available.
After the war, the Russian generals convinced both themselves and the
politicians that the reasons for the defeat were irresolution in the
government, and broad popular hostility to the conflict. Accordingly, they
concluded that before relaunching the war, they needed to gain unanimous
support among the political elites and to gag the mouths of critics.
Show of muscle
In the resumption of armed operations, the lessons of NATO's Kosova
campaign have been reinterpreted in Russian fashion. The population has
been swamped with propaganda. Opponents of the war have been either denied
access to the mass media or intimidated into silence.
Surveys indicate that support in Russia for the conflict is by no means
as universal as is claimed. Nevertheless, the psychological substrate is
one of profound public apathy.
Among Russians, the image of the Chechen fighter, courageously battling
the despised Yeltsin regime, has faded. Contrary to the claims of war
propagandists, this is not so much because people have learned something
they did not know earlier, as because the past three years really have
brought changes in Chechnya. With the republic effectively independent,
prominent Chechen field commanders have turned into corrupt criminal
bosses, closely linked to the worst elements of the Russian elite.
For big-time Russian criminals, the existence of Chechnya as a
territory within Russia's nominal boundaries, but outside the control of
the Russian state, has created phenomenal opportunities. The republic has
provided a sanctuary for operations ranging from contraband and
money-laundering to drug-running and, increasingly, kidnapping. Even
people sympathetic to Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov understand that
against this alliance of Russian and Chechen criminal business, he is
quite powerless.
In the course of the 1990s, the brazenness of Chechen bandits has been
made part of the political folklore of Russian television viewers. So too
has a supposed fascination of Chechens with explosives. When a series of
bombings took more than 300 lives in Russian cities in the late summer and
early autumn, Chechens were immediately blamed, though the connection was
never proved.
Russian tanks then began rolling over the Chechen border. The notion
that the invasion was aimed at thwarting crime and rooting out terror,
however, is naive. The key reasons why the generals have again been set
loose against Chechnya need to be sought inside the Kremlin walls.
For Yeltsin and his notorious ``family'', the fact that Chechnya is a
criminal haven is not necessarily cause for attacking it. But the fact
that Chechnya is nominally Russian, and outside Moscow's control, is
different; Chechen independence has been a long-running advertisement for
the feebleness of the Kremlin's authority. As the presidential fortunes
continued to wane during the spring and summer, the attractions of making
a show of muscle in Chechnya increased.
By this time, the Yeltsin regime's political supporters and clients -
the people who might keep the ``family'' out of jail - were clearly
unelectable. There was a pressing need for another of the president's
made-to-order crises, an emergency that would make it possible to
introduce censorship, ``consolidate'' the nation around the government,
and cancel, postpone or falsify the presidential elections due for next
year. When ``Chechen'' bombs began demolishing Russian apartment
buildings, the fit with the regime's political needs was almost too
perfect to be true.
Western backing
For the Western governments that trumpeted their outrage at the actions
of the Serbian military in Kosova, Russian actions in Chechnya have always
been a delicate matter. There is no sign, however, that the Russian
authorities erred when they concluded that Western friends would stick
with them through another Chechnya campaign - no matter how grim the body
count.
For Western leaders to voice more than guarded concern would raise the
question: where was their indignation during the slaughter of 1994-1996?
And although there are influential circles in the West that would be
relieved to see Yeltsin leave power peacefully in mid-2000, none would
welcome the traumas of a forced early resignation.
All these calculations, however, are liable to turn to dust if the
Russian army is again humiliated in Chechnya. The problem for both the
Russian authorities and their Western mentors is that in one variant or
another, a repeat of the 1996 debacle is all but certain.
Grachev's strategy in 1994 was correct in textbook terms, but the one
adopted in 1999 is not even that. The army is moving slowly toward Grozny,
without involving itself in major battles.
The Chechen fighters are being ``forced out'' of their positions by
artillery and air strikes. After each such strike (and in many cases,
before it), the fighters retreat. The army then claims a victory and
advances a few kilometres, until coming upon the next knot of resistance.
The Chechen formations withdraw in good order, and the reports from the
military propagandists of massive losses among the enemy appear less and
less convincing.
The Russian bombardments would have some effect if the Chechens were
trying seriously to hold a front according to the rules of the first and
second world wars. However, they are conducting a partisan struggle, and
their aim is not to halt the Russian advance, but to make it slow and
expensive. Their successes so far have been undeniable. The Russian
strategy that allows this, one suspects, is dictated not by subtle
planning but by a mortal fear of the enemy.
The generals who are conducting the Chechnya campaign have obviously
not read the works of Mao and Che Guevara on partisan warfare. But while
in their military academies they could not have failed to study the
history of the 1812 campaign in which the Russian army defeated Napoleon.
In 1812, the French slowly moved deep into Russia, while the weaker
Russian armies under Barclay de Tolly and Kutuzov slowly retreated,
avoiding a decisive battle. After the French had captured Moscow and
declared themselves victorious, partisan warfare began throughout the
entire territory they had occupied.
Abandoning the burnt-out and uninhabitable Moscow, the French emperor
fled. The key difference with the present Chechen campaign is that
Napoleon, understanding the situation, tried to force the Russians to an
all-out battle, while today's Russian generals are scared to risk anything
more than a skirmish.
It is clear that Maskhadov will not be able to surrender Grozny,
Gudermes or Bamut without a fight, for the same reasons that Kutuzov could
not yield up Moscow without first having fought at Borodino. But as with
Moscow in 1812, no-one will set out to hold Grozny at any price; the aim
of the Chechens will be to keep the attackers relatively confined and
immobile, while causing them continual, debilitating losses. The Russian
army, meanwhile, will be forced to storm Grozny without taking account of
its losses, since this is the only way it can demonstrate its victory.
Any new failure during the assault on the Chechen capital will have a
profoundly demoralising effect on the army, while the capture of the city
will not make the slightest difference to the overall course of the war.
The Chechens have undoubtedly made their plans on the basis that at a
certain point they will abandon Grozny. Because of the slowness of the
federal forces, the defence of the city will be even less important for
the Chechens than in 1994.
It is not hard to predict what will happen after that. The army for
some reason thinks it will be hard for the Chechens to spend the winter in
the mountains (although Dudayev's fighters, who were much less prepared
for a partisan war than Maskhadov's units, nevertheless survived the
winters of 1994-95 and 1995-96). Meanwhile, no-one is thinking about how
the Russian army itself is going to cope with winter in Chechnya. The
military supply system is in an appalling state, far worse than in 1994,
while the devastated Grozny - in a precise analogy with burnt-out Moscow
in 1812 - will not provide winter quarters for a huge army.
So far, the Russian forces have not been entering population centres,
fearing contact with local residents. But the army cannot spend the winter
in the open, and nor can it leave Chechnya. Since the fighters have not
been defeated, but have simply withdrawn, they will return as soon as the
army departs. Consequently, the army will have to remain indefinitely,
trying to control literally every village. The Russian forces have neither
the military strength nor the financial resources for this.
A population off-side
There is little reason to doubt that three years of independence have
left the Chechen population bitterly disappointed. Dudayev promised that
Chechnya would be prosperous, democratic, secular and socialist. By 1999
the Chechens had received poverty, chaos and the uncontrolled rule of
corrupt warlords, along with religious extremism, to which Maskhadov has
made repeated concessions.
The assumption in the Kremlin has clearly been that by comparison,
Russian rule will seem attractive. However, there is a good deal of
wishful thinking here. Chechens recall not only the outrages of the past
three years, but also the nightmare of the preceding Russian invasion.
Meanwhile, the chaos that the Russian armed forces have created at the
pass-control points between Chechnya and Ingushetia, together with the
corruption and racism of the Russian civilian and military authorities,
are likely to alienate many Chechens who might still feel sympathy with
Russia.
The rocketing of market-places, the bombing of columns of refugees and
other ``technical errors'' will hardly make the army more popular. On the
contrary, the Chechen fighters will once again seem as heroes, especially
since new field commanders will quickly emerge, free of responsibility for
the mayhem wrought by their predecessors. The new war will create new
leaders.
In any case, the Russian authorities will be unable to either rebuild
Chechnya or create jobs there. For the present, Moscow is simply
continuing the destruction. This means that for young people in Chechnya
there will be no other occupations apart from shooting at moving targets
dressed in the uniforms of the Russian army.
The failure of the second Chechnya campaign will become more or less
obvious by spring. One can only guess at the scale of the catastrophe.
There are a number of possible variants from a drawn-out, ruinously
expensive war against ``invisible'' partisans to a total rout of the army
and disintegration of the command structure, as happened to the French in
1812.
Revolutions and reforms in Russia have regularly begun with lost wars,
and the present Chechnya campaign may well set off new shocks in Russia
itself. The unanimous support which the political class has given the war
means that if the army is defeated, a deep political crisis will
ensue.
Defeat could act as a turning-point for social consciousness, with
large numbers of people moving from apathy to protest and resistance. Or
Russian society, which has meekly endured many humiliations, may reconcile
itself to this one as well.
Whatever the case, the Russian generals are continuing to march, with a
good deal of bravado, into the traps that have been set for them. The
denouement will be bloody and convulsive, accompanied by calls for a broad
suppression of dissent to allow the crusade against ``terrorism'' to be
redoubled.
Independence for Chechnya!
On the left, there must be no equivocating; the Chechens have the
unconditional right to independence. Russian leftists face a dual
challenge: even before taking the fight against the war to the government,
they will have to wage a sharp political struggle to secure their own
forces around the anti-war position, resisting chauvinist
disorientation.
This task will not be made easier by the fact that there is only one
progressive thing about today's Chechen leaders: the fact that for
contradictory and (quite probably) fleeting reasons, they are heading a
struggle that has an undoubted liberating dynamic and that is directed
against people who are much more dangerous enemies of the international
working class than the Chechen leaders themselves.
Copyright 1999 Green Left Weekly
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