Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism
Two ethnic groups that were specifically targeted for persecution by Stalin's Soviet Union were the Chechens and the Ingush. Unlike the other nationalities that could be suspected of connection to foreign states which shared their ethnic background, the Chechens and the Ingush were completely indigenous people of the Soviet Union. Rather than being accused of collaboration with foreign enemies, these two ethnic groups were considered to have cultures which did not fit in with Soviet culture – such as accusing Chechens of being associated with “banditism” – and the authorities claimed that the Soviet Union had to intervene in order to “remake” and “reform” these cultures. In practice this meant heavily armed punitive operations carried out against Chechen “bandits” that failed to achieve forced assimilation, culminating in an ethnic cleansing operation in 1944, which involved the arrests and deportation of over 500,000 Chechens and Ingush from the Caucasus to Central Asia and Kazakhstan. The deportations of the Chechens and Ingush also involved the outright massacre of thousands of people, and severe conditions placed upon the deportees – they were put in unsealed train cars, with little to no food for a four-week journey during which many died from hunger and exhaustion.
Vilayat Galgaycho
The origins of the Vilayat Galgaycho can be found during the Ossetian-Ingush conflict. The Ingush are closely related to the Chechens. Both peoples are part of the Nakh tribes, speak Nakh languages and share a common culture, language, religions, and fates. Many of the Ingush lived in the Chechen capital of Grozny during the outbreak of the war and fought along with the Chechen separatists. They never aimed at creating their own separate unit as they were scattered among various Chechen units under the commands of Ruslan Gelayev and Shamil Basayev. These Ingush played a large role in the 1996 siege of Grozny; it took Russian forces over 15 months to capture Bamut, a former Soviet ICBM base, because of the impenetrable construction of the ICBM base installations and some help from Ingush rebels. Many Ingush think that it was Ruslan Aushev, then the president of Ingushetia, who officially opposed Russia's military campaign, and did everything possible not to let Ingush people to be dragged into full-scale war, that the conflict did not spread to Ingushetia and didn't cost additional Russian and Ossetian lives.