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.
History of Chechnya
Today, the Ingush view themselves as a separate nation, but this, as before, is mainly due to political differences. Akhiev's various use of ethnonyms in his "Chechen fairytales" (published 1870, it was actually a collection of Chechen and Ingush fairytales, primarily told with the Ingush versions) illustrates the Ingush's confusion over their identities (Akhiev himself was in fact Ingush)- throughout both of his works, he alternatively refers to the Ingush as a distinct nation at some parts, but as a Chechen subdivision at others. Nonetheless, both Ingush and Chechens frequently assert that they are "brothers", and will often take an insult to the others nation personally even if they do not view it to be their own. This sort of relationship is comparable to that of the Czechs and the Slovaks, with the Chechens playing the role of the Czechs and the Ingush that of the Slovaks. It is notable that the separation of the Ingush from the rest of Chechendom was a gradual process, beginning around Timurlane's invasion, when the Ingush were conquered but the Chechens did not. In the 16th century, the Ingush, formerly a collection of Chechen clans known as the Angusht, broke off formally.