The World Was Going Our Way (65 page)
Read The World Was Going Our Way Online
Authors: Christopher Andrew
Tags: #Biographies & Memoirs, #True Accounts, #Espionage, #History, #Europe, #Ireland, #Military, #Intelligence & Espionage, #Modern (16th-21st Centuries), #20th Century, #Russia, #World
Muslims of Russia! Tatars of the Volga and the Crimean! Kyrgyz and Sarts of Siberia and of Turkistan! Turks and Tatars of Trans-Caucasus! Chechens and mountain peoples of the Caucasus! And all of you whose mosques and places of worship have been destroyed, whose customs have been trampled under foot by the tsars and the oppressors of Russia! Your beliefs, your customs, your national and cultural constitutions are from now on free and safe. Organize your national life freely and with no hindrance. You have the right to do so.
In reality, Soviet persecution during the generation which followed the Bolshevik Revolution was far worse than anything endured by the Muslim subjects of the later Tsarist Empire. Islam was condemned as a relic of the feudal era which had no place in a society of ‘advanced socialism’ and was therefore ‘doomed to disappear’.
2
2
During the Great Patriotic War Stalin saw all Soviet Muslims, like the Volga Germans, as actual or potential traitors. The Muslim peoples whose territory had been invaded by the German army (Karachai, Kalmyks, Balkars and Crimean Tatars) as well as the Chechens and Ingush, whose republic had barely been reached by the Wehrmacht, were deported by the NKVD to Siberia and central Asia, mostly during 1943-44, in horrific conditions. One of the Balkar deportees later recalled, ‘They only gave us fifteen minutes to gather a few belongings and we didn’t even know what was going on. It was only when they put us in the train wagons that we realized we were going far away.’ Though hundreds of thousands died from starvation and cold during the deportation and in the ‘special settlements’ in which they were dumped, Beria declared the whole operation a complete success and promoted a decree by the Supreme Soviet ‘on decorations and medals for the most outstanding [NKVD] participants’. There was no word of official criticism until Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ to the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 denounced the deportations as ‘crude violations of the basic Leninist principles of the nationality policies of the Soviet State’. Over the next few years most of the surviving deportees, except for the Crimean Tatars and Volga Germans, were allowed to return to their homelands. They found their houses occupied, most mosques demolished and many family gravestones ripped up for use as building materials.
3
3
Public discussion of the deportations remained officially taboo until the final years of the Soviet era. As even Soviet analysts concluded, however, the experience of deportation and persecution, so far from weakening Islamic belief, actually reinforced it. The deportees who returned to the North Caucasus were the most religious group in Soviet society.
4
Until the late 1980s Moscow routinely described the Muslim population of central Asia and the Caucasus as ‘backward peoples’.
5
A Turkmen woman educated in Russian schools later recalled being taught that her culture was as primitive as ‘that of the Australian aborigines’.
6
The KGB, however, was struck by the tenacity with which this primitive culture was preserved. In the Muslim republics, it concluded in 1973, ‘Religion is identified with the nation. The fight against religion is seen as an attack on the national identity.’
7
4
Until the late 1980s Moscow routinely described the Muslim population of central Asia and the Caucasus as ‘backward peoples’.
5
A Turkmen woman educated in Russian schools later recalled being taught that her culture was as primitive as ‘that of the Australian aborigines’.
6
The KGB, however, was struck by the tenacity with which this primitive culture was preserved. In the Muslim republics, it concluded in 1973, ‘Religion is identified with the nation. The fight against religion is seen as an attack on the national identity.’
7
From the Second World War onwards the cornerstone of Soviet policy to its Muslim peoples, as to the Russian Orthodox Church,
8
was the creation of a subservient religious hierarchy. Moscow maintained firm control of the four Islamic ‘directorates’ (each headed by a mufti) established or re-established in 1943, at the same time as the revival of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church. The most important was the Central Asian Spiritual Directorate of Muslims (SADUM), with its headquarters in Tashkent, which covered the five central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan). Because SADUM was responsible for a majority of Soviet Muslims, its head was often referred to as the Grand Mufti. Both SADUM and the madrasahs which it administered in Tashkent and Bukhara were heavily penetrated by KGB agents.
9
Since only graduates of these madrasahs, which had a total enrolment limited to about eighty,
10
were legally entitled to conduct religious services, the KGB thus had an informal right of veto over the admission of ‘undesirable’ Muslim clerics. Those identified as KGB agents in files noted by Mitrokhin include imams at mosques in such major Muslim centres as Tashkent, Dushanbe and Chimkent.
11
8
was the creation of a subservient religious hierarchy. Moscow maintained firm control of the four Islamic ‘directorates’ (each headed by a mufti) established or re-established in 1943, at the same time as the revival of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church. The most important was the Central Asian Spiritual Directorate of Muslims (SADUM), with its headquarters in Tashkent, which covered the five central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan). Because SADUM was responsible for a majority of Soviet Muslims, its head was often referred to as the Grand Mufti. Both SADUM and the madrasahs which it administered in Tashkent and Bukhara were heavily penetrated by KGB agents.
9
Since only graduates of these madrasahs, which had a total enrolment limited to about eighty,
10
were legally entitled to conduct religious services, the KGB thus had an informal right of veto over the admission of ‘undesirable’ Muslim clerics. Those identified as KGB agents in files noted by Mitrokhin include imams at mosques in such major Muslim centres as Tashkent, Dushanbe and Chimkent.
11
The selection of the eighty-two-year-old Ishan Babakhan ibn Abdul Mejid Khan as first head of SADUM in 1943 inaugurated a family dynasty of outwardly subservient Grand Muftis which endured until Soviet rule in central Asia began to crumble in 1989. Babakhanov’s son, Ziautdin (Grand Mufti, 1957-82), proved ‘slavishly loyal to the Soviet regime’. His series of
fatwahs
in the late 1950s condemning pilgrimages to traditional Muslim holy places within the jurisdiction of SADUM was doubtless prompted by the KGB’s fear of their potential both for spreading Islam and encouraging anti-Soviet protest.
12
Ziautdin Babakhanov was also used both to host a series of international conferences and to head delegations abroad by Soviet Muslims, all of which faithfully promoted the Soviet worldview and suppressed evidence of Moscow’s campaign to discourage Islamic practice. The pattern was set by the first conference chaired by Babakhanov at Tashkent in 1970 on ‘Unity and Co-operation of Muslim Peoples in the Struggle for Peace’, attended by delegates from twenty-four Muslim countries. Though there were strident denunciations of American, Israeli and South African ‘imperialism’, Moscow received fulsome praise for its supposed commitment to the welfare of its Muslim subjects.
13
The formula changed little for the remainder of the decade. At an international conference at Dushanbe in September 1979 convened by SADUM at the secret prompting of the KGB on ‘The Contribution of the Muslims of Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Volga to the Development of Islamic Thought, Peace and Social Progress’,
14
Babakhanov repeated his by now ritual attacks on ‘US, Israeli and South African imperialism’.
15
Mingling at the conference with Muslim delegates from thirty countries were officers and agents of the KGB Fifth Directorate and the local KGBs of Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bashkiria and Tataria.
16
SADUM was also used to provide cover for KGB agents travelling abroad. Between 1953 and 1970 (the only period for which Mitrokhin’s notes contain statistics), ten KGB officers and over fifty agents went on operational missions to Saudi Arabia on the pretext either of going on pilgrimage (Haj) to Mecca (a privilege allowed to very few Soviet Muslims) or of visiting Islamic theological schools.
17
In the 1970s at least one KGB agent, codenamed NASIB, was elected to a leading position in the World Islamic League.
18
fatwahs
in the late 1950s condemning pilgrimages to traditional Muslim holy places within the jurisdiction of SADUM was doubtless prompted by the KGB’s fear of their potential both for spreading Islam and encouraging anti-Soviet protest.
12
Ziautdin Babakhanov was also used both to host a series of international conferences and to head delegations abroad by Soviet Muslims, all of which faithfully promoted the Soviet worldview and suppressed evidence of Moscow’s campaign to discourage Islamic practice. The pattern was set by the first conference chaired by Babakhanov at Tashkent in 1970 on ‘Unity and Co-operation of Muslim Peoples in the Struggle for Peace’, attended by delegates from twenty-four Muslim countries. Though there were strident denunciations of American, Israeli and South African ‘imperialism’, Moscow received fulsome praise for its supposed commitment to the welfare of its Muslim subjects.
13
The formula changed little for the remainder of the decade. At an international conference at Dushanbe in September 1979 convened by SADUM at the secret prompting of the KGB on ‘The Contribution of the Muslims of Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Volga to the Development of Islamic Thought, Peace and Social Progress’,
14
Babakhanov repeated his by now ritual attacks on ‘US, Israeli and South African imperialism’.
15
Mingling at the conference with Muslim delegates from thirty countries were officers and agents of the KGB Fifth Directorate and the local KGBs of Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bashkiria and Tataria.
16
SADUM was also used to provide cover for KGB agents travelling abroad. Between 1953 and 1970 (the only period for which Mitrokhin’s notes contain statistics), ten KGB officers and over fifty agents went on operational missions to Saudi Arabia on the pretext either of going on pilgrimage (Haj) to Mecca (a privilege allowed to very few Soviet Muslims) or of visiting Islamic theological schools.
17
In the 1970s at least one KGB agent, codenamed NASIB, was elected to a leading position in the World Islamic League.
18
Despite the KGB’s extensive penetration of and influence over the official hierarchy of Soviet Islam, however, the greater part of Muslim life remained outside the Centre’s control. It has become clear since the main Muslim regions of the Soviet Union gained their independence that Islamic practice during the Soviet era was much more widespread than was realized at the time - even if most of it took place within the home rather than at the small number of officially approved mosques. Male circumcision, for example, remained almost universal.
19
As KGB reports complained, even Party and Komsomol (Communist Youth League) members saw no contradiction between their public profession of Marxism-Leninism and their private participation in Muslim religious rituals.
20
There were many reports also of popular resistance to campaigns to promote ‘scientific atheism’. When, for example, an ‘atheistic corner’ was set up in School Number 2 in the Chechen town of Sernovodsk, it was destroyed by the children themselves, who threw the visual aids into the river. In 1973 the philosophy lecturer at the Grozny Institute of Higher Education was asked to give a lecture in the town of Nazran attacking religion. Fearing for his personal safety, the lecturer asked friends who lived locally to try to ensure his security. They replied that there was no need since no one would attend the lecture. No one did.
21
19
As KGB reports complained, even Party and Komsomol (Communist Youth League) members saw no contradiction between their public profession of Marxism-Leninism and their private participation in Muslim religious rituals.
20
There were many reports also of popular resistance to campaigns to promote ‘scientific atheism’. When, for example, an ‘atheistic corner’ was set up in School Number 2 in the Chechen town of Sernovodsk, it was destroyed by the children themselves, who threw the visual aids into the river. In 1973 the philosophy lecturer at the Grozny Institute of Higher Education was asked to give a lecture in the town of Nazran attacking religion. Fearing for his personal safety, the lecturer asked friends who lived locally to try to ensure his security. They replied that there was no need since no one would attend the lecture. No one did.
21
Much of the strength of what Soviet officials termed ‘unofficial Islam’ derived, particularly in the northern Caucasus, from the underground mystical Sufi brotherhoods (
tariqa
) which as far back as the twelfth century had taken on the role of defenders of the faith when Islam was threatened by infidel invasion. Though the Naqshbandiya, founded in the fourteenth century and present throughout the twentieth-century Muslim world, were the largest Sufi brotherhood in the Soviet Union, the twelfth-century Qadiriya were the dominant group in the Chechen-Ingush Republic. The Qadiriya were more radical, more aggressive and more clandestine than the Naqshbandiya. The Naqshbandiya were chiefly concerned to preserve Islamic practice outside the constraints imposed by the state and official Islam, but showed little inclination to challenge directly the political and social dominance of the Soviet system. The Qadiriya, however, and in particular its most influential brotherhoods, the Vis Haji, were uncompromisingly hostile to the Soviet regime.
22
tariqa
) which as far back as the twelfth century had taken on the role of defenders of the faith when Islam was threatened by infidel invasion. Though the Naqshbandiya, founded in the fourteenth century and present throughout the twentieth-century Muslim world, were the largest Sufi brotherhood in the Soviet Union, the twelfth-century Qadiriya were the dominant group in the Chechen-Ingush Republic. The Qadiriya were more radical, more aggressive and more clandestine than the Naqshbandiya. The Naqshbandiya were chiefly concerned to preserve Islamic practice outside the constraints imposed by the state and official Islam, but showed little inclination to challenge directly the political and social dominance of the Soviet system. The Qadiriya, however, and in particular its most influential brotherhoods, the Vis Haji, were uncompromisingly hostile to the Soviet regime.
22
Mitrokhin’s notes include varying amounts of detail from KGB files on operations against Sufi brotherhoods. In 1962 the KGB claimed to have identified the leader of the Qadiriya brotherhood as an ‘unofficial’ mullah named Auaev from the Borchasvili clan which had refused to do the work expected of them on their collective farm. The KGB arranged a show trial of Auaev and seven of his associates, who were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. At the prompting of the KGB, the official muftiate (Spiritual Directorate of Muslims) of the northern Caucasus solemnly instructed all believers to have nothing to do with unauthorized ‘sects’ (Sufi brotherhoods) and mullahs. Though the Centre was doubtless able to present the case as a significant victory, it can have had no illusions that the instructions of the muftiate would have any perceptible effect.
23
The relatively mild sentence passed on Auaev is surprising. Other members of Sufi brotherhoods in the Caucasus arrested in the early 1960s were commonly sentenced to death on charges of ‘banditism’ .
24
Given Auaev’s prominence, it is possible that the authorities preferred to keep him alive in miserable conditions and try to discredit him.
23
The relatively mild sentence passed on Auaev is surprising. Other members of Sufi brotherhoods in the Caucasus arrested in the early 1960s were commonly sentenced to death on charges of ‘banditism’ .
24
Given Auaev’s prominence, it is possible that the authorities preferred to keep him alive in miserable conditions and try to discredit him.
A further success recorded in KGB files was the shooting, apparently in the mid-1960s,
25
of another leading figure in the Qadiriya brotherhood, Khamad Gaziev, who had been hunted by the KGB since leading an armed uprising in the northern Caucasus in the 1950s. Though the uprising was defeated and Gaziev forced underground, the KGB reported that he remained a charismatic leader who inspired his fanatical followers with the belief that he possessed supernatural powers. The KGB sought to undermine his reputation with an active-measures campaign in the north-Caucasian media which portrayed Gaziev as a criminal adventurer with no real commitment to Islam who used religion as a pretext for armed robbery and the murder of Soviet citizens. A KGB-inspired article on Gaziev entitled ‘A Blood-Stained Turban’ was published in all local newspapers, broadcast on radio and television, and read aloud in state enterprises and collective farms.
25
of another leading figure in the Qadiriya brotherhood, Khamad Gaziev, who had been hunted by the KGB since leading an armed uprising in the northern Caucasus in the 1950s. Though the uprising was defeated and Gaziev forced underground, the KGB reported that he remained a charismatic leader who inspired his fanatical followers with the belief that he possessed supernatural powers. The KGB sought to undermine his reputation with an active-measures campaign in the north-Caucasian media which portrayed Gaziev as a criminal adventurer with no real commitment to Islam who used religion as a pretext for armed robbery and the murder of Soviet citizens. A KGB-inspired article on Gaziev entitled ‘A Blood-Stained Turban’ was published in all local newspapers, broadcast on radio and television, and read aloud in state enterprises and collective farms.
Eventually a KGB agent codenamed GORSKY penetrated Gaziev’s network and reported that he was hiding in the house of his ‘accomplice’, Akhma Amriev, in the village of Chemulg in the Sunzhensk region of Ingushetiya. An attempt to arrest Gaziev led to a shoot-out in which both he and his bodyguard were killed. The trial of Amriev and his wife, Khamila Amrieva, in the Sunzhensk House of Culture, carefully orchestrated by the KGB, was used to expose the ‘crimes’ of the Qadiriya brotherhood. The KGB organized meetings in Chemulg and other villages which had hidden Gaziev at which some of his relatives and ‘accomplices’, as well as official Muslim clerics, also carefully rehearsed, denounced him as a fraud and condemned the activities of the Qadiriya. The mufti of the northern Caucasus issued
fatwahs
containing similar denunciations.
26
The elimination of individual Sufi leaders, however, did little to undermine the movement as a whole. Their names were added to the long list of Sufi saints and martyrs.
fatwahs
containing similar denunciations.
26
The elimination of individual Sufi leaders, however, did little to undermine the movement as a whole. Their names were added to the long list of Sufi saints and martyrs.
Among the episodes which caused particular concern in Moscow was a mass Ingush public demonstration which began in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya-Ingushetiya, on the morning of 16 January 1973. The occasion was a particular embarrassment for the KGB since it demonstrated how badly it had misjudged the level of local discontent. As crowds filed into Revolution Square in the heart of Grozny, there was no initial indication of the trouble which was to follow. The garishly coloured banners carried the usual politically correct slogans: among them ‘Long live Soviet Ingushetiya!’ and ‘Long live Red Ingushetiya - the cradle of the Revolution in the northern Caucasus!’ The ceremonies began with the placing on the statue of Lenin of wreaths adorned with the usual red ribbons loyally inscribed ‘To Great Lenin from the Ingush People’. As the speeches continued, however, the authorities became increasingly anxious. Among those singled out for criticism by the Ingush speakers was the First Secretary of the Regional Party, Apryatkin, popularly known as
tryapkin
(‘rag’) or
pryatkin
(‘someone in hiding’) because of his reluctance to appear in public. To the horror of the local worthies, the meeting then demanded the return of land in Dagestan and northern Ossetia which had belonged to the Ingush before their expulsion in 1944.
tryapkin
(‘rag’) or
pryatkin
(‘someone in hiding’) because of his reluctance to appear in public. To the horror of the local worthies, the meeting then demanded the return of land in Dagestan and northern Ossetia which had belonged to the Ingush before their expulsion in 1944.
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