The Mountaineers' Defense Council; An Example of the Bolshevik Falsification of North Caucasian History

Türkçe Tercüme

One of the most controversial periods in the history of the North Caucasus is the period during the Russian Civil War between May 1919 and May 1920, when the pro-independence forces were forced to ally with the Bolshevik Highlanders during the occupation of the country by the White Volunteer Army.  Indeed, this constrained alliance, which was purely tactical, was built on an absolute distrust from the very beginning, as the Bolshevik Mountaineers acted unconditionally according to the instructions of the Russian Bolsheviks.  At every opportunity, the Bolshevik Mountaineers tried to discredit the pro-independence groups in the eyes of the people and tried to steal the prestige of successes of the national forces against the Denikinist forces through typical revolutionist conspiracies.  Their main goal was not to establish an independent state in the North Caucasus but to create favorable conditions for the Russian Bolsheviks to invade the North Caucasus and facilitate their work.  In fact, the main source of the armed struggle against Denikin's armies, which was the main reason for the existence of the Defense Council, the armed forces, and the power of the front command were entirely in the hands of an Abkhaz officer, Major Kabba Kazim Kap, an Ottoman subject and one of the remaining personnel of the Caucasian Islamic Army in the Caucasus. Despite the fact that Kazim Kap was a complete anti-Bolshevik, he was also very popular with the head of the Defense Council, Sheikh Ali Haji of Akusha. The Bolshevik members of the Defense Council did not hesitate to resort to all kinds of conspiracies to sabotage Kazim Kap and others who were in the Council representing the Union Council and religious groups.  One of these conspiracies, which could not be explained during the Soviet rule due to the obscuring of evidence, was that during the third session of the first meeting of the Defense Council held in Levashi on February 7, 1920, the Bolshevik Mountaineers took control of the Defense Council through various intrigues.

At that meeting, the Bolsheviks seized the leadership and appointed Sultan-Said Kazbekov as president. The Competence Control Commission, consisting of Hasan Efendi, Magomed Muslimov, and Abdul-Majid Magomayev, checked the testimonies of the participants and prepared a report. The delegates Magomed Akushinski, Abdulla Mekeginski, Magomed Rajab Hajalmahinski, and Mahmud Qadi were the plenipotentiary representatives of the Dargin region, Sheikh Ali, Hajiyev-Chohski, Magomed Muslimov and Sharafeddin Rezikuev were the representatives of Gazi-Kumuk, Hajiyev Bahaddin, Tarikuliev, Kuyurinski, Gazi-Magomed Aliyev and Hasan Efendi were the representatives of Samurski Okrugs. No representatives were invited from Temir-Khan-Shura, Avar, Andi, Kaytago-Tabasaran regions where the Bolsheviks were of the minority. Not a single delegate representing the supporters of Uzun-Khaji and Ibrahim-Khaji of Kuchri was invited to the meeting. The participants of the meeting were selected and invited entirely according to the Bolsheviks' preference to manipulate the elections.  For example, when Magomed-Kadi Rashkuyev's representation was approved, the condition of bringing testimony from his region was not required and the preference of the people of the region was not taken into account.  In the report submitted by the organizational commission consisting of Sheikh Murza Dovetov, Shapi Kady and Serefeddin Kady Rashkuyev, it was decided that Sheikh Ali-Khadji Akushinsky, Sheikh Uzun-Khadji, Sheikh Ibrahim-Khadji, Osman Osmanov, Rabadan Nurov, Muta Ramazanov, Jalal-Ed-Din Korkmasov, Sultan-Said Kazbekov and Magomed Dalgat would be elected to the Defense Council as the pioneers of the liberation movement. In fact, many of these Bolsheviks were absent when the resistance against Denikin's armies began in the North Caucasus.
Ali-Khaji Akushinsky, Uzun-Khaji, Jalal-Ed-Din Korkmasov, Sultan-Said Kazbekov were declared honorary chairmen of the Defense Council. Bahaddin Hajiyev and Hasan Efendi were elected Secretary of the Council. 
It was also decided to form 3 commissions by-election from the members of the Council. Rabadan Nurov, Mutu Ramazanov, Osman Osmanov were elected as members of the Military Affairs Commission, Yusup Molla Magomedov and Magomed Muslimov were elected as members of the National Economy Commission, and Sharafeddin Rashkuev, Ibrahim Haji, Shapi Kady, and Gamzalov were elected as members of the Cultural and Educational Studies Commission and the Sharia Court. At the same time, the Balkar Bolshevik, Magomet Eneev was elected Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Culture and Education.
The executive authority of the Council was given to the head of the Department of Internal Affairs, Commissar Osman Osmanov, his assistant for administrative affairs, Musa Kundukhov, and Mikail Tsudaharski for counterintelligence. Commissar Rabadan Nurov was elected as the head of the Department of Military Affairs. Muta Ramazanov was appointed as his assistant for procurement affairs. Magomet Muslimov was appointed as the Commissar for National Economy affairs, Hajiyev was elected as his assistant for Finance, and Dalgat was elected as his assistant for Procurement. The administration of judicial matters was entrusted to Sharafeddin Rashkuyev. At the same time, a new composition of the “Central Sharia Court” was created, with one representative from each region. The Central Sharia Court consisted of one representative from each region and the same number of members of the Central Council.

At the end of the 3rd session of the meeting, the text of the declaration read by Sheikh Ali Haji Akushinsky was approved by the Chairman of the Council Sultan-Said Kazbekov. The same statement, in the form of a junta memorandum, with a few minor changes, was published on the second page of the 36th issue of the newspaper “Volny Gorets” dated March 29, 1920.  The name of the state, which was officially declared to the world as the "Republic of the Union of United North Caucasian Mountaineers " on May 11, 1918, was converted to the "Republic of the Union of Working Mountaineers of the North Caucasus ". The council declared itself as the body responsible for domestic and foreign policy and announced that it seized all the authority and power.  In a way, this meant that they would not recognize the Allied Council, which was active in exile in Tbilisi.   The full text of the final declaration of the meeting was as follows:

“Starting its work, the new composition of the Defense Council of the North Caucasus elected by the Dagestani people in a moment of difficult external struggle for the freedom and independence of the North Caucasus considers itself a temporary body existing until the complete cleansing of the territory of the former Mountain Republic from the enemy and the organization of permanent power under the will of all mountain peoples.
As organs for the protection of the independence and freedom of the Mountain Peoples, the Defense Council accepts the fullness of supreme power in places already cleared of the enemy, sets the goal of its work to liberate the remaining territory, and convene a nationwide resolution of issues of state building.
The Defense Council, uniting all the living forces of the country around the protection of the independence and freedom of the North Caucasus, resolves all current issues by the spirit of Sharia and the Revolution.
The long-suffering Mountain people strive for both peace and cultural development, therefore the Defense Council sets the task of its foreign policy to maintain peaceful and good-neighborly relations with all republics bordering the territory of the Republic of the Union of Working Mountain Peoples of the North Caucasus. Before the Congress of Mountain Working Peoples, the Defense Council of the North Caucasus considers itself responsible for foreign and domestic policy and transfers all full powers to it.”

The original text on the formation of the Council was distorted and published in different ways by Bolshevik authors such as Taho-Godi, Todorski, Kashkayev, and Alikberov in terms of how things were dictated by Soviet historiography during the USSR.

The inaccessibility of the minutes of the meeting to this day has forced many researchers who later worked on this subject to try to reach a conclusion with incomplete and distorted data.
Thus, after the meeting of the Defense Council dated February 7 and the Bolsheviks’ taking over the power in the Council, Haydar Bammat wrote a letter to the Council, informing the administration in a diplomatic tone about the reflections of this situation on the fight against Denikin and the difficulties experienced in transferring the purchased weapons to the North without encountering the obstacles of the Georgian Mensheviks:

In addition to the considerations transmitted to the Defense Council through the Diplomatic Representative in Azerbaijan, I have the following to report:

Over the past week, the political situation in Georgia has not undergone any significant changes. Gegechkori gave me a formal assurance that the Georgian Government is entirely committed to restoring the independence of the Mountain Republic. Georgia has never entered into or will not enter into any agreement directed against the sovereign Mountain Republic. Gruzya not only, conducted no negotiations with Azerbaijan regarding the establishment of a zone of influence in the North Caucasus, but is categorically against the annexation policy of its neighbor in Dagestan. The Georgian Government actually sent a member of the Constituent Assembly Dgebuadze to Vladikavkaz and a member of the Constituent Assembly Papava to Ingushetia and had negotiations with some representatives of the Ingush intelligentsia. The purpose of sending a special delegate to Vladikavkaz, according to Gegechkori, was to establish free transit of grain cargoes purchased in the North Caucasus. According to my private information, it was meant not only for the grain operation but also for the purchase or receipt of quartermaster and combat property of the army in the event of evacuations by volunteers from Vladikavkaz.
The mission to Ingushetia Mr. Papava is in connection with the organization of the Ingush National Council. The Georgian Government, as I already have the opportunity to inform the Council of Defense through Alibek Takho-Godi, wanted a month ago to actively intervene in the Northern Caucasus by sending a detachment to Vladikavkaz at the invitation of local organizations to restore the Mountain Republic. At that moment, when panic in the volunteer rear had reached its highest point and the offensive of the Soviet troops had not yet been stopped in the Rostov and Novocherkassk directions, General Erdeli, General Abatsieva, and Baev, through the Georgian consul in Vladikavkaz, were negotiating in this direction with the Georgian Government. The Georgians sought and, apparently, found sympathy for this plan in some parts of the Ingush intelligentsia. But our intervention with a categorical protest against these plans, and most importantly, of course, the somewhat changed strategic situation - changed the mood of the Tiflis ruling circles. However, Gruzya considers it a matter of primary importance to ensure communication with the North Caucasus via the Georgian Military Highway and there is no doubt that she will stop at nothing to implement this connection.
In response to the official protest on behalf of the Defense Council regarding the secret Georgian policy in Ingushetia, Gegechkori told me that the activities of the Georgian Government in this region were caused by the information that the Defense Council in Dagestan is Bolshevik and has a negative attitude towards Georgia. Georgia, at present, refuses any direct activity in Ingushetia and the North Caucasus in general - solely out of trust in my assurances that the Defense Council is not Bolshevik, but only on the point of view of the Mountain Independent Republic and to have friendly relations with the Transcaucasian Republics. At the moment when the foreign policy of the Defense Council changes, Georgia will consider that its hands are untied and will take measures to protect its vital interests related to the political situation of the part of our territory adjacent to it. I consider it a matter of primary importance to organize national Councils in Ossetia, Ingushetia, Balkaria, and Kabarda and establish their connections with the Defense Council. First of all, these Councils must be organized in Ossetia and Ingushetia. In parallel, it is necessary to take measures to control the Georgian Military Road and prepare for our part to occupy Lars. For this purpose, as well as for maintaining communications with the North Caucasus, I must have the means at my disposal. Until this control is established, we will not be able to stop Georgia's unwanted interference in our affairs. The Georgian Government is suspicious of our operations to purchase and transport weapons within Georgia. Before I arrived in Tiflis, a decision was made to prohibit the export of even the weapons already purchased. The motives are the above-mentioned information about the Bolshevik position of the Defense Council. I have temporarily crushed this conflict.

However, the Georgian Mensheviks, who used the Bolshevik hegemony in the Mountaineers’ Defense Council as an excuse to prevent the weapons purchased for the Mountaineers’ National Armed Forces from passing to the North, would send a delegation headed by Grigol Uratadze to Moscow a few weeks later and sign secret agreements with the Russian Bolsheviks. The Georgian Mensheviks, who undertook to facilitate the occupation of the North Caucasus in return for the Russian Bolsheviks not occupying Georgia, and to provide all kinds of convenience for the Bolsheviks who had previously been arrested to work on Georgian territory by releasing them, would once again give a fatal blow to the independence struggle of the North Caucasus.

Cem Kumuk,
Istanbul, 28 September 2024