From Shaury to Kremlin

From snow-covered Moscow a little group of Russian democrats hating the empire is with a sinking heart watching the major drama unfolding in the Caucasus. The war is taking mile-long strides across the Caucasus and totally ignoring any 'administrative' or 'state' borders. After starting with the aggression of the Kremlin’s imperialism against Chechnya, the war is now rapidly spreading beyond the boundaries of CRI (Chechen Republic of Ichkeria) and resonating with clattery echo in neighboring Ingushetia, in Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Georgia, while implacably turning from purely Chechen Resistance against the Russian aggression into the holy war for liberation of the entire Caucasus.

The graphic example to that is the most recent successful combined operation of Chechen and Dagestani Mujahideen (Armed Forces) in Tsunti District of Dagestan. In the mountains there are too many passes and gorges for the Russians to control. The fighters pass unimpeded and attack bases of the aggressors, which they locate and target in advance. Inevitable blow of retaliation is dealt for the occupied Homeland, for bombed houses, and for killed and tortured loved ones. And Russian mass media claim that a helicopter pursuit is impossible due to the fog that shrouded the mountains of Dagestan…

This holy war is one of the main strings sounding in cacophony of the present-day world politics. The Caucasus really is a strategic point for the planet, for international relations and global projects, and for world superpowers. This is where the forces of Good and Evil have engaged in a deadly fight in the end of the 20th century, here in the Caucasus - in Chechnya and Georgia first of all. Gravest genocide of Chechens organized by Russia is nothing to be compared with in the world’s history of the past 50-60 years: it is a real Holocaust, and only the Jews in the Nazi Reich were the last to experience the brutal extermination.

So far in Georgia the picture is more optimistic and promising than it is in Chechnya: a real revolution has won down there, a bloodless revolution - a truly rare phenomenon for our modern times and for the 'post-Soviet space', which is boldly and severely controlled by revanchist Moscow. Kremlin’s protege Shevardnadze, put on the throne after legitimate President of Georgia Gamsakhurdia was overthrown by the Russian troops, has shown his real face for the past 10 years and people had enough of him once and for all. His example is a lesson to everybody else, and now we can fortunately hope that the new Georgian government will put a firm barrier in front of Moscow’s neo-imperialism and revanchism. The Russian dream of «walking the streets of Tbilisi like walking the streets of Kaluga, Russia», which Georgian opposition leader and presidential candidate Saakashvili was telling Zhirinovsky (Russian hardliner, also head of «Liberal Democratic Party of Russia») live on the air not too long before the 'velvet revolution', is doomed to failure and will never come true. Only the fate of Autonomous Republic of Adjaria remains unclear, where the Kremlin did not have enough time to issue Russian passports to 80% of the population, like it did in Abkhazia.

But peaceful development of the events in the 'Georgian way' cannot become dominating all across the Caucasus and get the Caucasus liberated just as peacefully: the war is going on in Chechnya! The last elections campaign in Russia went in the middle of the well-distinguished slogan 'Forget about Chechnya' in the Russian PR. Down there the war is long gone, everything is quiet, new president has been elected, new constitution adopted, and peaceful life is getting under way… And the main thing is: forget about the unfulfilled promises and plans of the previous pre-election campaign: to 'ice in the outhouse' notorious 'Chechen terrorism' and 'put things in order in Chechnya' - to establish colonial order of Russian invaders, which Yermolov, Stalin and Grachev were already trying to do…

But the war in Chechnya is continuing to this day. The Resistance has not been broken, no 'order' was established. Russians never managed to turn Chechnya into some 'lost world', into a concentration camp totally isolated from the outside world, fenced with electric barbed wire, even though no journalists or human rights activists are admitted there. Thanks to the Internet and other modern media the terrible news are seeping into Europe, like the Freedom movie, like speeches of members of CRI Government, and testimonies of ordinary Chechens, who speak during the rallies, round tables and conferences on the problems of Chechnya in Vilnius, Warsaw, Rome, Paris, and even in Moscow.

But that’s not enough! The main arterial way of the Chechen Resistance to peace and freedom of their people is today’s war outside Chechnya, from the village of Shuary to Nord-Ost (in Moscow), and in the future all the way to Putin’s office in the Kremlin! Freedom will not be handed on a silver platter, it must be won, and the only way to claim freedom today is to expand the war all across the entire Caucasus and not let Chechnya be turned into a reservation, a concentration camp, a ghetto for Chechen people who are being exterminated and being overseen by all these collaborators like Kadyrov and Gantamirov as prison guards. Free federation of the Caucasus nations (the nations free from the Kremlin’s yoke, from colonialism, and in the case with Chechnya - from outright genocide) is the only way to the true liberation and independence of Chechens. Their cause is the common cause, their freedom is freedom for other nations of the Caucasus. (Russian imperialism has already shown that without even getting done with Chechnya, it is now ready to bomb Georgia and sent hordes of its agents to Azerbaijan under the pretext of haunting down 'Chechen terrorists' in these countries). And however paradoxical it may sound, the real freedom for the Russian people is freedom from the centuries-old imperial past, from colonialism and aggression, from centuries-old role of butchers and slaughterers.

«No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations» (Friedrich Engels) - this is the great and unshakable formula that still makes Russian anti-imperialists, the democrats (not numerous so far) support the fight of Chechen Mujahideen with joy and inspiration, even though Russian cheap mass media are presenting them as 'terrorists', 'Wahhabists', 'bandits', etc. If a great cannibal superpower attacks a small yet defiant and proud Chechen nation to exterminate it, - we welcome each strike conducted by the Armed Resistance against this armada of murderers, we are glad about each armored vehicle blown up, each attack on the invaders’ convoy, each landmine planted, each building taken down by trucks stuffed with explosives, whether it would be in Jokhar, in Magas, or maybe in Moscow in the future, which we are sincerely hoping for!

This war is four our freedom also, against our enemies, against the bloody KGB tyranny and colonialism, against the imperial chauvinism and Russian fascism, which took deep roots among the Russian people and ate up their souls throughout many centuries. Russians must get out of the Caucasus once and for all - after the grave crimes that they committed there in the 20th century. Nobody is ever going to talk to them down there, except for miserable stooges like Kadyrov. Right now they only have the right to repent, to «get on their knees before Chechnya» and make up for all who were killed and for everything that they destroyed, - and leave once and for all! And no one is going to ask them whether they want to leave or not.

In the final analysis, freedom of the Caucasus is not only freedom for the nations of the Caucasus, and not even for the Russians (to be free from their own selves). It is a big step towards liberation and further progress of the mankind. As one of the songs of famous Chechen bard Timur Mutsurayev goes:

Winds of Freedom blowing in our face!
We’re not afraid to die for Homeland!

In the battle we'll prove to thee,

O Caucasus, thou wilt be free!
(Translated from Russian)

Boris Stomakhin, citizen of Russia.