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-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted
from the Aug. 22, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
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On the night of Aug. 6-7, a few hundred Chechen fighters seized control of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, from two brigades of Russian troops backed by artillery and aircraft. While specific figures haven't been released, the fighting was exceptionally brutal. Losses were high on both sides.
CNN said burned-out Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers filled the central square alongside many bodies of long-dead Russian soldiers. During their first assault, the Chechens forced the Russians back into two strongholds-a bunker under the government building in the center of the city and an airport at the edge.
An armored relief column was ambushed on its way into the city and Russian soldiers were forced to fight in small groups, without armor. A number of Russian helicopters were shot down, according to reports from Iter-Tass, a Russian news agency.
Dozens of Russian soldiers reportedly seized 200 hostages in a hospital to enforce their demand for safe passage through Chechen lines. Thousands of civilian refugees were desperately trying to flee the city.
Right after this humiliation of the Russian army in Chechnya, Boris Yeltsin was inaugurated as Russian president in Moscow on Aug. 9. He took the oath of office under the two-headed eagle of imperial Russia, 100 years to the day after the crowning of Nicholas II, the last czar.
This symbolism, said one of his advisers, apparently with no embarrassment, was deliberately chosen "to mark Russia's return to democracy."
During the election campaign, Yeltsin had announced a cease-fire with great fanfare, trying to appease anti-war sentiment among the people. But a few short weeks after the election, Yeltsin broke the cease-fire with a heavy bombing campaign against Chechen villages. This led to the renewed fighting.
The Bolshevik revolution of 1917, which overthrew the oppressing classes and killed czar Nicholas II, also overturned the imperial policy of subjugating smaller nations inside Russia. Smaller nations were encouraged to develop their economies and cultures. The Soviet Union tried to follow a policy of upholding self-determination while building class solidarity among all the oppressed.
During World War II, many Chechens were exiled to the Far East. After 1956, the Soviet leadership called this an error and the Chechens were returned to their land and property.
It wasn't until the Gorbachev economic reforms and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, that nationalist resentments against Russia boiled over into open combat.
The Chechens now demand full independence and a total withdrawal of Russian troops. Some 30,000 of their people have died in this war, which began when Russia tried to seize Grozny 20 months ago.
Russia doesn't want to give up control since Chechnya lies across the only feasible route for a pipeline to bring the vast oil wealth of Azerbaijan through Russia.
For now, the U.S. capitalist government is backing Yeltsin on this issue. State Department spokesperson Nicholas Burns said on Aug. 8, "The United States is watching with great concern and great disappointment the fighting this week in Chechnya, this time clearly caused by the Chechen rebel offensive."
Washington can always play a double game, however. While in the short run it is politically banking on Yeltsin, its long-term objective is to open up all parts of the former Soviet Union to exploitation by U.S. capital and to prevent the various republics from ever uniting again in a strong socialist union.
Whatever happens in Grozny, Russia has suffered a heavy defeat. Despite its vast and relatively modern, well- equipped army, it has not been able to overcome the resistance of a small people-there are less than 3 million Chechens. The "mixed" economy is in shambles. The state, which has been looted by the new bourgeoisie, owes workers $5.7 billion in back wages, or more than the total U.S. investment of $5.5 billion.
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. For subscription info send message to: ww-info@wwpublish.com. Web: http://www.workers.org)