Document 93

Report "On Manifestations of Bourgeois Nationalism and Great-Power Chauvinism" in Kabardino-Balkaria, 16 September 1940"

RGASPI, f. 17, op. 122, d. 2, ll. 24-30. Certified, typewritten copy.

Manifestations of bourgeois nationalism and great-power chauvinism have been noted lately in a number of raions of the republic . . . .

Here are some of the numerous incidents that have been uncovered in recent months:

On 11 July 1940, at the Tyrnyauz Integrated Works, M. P. Kardanov beat up Comrade Sofronov, head of the food-supply department, supposedly for refusing to give him [Kardanov] a job because he is a Kabardin (Kardanov did not have his papers with him: no passport, labor book, etc.). He tried to stab Comrade Sofronov. Kardanov was sent to the El'brus Raion police, but the chief of the police, Comrade Dzhaboev, released him, and he went into hiding. It was learned that Kardanov is the son of an exiled kulak.

There have also been instances of great-power chauvinism. On Navy Day a mass rally was held in which more than five hundred people took part. A plasterer named Gladkov, while inebriated, tried to gather Russians for a fistfight among Kabardin, Balkar and Russians. Gladkov was sent to the El'brus Raion police, but was also released.Y

On 16 August 1940, S. M. Divnich, Pfeifer and Sidorenko were returning home to Chegem Pervyi while intoxicated. As they walked along the street, some young boys began to badger them, and one of them struck Divnich in the back with a rock. The latter went to chase the boy, who ran into the yard of Buzha Bogotov and hid in the corn while screaming "Urus," "Urus." A Kabardin responded to the boy's screaming by running out with a stake in his hands and he stabbed Divnich in the shoulder. Pfeifer heard the screams, ran to the scene of the fight and saw Divnich surrounded already by a whole mob of Kabardin, who also attacked Pfeifer and beat him up, cracking his head open. Divnich and Pfeifer decided to complain to the village soviet, where, however, not only were the appropriate measures not taken, but they were beaten up again by the village soviet chairman Tamash Mazanovich Pekov, village soviet secretary Ibragim Makoev, Komsomol secretary Bogotov, a driver, the kolkhoz assistant manager Khabaz Kishev and others.

During March and April of this year many Russian workers at the Vostochnyi Akbash bast-fiber factory were beaten up by Kabardin, and the methods used in the beatings were identical. The individuals would accost a Russian leaving the factory at night, ask him for a light and, upon making sure he was Russian, beat him up, saying over and over: "Now take Finland, now take the Ukraine, now take Poland and Turkey." [In other words, the expansionist plans of the Russians with regard to these countries were ascribed to the targets of the beatings. ]

At 10 p.m. on 2 May a group of Kabardin attacked workers returning from the bast-fiber factory and threw rocks at them, injuring Vasily Yefimovich Kvint, a driver for the factory, in the head. . . .

A group of nationalists in the village of Kenzhe, Nal'chik Raion, headed by Tkhamokov, the chairman of the village soviet of working people's deputies, destroyed the gardens of Russian workers from the Peplo-Pemzovoi mine. There have been a number of incidents in which Kabardin have beaten up Russians waiting on line at shops while they shouted out patently nationalist phrases (Leskensky, Baksan, Urvansky, Nal'chik and other raions).

In the Balkar raions and several others, school teachers who have resettled are persecuted even by the heads of Soviet organizations. The teachers are denied an opportunity to buy food, insulted and so forth. . . .