Chechnya is just one of Russia's 21 ethnically defined republics, yet it is here that one of the most terrible conflicts in modern times has raged in various ways since 1991. There has been considerable debate over what provokes one area to seek secession, while another in apparently similar circumstances remains within the existing constitutional order. Why has it been Chechnya, and not one of the other republics or regions of Russia, that has taken this tragic path? Here, I will place the conflict in its broader historical and theoretical context; the details of the background to the independence struggle will be examined in more detail in other chapters.

Comparative Debates

Michael Hechter has observed that it is typically the poorest regions that are most disposed to secede. Certainly, there is a socio-economic dynamic at work in the case of Chechnya, which was close to the bottom in most indicators of modernization in comparison with other regions of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and Russia. Levels of educational and general socio-economic attainment were poor, while a high birth rate fuelled exceptionally high levels of unemployment. Reserves of oil had declined and by the early 1980s constituted no more than three per cent of Russian oil production. In most aspects of socio-economic development, Chechnya was in last place in Russia, with over half the population under 30 years of age and with unemployment among ethnic Chechens reaching 30 per cent, forcing some 40 per cent of Chechens of working age to become migrant workers (otkhodniki), with at least 25,000 men leaving each spring to work in Russia to work on building sites as itinerant workers (shabashniki).