In total, the archive records show that over a hundred thousand people died or were killed during the round-ups and transportation, and during their early years in exile in the Kazakh and Kyrgyz SSR as well as Russian SFSR where they were sent to the many forced settlements.

The exile lasted for 13 years and the survivors would not return to their native lands until 1957, after the new Soviet authorities under Nikita Khrushchev reversed many of Stalin's policies, including the deportations of nations.

On 25 August 1942, a group of German paratroopers, led by saboteur Osman Gube, landed near the village of Berezhki in the Galashkinsky district in order to organize anti-Soviet actions[21] yet managed to only recruit 13 people in the area.

[33] On orders from Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the NKVD, the entire Chechen and Ingush population of the Checheno-Ingush ASSR were to be deported by freight trains to remote areas of the Soviet Union.

When Supian Kagirovich Mollaev, the leader of the local government in the Checheno-Ingush ASSR, heard about the decision, he burst into tears, but soon pulled himself together and decided to follow orders.

[37] Some of the stated reasons were allegedly to "defuse ethnic tensions", to "stabilize the political situation" or to punish people for their "act against the Soviet authority".

[41] Many times, resistance was met with slaughter, and in one such instance, in the aul of Khaibakh, about 700 people were locked in a barn and burned to death by NKVD General Mikheil Gveshiani, who was praised for this and promised a medal by Beria.

[56] Some 6,000 Chechens were stuck in the mountains of the Galanzhoy district due to the snow, but this slowed the deportation only minimally: 333,739 people were evicted, of which 176,950 were sent to trains already on the first day of the operation.

In May 1944, Beria issued a directive ordering the NKVD to browse the entire USSR in search for any remaining members of that nation, "not leaving a single one".

This, combined with malnutrition due to the negligence of the authorities to provide enough food for the newly arrived exiles, led to high death rates.

[73] Many deportees died en route, and the extremely harsh environment of exile, especially considering the amount of exposure to thermal stress, killed many more.

[75] In 1948, there were 118,250 special settlers in Kazakh SSR "in extreme need in regard for food" and authorities reported thousands of children dying from undernourishment.

[1] Professor Jonathan Otto Pohl estimates the combined number of deaths among Chechen and Ingush exiles during transit and confinement in special settlements by 1949 at 123,000.

[81] Tom K. Wong, Associate Professor of Political Science, estimates that at least 100,000 Vainakhs died in the first three years in exile, excluding those who perished during the transit and the round-ups.

[25] By the next summer, a number of Chechen and Ingush placenames were replaced with Russian ones; mosques were destroyed, and a massive campaign of burning numerous historical Nakh languages books and manuscripts was near complete.

[93] With the native population gone, the Chechen region experienced a huge lack of skilled workers: the local oil production industry dropped more than ten times in 1944 compared to 1943.

[94] On November 26, 1948, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet issued a decree which sentenced the deported nations to a permanent exile in those distant regions.

In his secret speech on 24 February 1956, Khrushchev condemned these Stalinist deportations: The Soviet Union is justly considered as a model of a multinational state because we have in practice assured the equality and friendship of all nations who live in our great fatherland.

[101]On 16 July 1956 the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet adopted a decree lifting the restrictions of the legal status of Chechens, Ingush and Karachais in the special settlements.

The Soviet government tried to give them autonomy inside Uzbekistan or to resettle them in other parts of the Caucasus, but the returnees were adamant to return to their native lands.

[109] The massive numbers of Vainakhs who were coming back to the Northern Caucasus took the locals by surprise: the Soviet government thus decided to temporarily halt the influx of returnees in the summer of 1957.

In the next four days, the Russians formed mob riots and looted the Vainakh property,[111] seizing government buildings and demanding either a restoration of Grozny Oblast, or a creation of a non-titular autonomy, re-deportation of the Chechens and Ingush, establishment of "Russian power", mass search and disarming of Chechens and Ingush, before Soviet law enforcement dispersed the rioters.

Ultimately, the attempt to make Checheno-Ingushetia more multi-ethnic in order to discourage potential uprisings failed due to the higher birthrate of the Vainakhs.

[117] In the 1960s, in order to finance their families, some forty thousand men temporarily migrated from Chechen-Ingushetia each year to find part-time jobs in Kazakhstan and Siberia, thanks to their contacts from the time of their exile.

[118] On paper, the Chechen-Ingush Republic enjoyed the same privileges as other Soviet ASSRs, but in reality it had very little actual Chechens or Ingush representing its government, which was run directly by the Russians.

Yusup Soslambekov, a chairman of the Chechen parliament after 1991, lamented that his people returned from exile to their homes "not as masters of that land but as mere inhabitants, tenants.

[119] The deportation left a permanent scar in the memory of the Chechens and Ingush is today regarded by some historians as "one of the most significant ethnic traumas of the Soviet period".

[120] For instance, insurgent Shamil Basayev referred to his 40 relatives who died during the deportation while Aslan Maskhadov, the President of Ichkeria, stated that February 23 remains "one of the most tragic dates for his people" and that the goal of the Russian government has always stayed the same: "Chechnya without Chechens".

[122][124] The forced relocation, slaughter, and conditions during and after transfer have been described as an act of genocide by various scholars as well as the European Parliament[125] on the basis of the IV Hague Convention of 1907 and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of the U.N. General Assembly (adopted in 1948), including French historian and expert on communist studies Nicolas Werth,[126] German historian Philipp Ther,[9] Professor Anthony James Joes,[127] American journalist Eric Margolis,[128] Canadian political scientist Adam Jones,[129] professor of Islamic History at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Brian Glyn Williams,[79] scholars Michael Fredholm[130] and Fanny E.

[137] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's documentary history The Gulag Archipelago, published in 1973, mentioned the Chechens: "They are a nation that refused to accept the psychology of submission...