‘Brotherhoods’ and ‘Associates’: Chechen Networks of Crime and Resistance

Abstract

The traditional forms of Chechen society – the extended family, the clan, the religious brotherhood – have proven to be effective building blocks on which to construct network-based structures both for modern organized crime and also for fighting a guerrilla war against the Russians in Chechnya. These networks have evolved in the face of external pressure and are proving durable and successful, even as they are supplemented by separate networks of Islamic extremists, devoted both to guerrilla warfare and also a campaign of terrorism within Russia.

Notes

 1. Studies of Chechen history of note include Robert Bauman, ‘Historical Perspective on the Conflict in Chechnia’, Low Intensity Conflict and Law Enforcement Vol.4, No.1 (1995), pp.119–132; John P Dunlop, ad Russia Confronts Chechnya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), chs 1–2; Anatol Lieven, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), ch.9.

 2. For example, in 1996 Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov claimed that rebel leaders planned to send fighters to Moscow to take over banks and businesses and thus precipitate a new round of turf wars: ‘the goal of the looming gangster wars is the complete destabilization of Russia.’ ITAR-Tass news agency (7 October 1996).

 3. For useful assessments of Chechen society, see Sergei Arutiunov, ‘Ethnicity and Conflict in the Caucasus’, in Fred Wehling (ed.), Ethnic Conflict and Russian Intervention in the Caucasus (San Diego, CA: ISGCC, 1996); Sebastian Smith, Allah's Mountains (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998); Yavus Akhmadov et  al., Islam in the North Caucasus: A People Divided (Harrisonburg, VA: William R Nelson Institute, 2001), available at ⟨http://www.jmu.edu/orgs/wrni/islam1.htm⟩; Emil Arslan Suleymanov, ‘Chechen Society and Mentality’, Prague Watchdog, 25 May 2003.

 4. This section draws heavily on my earlier article ‘Chechen Crime Alive and Well’, published in Jane's Intelligence Review, March 2000, and is used with permission. The best other sources on Chechen organized crime include Mark Galeotti, ‘Chechnia: The Theft of a Nation’, Boundary and Security Bulletin, Vol.2, No.1 (1994); Andrei Zhilin, ‘The Caucasian War: The Scene in Moscow’, Jamestown Foundation Prism, 22 March 1996; Andrei Konstantinov, Banditskii Peterburg (St Petersburg: Folio-Press, 1997); A.L. Rudakov, Chechenskaya mafiya (Moscow: EKSMO-Press, 2002).

 5. John Arquilla & David Ronfeldt, The Advent of Netwar (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1996) p.5.

 6. Andrei Konstantinov, Banditskii Peterburg (St Petersburg: Folio-Press, 1997), p.155.