Labour mobilisation in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR during the Great Patriotic War

The labour mobilisation in Checheno-Ingushetia during the Great Patriotic War is connected to the evacuation of the industrial enterprises from the republic and their subsequent restoration, as well as to the establishment of a complex system of defensive lines. The article elaborates the essential characteristics of the mobilisation measures, their general patterns as well as their specific local features. The study is based on archival documents of the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) concerning the history of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic during the Great Patriotic War, mostly obtained from the electronic database of the Archives Department of the Government of the Chechen Republic (AHRC); equally used were materials from the periodical press of Checheno-Ingushetia from the period under consideration. Labour mobilisation was important for making the most effective use of the available human resources to carry out the work that the state prioritized. The dismantling of industrial enterprises for evacuation to places removed from the front line was carried out twice - in the autumn of 1941 and in the summer and autumn of 1942. Each evacuation campaign was accompanied by new mobilisation measures to provide workforce for the reassembling of the industrial plants. The need to concentrate skilled labour in the dismantling and restoration of the oil industry caused serious difficulties in other, related industries. The most massive labour mobilisations were carried out to provide for the construction of defensive lines; in the autumn and winter of 1942, the majority of the able-bodied population of the republic was involved in this program. At the same time, labourers from Checheno-Ingushetia also worked outside the republic. The war-related labour mobilisation affected all social categories of the population, regardless of their nationality; the indigenous population, however, provided the largest part of the unskilled labour. There is no evidence of any mass movement of evading labour mobilization in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR. In 1944, the mobilisation measures were reduced significantly, which must be attributed to the deportation of the Chechens and Ingushs; the loss of about 500.000 deported people made it necessary to bring labour force from outside to the newly formed Grozny region.