Speech of T.K. Malbakhov at the Congress of the Peoples of KBR in 1991

The Balkar comrades say:
“They robbed us. While singing songs about the friendship of peoples, they embezzled our money. They took away our lands. They do not restore the districts that existed before, and the boundaries that existed in 1944 or 1922. They squeeze us in all directions: in the economy, in culture, in personnel, etc.”
None of this is true, comrades. All of this is pure falsehood.
(Applause.)
Knowing that the Balkars would bring with them no land, no livestock, no food supplies, and certainly no housing, we started by restoring housing and organizing food supply. We allocated 2,000 hectares to the Balkars in the Tersky and Prokhladnensky districts. Kabardian and Russian collective and state farms plowed these lands, sowed them, and said: “Come and harvest them and divide the crop among yourselves as you see fit.”
(Applause.)
Two years later, we added another 4,000 hectares. We saw the condition these people were in, we saw how much time the restoration of the economy might require, and therefore we allocated 7,000 head of livestock at live weight from Kabardian and Russian collective and state farms and transferred them to the Balkar people at the lowest purchase prices. In addition, we transferred (mostly free of charge) 1,500 horses. And besides the 7,000 head of livestock I mentioned, about 2,000 cows and heifers and more than 30,000 sheep were also transferred. Significant sums were allocated for the improvement of Balkar settlements. Not a single kopek of this money was consumed by the Kabardians or Russians. All of this money — not 68 million, as was written in our newspapers a few days ago and stated at the session of the Supreme Soviet of the republic and at the congress of the Balkar people, but three times more — was spent on the development of the Balkar economy.
We should remember with gratitude our ancestors, who shared land with the Balkars in a brotherly manner in the 18th and 19th centuries. And there is no need now to recall those times, or at any rate to present a bill to the descendants of the Balkar people who received such a gift from our ancestors.
I want to say the following to the Balkar comrades.
Just as the comrades who spoke before me distorted and perverted history — in a rather boyish manner, I would say — so too did the Balkar comrades approach these issues and distort history.
After all, 60,000 Balkars did not reside on the territory of Kabardino-Balkaria. According to the 1939 census, there were 39,000 Balkars;
36,000 people were loaded into trains and deported from here. 39,000 people returned from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
16,000 young Balkars were not called up into the army. That could not have happened! 5,500 people were called up.
Some comrades say: we were set up, the Kabardian leadership deported the Balkars, and so on. The Kabardians did not deport the Balkars. On the contrary, the Kabardian leadership was expelled together with the Balkars.
You know that three months after the deportation of the Balkars, comrade Kumekhov, comrade Akhokhov, and many other leaders were also expelled from here.
The Kabardians did not deport the Kalmyks, the Chechens, or the Ingush. They were deported in Moscow. They were deported by Stalin and his associates. They were deported inhumanely, without justification.
Incidentally, along with the Balkars, 5,000 Kabardians were expelled from Kabarda on the same charges.
(The chairman, at the request of the delegates, gave comrade Malbakhov an additional 2 minutes.)
The conclusion is this: if a Balkar statehood is not achieved, a semi-Balkar republic will result; if not even a republic, then a semi-Balkar semi-republic will result. Therefore, let us, comrades, approach this matter more seriously. Let us step over both Kabardian and Russian pride a little, and not inflame it.

Speech of T.K. Malbakhov in 1991 at the Congress of the Peoples of KBR
[Timbora Kubatievich Malbakhov — First Secretary of the Kabardino-Balkarian Regional Committee of the CPSU (1956–1985).]