Rise and Fall of Batal-Haji Sufi Order Highlights Unwritten Rules of Putn's Russia, 'NeMoskva' and 'Fortanga' Say

 Paul Goble

    Staunton, Mar. 13 -- The rise and fall of the powerful Batal-Haji Sufi order in the North Caucasus highlights the unwritten rules which govern Moscow's way of dealing with social forces it does not entirely control, according to the independent NeMoskva and Fortanga news agencies.

    They cite an anonymous expert who says that "the government can close its eyes to arms and drug trafficking, the stealing of cars and even murders if these do not touch the immediate interests of the force structures" ( nemoskva.net/2025/03/12/ot-vliyatelnogo-klana-do-spiska-terroristov/and fortanga.org/2025/03/ot-vliyatelnogo-klana-do-spiska-terroristov-istoriya-vzleta-i-padeniya-odnogo-iz-samyh-moshhnyh-klanov-severnogo-kavkaza-zakrytoj-sufijskoj-obshhiny-batalhadzhinczev/).

    But that if any group crosses the line and "attacks representatives of the powers that be," as Moscow claims the Batal-Haji order has, he continues, then the Russian authorities and its agents in teh republics can be counted on to "unleash a harsh campaign against [such organizations] for which there is no defense."

    What this shows, the expert speaking anonymously says, is that "the Russian authorities are systemically weakening the influential clans in the Caucasus in order not to allow the appearance of alternative centers of power and that even the most powerful of these will lose status if they violate the unwritten rules." 

    First and foremost among these unwritten rules, the expert concludes, is that "the siloviki maintain a monopoly on the use of force: anyone wo challenges the system will inevitably become its victim because such an attack will be equated by those in power as an attack on the state itself."

    In the final decades of the USSR, some scholars in the West argued that underground Sufi orders would play a key role in the overthrow of the Soviet system and the formation of post-Soviet regime, This new report on the fate of the Batal-Haji order unintentionally shows how right they were, how much regimes there now fear them, and how they are seeking to limit them as they can't eliminate them from the scene.