What of the question of Appalachia!
The right of nations to self determination can be tricky if the dominate political group that advocates such right makes an assessment that ones group is not a nation.
Exactly what is a national minority? What is a minority? What is an autonomous region within a multinational state structure? Better yet, what where these political and economic units and categories to the Soviet State and their ruling party?
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Me:
The situation is particularly complicated in a state like the USSR and Russian Federation, neither of which were/are nation-states. (None of the ex-Soviet republics are nation-states, which maybe the exceptions of the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine.) Russia is probably the most multiethnic and multicultural country in the world, and ethnic minorites are not localized in particular areas.
Let's look at Tatarstan: Some Tatar ultranationalists want Tatarstan to secede from Russia and bacome Tatarstan for the Tatars. Well, for one thing, that would be a little hard to pull of in practical terms, since Tatarstan is physically inside Russia. For another, Tatars are only about 51% of the population of Tatarstan. What do you want, mass ethnic cleansing? In Bashkortostan, the Bashkirs are a minority (coming in third after Russians and Tatars), even though they are enormously overrepresented in the elite.
Anyway, in the case of Chechnya, national self-determination is not the issue. The issue is comparable to what you would if, to use your example, the Nation of Islam took control of Mississippi, and then started to attack neighboring states.
(PS. to a certain other person: I'm not reading your posts. You've lost. Face it.)