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INDEPENDENT AZERBAIJAN Firuz KAZEMZADEH Chapter
XV from the book “STRUGGLE FOR TRANSCAUCASIA” / Oxford, 1951
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The defeat of the Ottoman Empire had
placed Azerbaijan into a difficult position. It had been compromised in the
eyes of the victors because of its close association and alliance with the
enemy. A complete change of orientation was
needed if she were to survive, Azerbaijan had been the main force responsible
for the disruption of the Transcaucasian Federation. In the spring of 1918
the Musavat, hampered by the necessity of coordinating its policies with
Georgia and Armenia, decided to separate from its two neighbours. In 1919 it
realized that by itself Azerbaijan would not be able to weather the storm
which was gathering on the horizon. Reflecting this change in the
thinking of the leaders of the Party, Second Congress of the Musavat, after a
report of the Party's political section, decided that only a united front of the
Transcaucasian peoples could guarantee the integrity of the three republics.
It resolved to call upon the governments of Georgia and Armenia to form union
of Transcaucasian peoples[1].
Rasul-Zadeh has written: “Not only
the representatives of the dominant party, the Musavat, but practically all
trends of the Azerbaijani political opinion, as well as its outstanding
political personalities, from the very time when the Republic of Azerbaijan
was formed, had stood for the unity of all Caucasian peoples in one
confederate state”[2].
Though such feelings had undoubtedly
existed, they had been outweighed by the petty hatreds and quarrels between
the Transcaucasian sister nations. The Azerbaijani Government had not been
able to settle its disputes with Armenia, the two countries remaining in a
state of continuous and unrelenting struggle.
Mammad Emin
Rasul-Zadeh The Government As a result of independence the
internal life of Azerbaijan underwent many changes. A government system was
developed in which the Parliament, elected on the basis of universal, free,
secret, and proportionate representation, was the supreme organ of state
authority. Needless to say, the Parliament was dominated by the Musavat,
though this party never achieved such complete control of the government as
the Dashnaks in Armenia. Besides the Muslim Musavatist
majority, the Parliament included several representatives of national
minorities. The Armenians, for instance, held twenty-one out of the one
hundred and twenty seats. The office of the President of the Parliament was
the highest office of the Republic. It was he who appointed the prime
ministers, who then formed their cabinets subject to the approval of
Parliament[3]. In spite of its democratic
constitution forms, Azerbaijan was ruled not so much by its Parliament as by
a combination of forces, including the Musavat, the fabulously rich owners of
the Baku oil fields, and feudal landowners of western Azerbaijan. This unofficial
coalition, which reminds one of the swan, the crayfish and the pike of Krylov
was just as incapable of cooperating as the animals in the fable. The Azerbaijani Parliament
introduced several reforms, none of them very significant. Probably the most
spectacular was the extention of suffrage to women, making Azerbaijan the
first Muslim state in the world to give women equal political rights with men[4]. Another important accomplishment was the
opening of a state university in Baku. There had been a few separate colleges
in that city before a revolution, now they were united into a university,
which immediately became the leading intellectual centre of the country. The Land Reform However, the Azerbaijani Government
failed when it came to the most
important and urgent of all problems, the land reform. When the
Transcaucasian Seim passed the laws nationalizing large estates and limiting
the amount of land a person could own, its Azerbaijani members voted for the
reform. At that time, however, Baku was in the hands of the Bolsheviks, while
the Turks were attacking from the south. When an Azerbaijani Government was
formed in May, 1918, it was compelled to move from Tiflis to Ganja, where it
fell under the influence of the local nobility, the Khans and the Beks, the
only group able to provide the Musavat with armed forces. While in Ganja, the Azerbaijani
Government decreed that the execution of the land reform adopted by the Seim
be postponed until the future convocation of an Azerbaijani Constituent
Assembly. Meanwhile the estates which had already been seized by the
land-hungry peasants were ordered to be returned to their original owners[5].
Six months or so later, however, the
Musavat, disregarding the Interests of the landowners, published a declaration
calling for the enactment of agrarian laws almost identical with those which
the Social-Democratic Government of Georgia had already put into operation.
All lands belonging to the State and to private persons should be distributed
to the landless peasants, proclaimed the Musavat. They went even further than
the Georgian Mensheviks, for they proposed not to demand any payments from
the peasants for the lands they would receive. A limit would be set on the
amount of land a man might own. Those who had put capital and work into their
lands would receive compensation from a special State fund, created by taxing
the Income of the capitalists[6].
The proposals of the Musavat were very favourable to the peasants. They did
not touch the interests of the intelligentsia and the petty bourgeoisie, the
classes which the Musavat served and from which it recruited its members. But
the politically powerful landlords of western Azerbaijan stood to lose
everything if such a law were passed, while the Baku capitalists would have
been forced to finance the ruin of the Azerbaijani feudal class. In October, 1919, the land question
finally reached the Parliament, where the Musavatist left-wingers moved to
set limits to private land holding and to nationalize all forests. In a
country which had recently gone through a revolution, whose capital had been
for several months held by the Bolsheviks, and whose closest neighbour,
Georgia, had already passed laws favourable to the peasantry, few dared
openly to speak against this motion. Yet the big landlords were not prepared
to give up their ancestral estates. They had had many supporters in the ranks
of the Musavat itself, ever since June, 1917, when the latter merged with the
Federalist Party of Ganja, a thoroughly conservative organization dedicated
to the interests of the feudal class. The debate on the land issue in the
Parliament took less than half an hour. It was shelved until the convocation
of an Azerbaijani constituent assembly When this assembly would convene, no
one had any idea[7].
Agrarian Unrest Even the baffled and oppressed
Azerbaijani peasantry could not submit indefinitely to misery and
exploitation. The news that in Russia and in Georgia the governments had
given land to the peasants produced a deep impression on the rural masses of
Azerbaijan. All through the short period of its independent existence this
State was beset with agrarian troubles, which at times reached the
proportions of serious peasant uprisings. In the summer of 1919 there
appeared around Ganja a guerrilla band led by one Qatir Muhammad. He burned
the homes of the nobles, plundered their possessions, and killed anyone who
resisted. The Governor of Ganja, having failed to destroy the band with his
own resources, had to appeal to Baku for additional aid. The government
troops staged a full scale campaign against the bold peasant leader who,
after many battles against superior forces, was finally tracked down and shot[8].
Economic Conditions Economic difficulties united with
peasant dissatisfaction to harass the Government of Azerbaijan. Its economy
depended heavily upon the export of oil, the main customer of which had been
Russia, but the Russian civil war had closed that market. Exports of oil
rapidly decreased, resulting in a catastrophic fall of prices. The industry
began to cut the workers' wages, producing the inevitable strikes and
increasing the Bolshevik tendencies of the proletariat. In an attempt to
rescue the oil industry from ruin, the Government tried to attract foreign
capital to Baku and to sell oil to the countries willing to pay for it in
hard cash. In June, 1919, the Government negotiated with a I representative
of the Standard Oil, Mr. G. Thomas, reaching an I agreement according to
which the Standard Oil would buy one hundred thousand tons of petroleum at
thirty-three dollars a ton in 1919-1920. This would be followed by another
purchase of an equal amount at the same price. The Soviet historian Raevskii
has written that the British oil interests, represented by the Shell Company,
were opposed to the American penetration of the Azerbaijani economy and
pressed the Government of Azerbaijan to break the agreement. Whatever the
reason may have been, it was cancelled, Azerbaijan losing thereby at least
three million three hundred thousand dollars, and possibly twice that much[9]. The finances of the Azerbaijani
Government underwent a series of crises in the years 1918-1919. Deprived of
Russian fiscal support, spending large sums on the maintenance of the
bureaucracy and the army, lacking stable sources of income, the Republic was
bankrupt. If the financial crises did not bring about a complete collapse of
the country's economy, it was due only to the Baku oil, which even when it
did not bring money, assured Azerbaijan good credit abroad. During their occupation of Baku the
British drew heavily upon the resources of the Baku State Bank, formerly a
branch of the Russian State Bank. They used the railways, imported and exported
goods engaging in a number of economic activities without which an army would
be immobilized and starving. On 20th March, 1919, the official newspaper
"Azerbaijan" wrote that the British Command owed the Azerbaijani
Government almost two hundred and thirteen million roubles[10].
When the Government tried to collect, it was told by Oliver Wardrop, British
Commissioner in the Caucasus, on behalf of Lord Curzon, that the British
Government acknowledged its debt in so far. All the money it had borrowed had
gone for military expenditures; however, it refused to consider itself
indebted for the sums which had 'been spent for relief of the local
population. When the Azerbaijani government asked the British to return to
the Baku State Bank certain valuables which belonged to it but had been
transferred to the British by Bicherakhov, Wardrop stated that the valuables
would be returned on condition that Azerbaijan assume responsibility for a
part of pre-war Russian debts, which the Russian Soviet Government had repudiated[11]. Azerbaijan never received its money back, a
circumstance which aggravated even more the already desperate condition of
its treasury. Azerbaijan's relations with its
neighbours remained on the whole unsatisfactory. It was able to establish fairly
good relations with Georgia and Iran, but Armenia continued to be an enemy
from the day independence was proclaimed to the day the Red Army entered
Baku. Soon after the dissolution of the Republic of Transcaucasia a conflict
flared up between Georgia and Azerbaijan over the Zakatala district, but was
quickly settled. The issue of the Muslims in south-western Transcaucasia,
which came to a head after the defeat of Turkey, was also peacefully solved. Azerbaijan and
Armenia Azerbaijan's relations with Armenia
have been partially dealt with in a previous chapter of the present study.
However, a few more words are in order to complete the picture. After the
great September massacres, 1918, the Armenian charge d'affaires in Tiflis,
Jamalian, sent a note of protest to the Azerbaijani representative in
Georgia, Jaafarov, accusing the latter's Government of having murdered
twenty-five thirty thousand Armenians in Baku, and demanding severe
punishment for the guilty[12].
The number of people killed was grossly exaggerated Even according to the
official figures of a special Armenian investigating commission the death
toll did not exceed nine thousand[13]. Jaafarov replied that the
Azerbaijani Government had always desired to live in peace with its
neighbours. He explained the massacres of September as a spontaneous revenge
for the killing of some ten thousand Azerbaijanis by the Armenians in March,
1918. He rejected the Armenian imputation that the Government of Azerbaijan
had not' punished those responsible for the September massacres. One hundred
men had been found guilty of killings and hanged. In conclusion he pointed
out that the attitude of the Armenians, as expressed in the language of
Jamalian's note, was calculated to arouse public opinion against Azerbaijan,
contributing nothing to the betterment of relations between the two countries[14]. The conflict which had smouldered
for two years broke out in flames in 1920, when a real war began in Karabagh[15].
At a conference which met in Tiflis for the purpose of reconciling the
enemies the Azerbaijani delegation declared that it was not competent to sign
an agreement suspending military operations. Thus all attempts to
re-establish peace failed[16].
The war with Armenia further weakened |)ic already impotent Azerbaijani army,
whose Commander, General Mehmandarov, told Parliament, when Russia began to
threaten from the north, that the fifty thousand men he had under his command
could not withstand an attack of a single Russian regiment[17].
Generals Samad Bey Mehmandarov (left) and Anton
Denikin (right) The Italian Mandate In 1919 one more European nation
entered the Transcaucasian scene, though only for a moment. The British had
offered the Italians, dissatisfied with the small gains they had made after the
end of the war, a mandate on Transcaucasia. The Italians showed great
interest in the possibility of exploiting that fabulously rich land. On 10th
May, 1919, the Government of Azerbaijan received the following communication
from General Thomson: "I have to inform you that the British troops Will
be superseded by Italian troops. A mission of Italian officers has already
arrived in Georgia to make the necessary preparations. I beg you to extend to
them every kind of help and assistance."[18] The attache of the Italian Embassy
in Paris, Count Sadino, said in an after-dinner speech that Italy pursued in
the Caucasus exclusively economic interests. She would receive from the
League of Nations a mandate on the Caucasus, but she would exercise it only
with the consent of the local population. She would not stay in Transcaucasia
for more than three, or at most, five years. Meanwhile the Caucasian
republics would organize a confederation, strengthen themselves and decide
their own fate. Should there come into existence a Russian Federative
Republic, the Caucasian states might want to join it. Sadino made it clear
that under no circumstances would Italy fight against Denikin, who was making
threatening gestures towards Azerbaijan, nor would she fight against anyone else.
The Caucasus could have its own troops, Italy providing material and
technical assistance[19]. The speech made the Italian position
crystal clear. Italy hoped to derive economic advantages from Transcaucasia,
but was not prepared to be involved in the Russian civil war. All she was
looking for was quick and easy profit. That is why her attention had been
attracted to the liquid gold of Baku. On 16th May, 1919, the Prince of
Savoy arrived in Baku. He was followed on the 22nd by an Italian military
mission headed by Colonel Melchiore Gabba[20].
Gabba asked many questions about the country. He wanted to know how many
troops Italy would have to maintain there to insure peace and security. Both
the Prince and the Colonel appeared very sympathetic, the latter promising to
do all he could to assist Azerbaijan. But soon therafter a Cabinet change
occurred in Rome, and the new Prime Minister, Francesco Nitti, saw nothing
but a mad adventure in an Italian mandate over the Caucasus. Thus the plan
was thrown into the capacious waste basket of history[21].
Prince
Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy – Aosta (left) and , Francesco Saverio Nitti
(right) In the latter part of August, 1919,
the British troops left Azerbaijan which thenceforward was to exist as an
entirely independent state. Only a few British officers stayed behind as
instructors and advisers in the Azerbaijani army. The Government was alarmed,
for the Volunteer Army of General Denikin was then at its peak. Its officers,
nationalistic Russians one and all, glared ominously across the border from
Daghestan, which they had occupied, destroying the Republic of Mountaineers,
and drowning in blood the resistance of the freedom-loving descendants of
Shamil. Azerbaijan was in need of a protector. With England gone, France
showing no interest in its fate, Italy reluctant to appear upon the scene,
and no hope for assistance from the United States, Azerbaijan turned to
Persia. Azerbaijan and
Persia On 16th July, 1919, the Council of
Ministers appointed Adil Khan Ziatkhan, who had up to that time served as
Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs, diplomatic representative of
Azerbaijan to the court of the Persian King of Kings. The Tsarist Russian
Ambassador in Tehran, Etter, now serving Denikin, did everything he could to
prevent the arrival of the Azerbaijani envoy. There had been a time when the
word of the Ambassador of the Tsar was law in Tehran, but those days were
gone. In 1919 no one payed much attention to the advice and the protests of
an Ambassador representing a non-existent government[22]. A Persian delegation headed by Seyed
Zia'ed'Din Tabatabai came to Baku, to negotiate transit, tariff, mail,
customs, and other such agreements. Speeches were made in which the common
bonds between Caucasian Azerbaijan and Iran were stressed. There was much
enthusiasm but little accomplishment[23]. In October and November, 1919, more
important talks took place In Paris between Ali Gholi Khan Moshaver'
ol'Mamalek Ansari, head of the ill fated Persian delegation to the Peace Conference,
and Ali Mardan Bek Topchibashev, chief Azerbaijani delegate. Firuz Mirza Nosrat'ed'Dowleh,
Persian Foreign Minister, gave insurance that his country had no designs on
Caucasian Azerbaijan, but added that both nations would benefit if they were
reunited. On 1st November the Azerbaijani delegation in Paris presented to
the Persians the project of a treaty which read in part: “The Azerbaijani Democratic Republic
establishes with the neighbouring Persian State politico-economic ties the
bases and forms of which, as well as the means of the existence of such ties
[sic], are to be worked out and defined by mutual agreement of the Persian
and the Azerbaijani Governments, with the approval of the Parliaments of both
States. Moreover, the desirability of uniting the activities of the Persian
and the Azerbaijani Governments in the sphere of external affairs is
recognized”[24].
Such a treaty could have become a
reality only if Russia were permanently crippled. But the Azerbaijani
Government knew that Persia torn by civil strife, impoverished by foreign
imperialism, corrupted h her own semi-feudal government, and disgraced by her
ruling dynasty, could not have possibly become the guarantor of Azerbaijan's
security, even had Azerbaijan united with her. It was necessary to receive
guarantees from England, for she alone had enough interest in the Near East
and enough resources to provide effective help. Taking this into
consideration, Article 6 of the proposed treaty stated that the Azerbaijani
Republic needed British help in the same form in which such help was being
given to Persia[25].
This referred to the treaty of 2nd August, 1919, by which Great Britain had
established a virtual protectorate over the land of the Lion and the Sun. To
find safety from Russia, Azerbaijan was willing to accept conditions against
which the Persians had rebelled, for they had defied Britain, and refused to
ratify the treaty. The British declined to assume any obligations in
Azerbaijan, and the plans of its Government never materialized. The Baku Communists In 1919 a very important internal
development was the resumption of Bolshevik activities in Baku. After the
overthrow of the Soviet in the summer of 1918 the Russian Communist Party
could not operate freely in Baku, but the Hemmat was free to continue its
work. The Hemmat was probably the oldest Azerbaijani party. In its early days
it had been predominantly Bolshevik, but later its Menshevik wing increased
in strength and importance. Yet the Bolsheviks had found it possible during
all this time to work through the Hemmat. The Baku workers, who had turned
away from the Communists in 1918 were dominated partly by the S.R.'s, and
partly by the Musavat, which succeeded in obtaining a majority at a Workers'
Conference which met in December, 1918. The enemies of the Musavat say that
the agents of that party stood in the doors of the conference hall, offering
five roubles to anyone who would vote for the Musavat. Through bribes, or
otherwise, the Musavat received a majority[26]. The economic crisis which struck
Baku in 1919 made the position of its proletariat very difficult. Low wages
and high prices combined to make the lot of the Baku workers hard. When in
December, 1918, the workers made demands for higher wages and shorter hours,
their leaders, Velunts and Saakian, both anti-Bolshevik, were arrested
together with several others. Strikes forced the British to release their
prisoners, yet the agitation caused by the incident did not subside[27].
Anastas
Mikoyan (left), Joseph Stalin (centre) and Sergo Orjonikidze (right0 The Bolsheviks were quick to exploit
the situation. In February, 1919, Anastas Mikoian, who had been in jail, was
set free and became the leader of the Baku Bolsheviks[28].
One of the main things that had to be achieved was the split of the Hemmat,
whose Menshevik wing dominated the Party. This was accomplished in March. The
Menshevik-minded Hemmatists joined the Social-Democrats, while the Bolsheviks
from the same organization decided to form a Communist Party of Azerbaijan.
At a plenary session of the Caucasian Regional Committee of the Russian
Communist Party a sharp conflict developed between the Tiflis and the Baku
Bolsheviks over the question of whether there should be formed a separate
Azerbaijani Communist Party. The Baku Bolsheviks were accused of nationalist
deviations and separatism. They were told that their policy sanctioned that
against which the Georgian Communists were fighting. To this the Baku
Bolsheviks replied that the Azerbaijani masses would by no means follow a
Russian party, no matter what it stood for; it was necessary to have a native
organization separate at least in name, which would be able to win the
confidence of the masses. Disregarding the protests of the Regional
Committee, in violation of party discipline, the Azerbaijanis, Karaev,
Sultanov, Akhundov, Huseinov, and others, went ahead and organized a separate
Communist Party of Azerbaijan. Huseinov was elected Chairman of its Central
Committee[29]. The newly formed Communist Party of
Azerbaijan did not enjoy legality and was not able to become a mass movement,
in spite of the change in name. The nationalistic appeal of the Musavat was
so strong that its supremacy could not be challenged from within Azerbaijan.
It took an external force to overthrow it and to establish the Communists as
the ruling party. Though weak in itself, the Communist
Party of Azerbaijan was strong by virtue of Russian support. In September,
1919, a delegation of Turkish nationalists arrived in Baku, to enlist the
support of the Azerbaijani Government. Fearing the French and the British,
the Cabinet of Usubbekov refused to help. However, the Communist Party of
Azerbaijan and the Baku Bureau of the Russian Communist Party (the two were
one and the same thing for all practical purposes) immediately offered the
Turks their assistance. "From that time on the Communist Party of
Azerbaijan became one of the main props of the revolutionary struggle for the
national liberation of Turkey. The Communist Party of Azerbaijan played the
role of a bridge between the proletarian revolutionary Moscow and the
revolutionary movement in Turkey."[30]
Thus in spite of its numerical weakness and the lack of popularity, the
Azerbaijani Communist Party was an important factor in the history of
Transcaucasia in the fateful years 1919-1920.
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