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The South Caucasus after the February 1917 revolution and the beginning of diplomatic struggles for the region
By the time Azerbaijan declared its independence on May 28, 1918, the South Caucasus was already on the agenda of world politics. Toward the end of World War I, with increased demand by the warring countries for fuel, the competition for oil had made Baku a center of attraction for rival military blocs. The shifting tides on the Caucasus front and the political shocks of the Russian revolution of 1917 were felt in the South Caucasus as a whole and in Azerbaijan in particular. The military, political, and diplomatic ordeals taking place in the region made a lasting imprint on Azerbaijani leaders, who were drawn into political processes of vital importance for the fate of the country. Leading political figures of Azerbaijan gathered considerable diplomatic experience at the peace conferences in Trabzon and Batum at a time when the situation in the South Caucasus was volatile.
World War I brought Russia unforeseen disaster. Along with the overthrow of the tsarist monarchy in Russia, the revolution of February 1917 was a blow to the Russian empire, spawning national liberation movements in that “prison of nations.” The overthrow of the monarchy sped up the political processes taking place in the South Caucasus. One of the first steps of the Provisional Government that was formed after the revolution was the creation of a special institution to govern the South Caucasus. On March 9, the Special Transcaucasian Committee (OZAKOM) was created to govern the region. Its members were drawn from the State Duma, and it was chaired by the Russian Constitutional Democrat Vasily A. Kharlamov, a Cossack. The Committee consisted of the Social Federalist Kita Abashidze succeeded by Menshevik Akaki I. Chkhenkeli from Georgia, Azerbaijani Constitutional Democrat Mammad Yusif Jafarov (who later occupied the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs in the fourth cabinet of the government of the Azerbijan Republic), and Armenian Constitutional Democrat Mikayel M. Papajanov (Papajanian).
The Special Committee was directly subordinate to the Provisional Government. As this institution was created for the management of civil issues, it did not have legislative authority. Due to its limitations, the Committee was overwhelmed by events. The growing trend of the Transcaucasian nations toward autonomy and political freedom, inspired by the February revolution, along with the legalization of the activity of numerous national parties and organizations as well as increased interest on the part of the international community, seriously complicated matters for the government of the South Caucasus.
Azerbaijanis were expecting a lot from the February revolution, which had resulted in the overthrow of the monarchy. Intellectuals of the country, who had taken an active part in the national movement and its political activity since the turn of the century, welcomed the upheaval. The journal Molla Nasreddin depicted the revolution as good fortune for the Azerbaijani nation.1 According to Mammad Emin Rasulzade, “the revolution of 1917 would give freedom to condemned classes and independence to condemned nations.”2
As soon as news of the revolution reached Baku, different national groups, the council of oil producers, and other organizations joined to create an Executive Committee of Social Organizations to govern the city, chaired by right-wing Menshevik L. L. Bych. Mammad Hasan Hajinski and Mammad Emin Rasulzade represented the Azerbaijani population. Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks, now legal after the February revolution, were becoming increasingly active, but only nine of fifty-two members of the newly formed Baku Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, elected on the March 6 by some 52,000 workers and employees, were members of the Bolshevik party.3 Although the first meeting of the Soviet was chaired by Menshevik G. Ayolla, on March 8, Bolshevik Stepan Shaumian, returning from exile, was elected chairman. Soon thereafter, he had to hand over his post to the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Sako Saakian.4
On March 27, representatives of Muslim organizations and societies in various localities met in Baku to form the Muslim National Council with a temporary executive committee chaired by lawyer Mammad Hasan Hajinski, who later became the first Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Azerbaijan Republic. The Musavat (Equality) party, founded in Baku in 1911 by Mammad Emin Rasulzade, had the greatest weight in the Council, and it soon emerged as the all-Azerbaijani party. In the election to the Baku Soviet held in October 1917, the Musavat party collected nearly 40 percent of all the votes cast: 9,617 votes of some 25,000. Despite the fact that the elections were held at a time considered to be favorable for them, the Bolsheviks gathered only 3,823 votes, while the Socialist-Revolutionaries received 6,305, Mensheviks 687, and Dashnaks (Armenian Revolutionary Federation) 528.5 The October elections demonstrated which party was the strongest. This success was due to the fact that the Muslim masses were being attracted to political processes and to the demands of national organizations to grant Muslims full political rights.
The idea of national and territorial independence was discussed for the first time at the Congress of Caucasian Muslims held in Baku on April 15–20, 1917. The Musavat party and the Turkic Federalist party founded in Ganja (then called Elizavetpol) under the leadership of Nasib Bey Usubbeyov (Yusifbeyli) and Hasan Bey Aghayev after the February revolution emerged as the dominant political organizations. After long debates, the congress passed the following resolution on the national issue: “The federal democratic republic is to be recognized as the best structure for securing the interests of Muslim nations within the Russian state system.”6
The Baku congress stipulated the protection of national schools by the state, the opening of a university in the mother tongue of Azerbaijani citizens, the enlargement of the Special Transcaucasian Committee to include Muslims, a census of the Muslim population, and the marshaling of the military potential of the Muslim population in view of the imminent danger.7 An argument between Turks who were in favor of territorial autonomy and Islamists and Socialists who were in favor of national cultural autonomy lasted for 10 days after the conclusion of the congress and continued at the All-Russian Congress of Muslims held in Moscow on May 1, 1917. At the Moscow congress, Socialists justified their objection to territorial autonomy by stating that it would undo the achievements of the revolution and that within a framework of national cultural autonomy, the Russian central government would act as the guarantor of the protection of the rights of Muslims.
On May 3, Mammad Emin Rasulzade, in his main address to the congress, explained the importance of demanding territorial autonomy and backed his words with strong arguments. To those who stressed the Islamic factor as the crucial one, he noted that many Turkic nations had already realized that “first of all, they are Turks, and then they are Muslims.” Rasulzade stated that the question must be put in the following way:
What is a nation? I am sure that such characteristics as unity of language, historical relations, and traditions create a nation. Sometimes, when Turkic Tatars are asked about their nationality, they say they are Muslims. However, this is an incorrect viewpoint. Christians do not exist in one nation; neither do Muslims. There must be a place for Turks, Persians, and Arabs in the large house of the Muslim faith.8
Rasulzade, who has been labeled a pan-Turkist in both Soviet and foreign literature, noted in his speech to the congress that the Turkic nations differed greatly from one another. Despite the strong opposition of the proponents of cultural-national autonomy, the idea of territorial autonomy, proposed by Rasulzade, was accepted with 446 votes in favor versus 271 against.9 After the victory of the idea of territorial autonomy at the Moscow Congress of Russian Muslims, the party of Turkic Federalists and the Musavat party decided to merge due to the similarity of their aims and purposes. After preparations in May–June, at the first congress held in Baku on June 20, the merger was completed, and a joint central committee was created.
The central committee of the Turkic Federalist Musavat party included Mammad Emin Rasulzade, Mammad Hasan Hajinski, Rahim Bey Vakilov, Khudadat Bey Rafibeyov (Rafibeyli), Nasib Usubbeyov, Jafar Bey Rustambeyov, Hasan Bey Aghayev, and Mirza Fatali Akhundov. Hence, the enlarged Musavat party became a strong power not only in Baku but in the whole of Azerbaijan. After the first congress, the Turkic Federalist Musavat party quickly dispatched a delegation to Tashkent. The members participated in meetings held in numerous cities of Turkistan and played an important role in the process of the formation of the Federalist party there.10
Intellectuals of Azerbaijan who did not join any political party nevertheless considered it important to preserve and protect the achievements of the February revolution. During the revolt led by General Lavr Kornilov against the Provisional Government, leaflets were distributed bearing the signature of Ali Mardan Bey Topchubashov and expressing the solidarity of the Muslims of the South Caucasus with the Russian revolution. Topchubashov was elected chairman of the Muslim National Council in Baku, and Fatali Khan Khoyski, who was also a member, was sent on an official trip to Petrograd to participate in a discussion concerning elections to the Constituent Assembly.
When the revolution of October 1917 occurred, it raised the hopes of the nations that had been subjects of the Russian empire. These hopes for independence were for the most part nourished by the declarations made by the Bolsheviks in the early days of their coming to power. A peace decree and a Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia were to provide a guarantee that the nations of the former empire would be free to secede and create independent republics. However, quite soon it became clear that these documents were merely propaganda. As Walter Kolarz noted in Russia and Her Colonies, the October revolution, instead of putting an end to Russian colonialism, revived it.11
While the October events were under way in Petrograd, the Musavat party convened its first congress, which lasted for 5 days. The congress defined the tactical and strategic direction of the national territorial autonomy of Azerbaijan in view of the existing conditions.12 Mammad Emin Rasulzade was elected as the chairman of the central committee of the party.
On November 11, a meeting of political organizations of the South Caucasus was held in Tiflis (today’s Tbilisi). The leader of the Georgian Mensheviks, Noe Jordania, gave a long speech in which he said that, for the last 100 years, the South Caucasus had lived shoulder-to-shoulder with Russia and considered itself “an integral part of the Russian state.” Now a catastrophe had occurred. The connection with Russia was lost, and the South Caucasus was on its own. “We need to get up on our feet, either to save ourselves or be destroyed in the whirlpool of anarchy.” Jordania proposed the creation of an independent local government to save the South Caucasus from disaster. It was decided that, until the governance issue was resolved by the Constituent Assembly, a South Caucasian Commissariat would be created to govern the region.
On November 15, the structure of the newly formed government was announced. It was chaired by Georgian Menshevik Evgeni P. Gegechkori, and all three South Caucasian nations were represented in the Commissariat. The Ministry of Internal Affairs was headed by Akaki I. Chkhenkeli; the Military Ministry by D. Donskoy; the Ministry of Education by Fatali Khan Khoyski; the Ministry of Justice by S. Alekseyev-Meskheyev; the Ministry of Trade and Industry by Mammad Yusif Jafarov; the Ministry of Roads by Khudadat Bey Malik-Aslanov; the Ministry for the Control of Law by Khalil Bey Khasmammadov; the Ministry of Agriculture, State Property, and Religious Affairs by Anatoly Neruchev; the Ministry of Finance by Kristefore Karchikian; the Ministry of Public Health and Protection by Hamazasp Ohanjanian; and the Food Ministry by A. Ter-Gazarov. The ministries of Labor and Foreign Affairs of the newly formed government were under the authority of Gegechkori himself.13 Compared with the interim committee, the Commissariat was another step toward independence. However, local executive bodies of the new government were too weak to stabilize the situation, as the various parties created their own national factions of the three South Caucasian nations and regions represented in the Commissariat.
In November, the Azerbaijani national faction was created under leadership of Mammad Emin Rasulzade. Resolutions to be passed by the Commissariat were first discussed in the meetings of the various factions, and then the final decisions were taken. Until the Constituent Assembly was formed, the government, which announced itself as b...
