„The black January“ in Baku – 1990, the Karabakh conflict and the dissolution of the USSR

Abstract

The paper concerns one of the most dramatic episodes in the dissolution of the USSR, which took place on the 20th of January 1990 – the so-called „Black January“ in Baku, Azerbaijan. The article analyses the precedents of crushing mass events and demonstrations in the USSR through the so-called „Perestroyka“ period – the „Zheltoxan“ December uprising in the Kazakh SSR and the crackdown on a mass opposition rally in Tbilisi in April 1989. The trampling of Stalin’s supporters in Tbilisi with tanks in March 1956 was analyzed as well. The connection between the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the total inability of the communist government in Baku to protect the Azerbaijan population in Nagorno-Karabakh and the rise of the Azerbaijan national movement is taken into account in the analysis. The confrontation between the communist governments of the Armenian SSR and the Azerbaijan SSR at highest level in the USSR is described and analyzed. The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the demolition of the barbed wire enclosures at the border between Iran and the Nahichevan ASSR of the Azerbaijan SSR in December 1989 are evaluated as the final catalysts, accelerators and detonators of the violence of the Soviet Army, which stormed Baku. The hypothesis that the escalation of ethnic tensions in the USSR through the „Perestroyka“ period is a result of the attempts of the secret services elites to rule the state through „chaos management“ is mentioned and analyzed. „Black January“ is a point of no return – it paved the way to the Azerbaijan independence.