The crimes in Baku in 1918 and the resonance abroad

Abstract

The text concerns a case study of an act of extreme violence in Baku in March 1918. Bolshevik troops, together with the paramilitaries of the Armenian socialist and nationalist Dashnaktsutyun party attacked the Muslim districts of Baku. The victims are estimated between 3000 and 12000. The estimation of 3000 victims is given by the leader of the Bolsheviks – Stepan Shaumian and it concerned only the first two days of the battle and the area of the center of the city of Baku. The historical, ethnical and political contexts of the Baku massacre are analyzed in the text, together with the motivation of the Bolshevik leaders and personally of Stepan Shaumian for such a bloody approach against the Azerbaijan Muslims. A set of thirty documents, which cover the whole correspondence between Lenin and Shaumian for the period 7 (20) October 1917 – 2 July 1918 is attached. Most of them are not familiar to the public and are presented in Bulgarian for the first time. The conclusion is that the aim of the Bolsheviks and personally of Shaumian was to sabotage the announcement of the independence of the Transcaucasus and to keep the control of Soviet Russia on Baku and on the oil industry there. Following his aim, he created a tactical alliance with the Dashnaktsutyun party. This way he gained two profits – got a strong military support and contradicted the Armenian and Azerbaijan main national forces – the Dashnaktsutyun party and the Musavat party. The Dashnaktsutyun party played the role of the „useful idiots“, following Lenin’s specific way of expression.