DEATH BRIGADES

The spring of 1918 is one of the most tragic pages in the history of our people. Dashnak-Bolshevik military brigades of the Baku Council led by Stepan Shaumian carried out the genocide of Azerbaijanis not only in Baku but also in Shamakhi, Guba, and other districts.

Unprecedented atrocities

Dashnak militants under the command of Tatevos Amirian (Amirov) demonstrated peculiar ferocity during the massacres of the peaceful Azerbaijani population of Baku and Shamakhi. Amirian’s thugs, including his brothers Alexander, Armenak, and Arsen, were killing Azerbaijanis regardless of their sex and age...

Another criminal was Stepan Lalayan (Lalayev). Detachments of Amirian and Lalayan burned all the mosques of Shamakhi, including the famous Juma Mosque, an outstanding architectural monument of the eighth century. Moreover, the Juma Mosque was burned along with the children, women, and the elderly people hiding therein...

The following is an excerpt from the newspaper Azerbaijan published on October 8, 1918: “Once the notorious gang leader and kidnapper T. Amirov had slaughtered almost six thousand defenceless and poor Muslim residents of Baku as the commander of the “socialist” army and … the bastard Stepan Lalayev, the commander of Dashnak gangs (also “socialist”) had cleared several quarters of the representatives of Muslim intelligentsia by dragging them out of their houses and shooting them in the street, Shaumian and his fellow “leaders of democracy” must have praised the experience of their commanders. Thus, Amirov and Lalayev were appointed to Shamakhi along with a select Dashnak detachment to fight “counter-revolutionaries” over there... This “red socialist” brigade led by “socialists” Amirov and Lalayev has slaughtered the Muslim population of Shamakhi and destroyed up to 40 villages. There had been nothing more horrendous over the entire period of this war than the atrocities committed by Lalayev over the Muslim population of Shamakhi. The crime was so terrible that it could not remain a secret, like all the other acts of Dashnak gangs. People began talking about it. Even the Bolshevik reports from Shamakhi could not help but write about Lalayev’s crime: “...some injustice was committed against the civilian population.” The Dashnaks would call the massacre of the Muslim population, ripping of pregnant women, monstrous abuse of girls and burning them alive in a mosque, etc. just as “some injustice”. Nevertheless, the government of Shaumian could not hide the criminal acts committed in Shamakhi...”

Indeed, the crimes committed by Lalayan were widely publicized, so the Baku Council could not help but create an emergency military commission to investigate the acts of violence against the Muslims of Shamakhi and other districts. The commission led by the Bolshevik Kozhemyako concluded that Lalayan was guilty as the organizer of massacres and the burning of the city. However, according to the newspaper Azerbaijan, “when Kozhemyako summoned S. Lalayev to the commission and wanted to arrest him, Lalayev told him to get lost and made a phone call to Shaumian, who said to Kozhemyako the following: “It is awkward to arrest Lalayev. Enough with the jokes!” This is how the “ideological leader of democracy” stood up for the criminal Lalayev, who, as if nothing had happened, just walked along the Velikoknyazhesky Ave. accompanied by his 167 bodyguards made up of Dashnaks. But what about the court? Four days later, the newspapers wrote about the abolishment of the … investigation commission...”

Eyewitnesses of those tragic events have later described the criminal acts of the Dashnak leader Stepan Lalayan in their memoirs. In particular, the Bolshevik Bocharov notes that Lalayan's brigade with a broad mandate given to it by the Baku Council completely destroyed Shamakhi and its population overnight...

“I will cut out the entire Muslim generation from the Caspian Sea to the Shahdagh Mountains”

One of the most terrible tragedies during the genocide of Azerbaijanis in spring 1918 took place in Guba.

In mid-April, the Baku Soviet launched a military operation to establish its authority in the district of Guba. The detachment dispatched to Guba was under the command of David Gelovani. However, the peasants of nearby villages mainly inhabited by Lezghis refused to obey the Bolshevik commander. Then a new “Soviet” detachment made up entirely of Armenians was sent to Guba under the command of Aghajanian. It was also defeated in a clash with local population. After that, Shaumian sent a detachment of Armenians led by an ardent Dashnak and one of the leaders of the Armenian National Council, Amazasp Srvantzian.

This Dashnak killer with a “rich experience” of killing peaceful Azerbaijanis in Karabakh and Baku, organised a terrible slaughter of civilians in Guba. Amazasp would openly declare: “I am an Armenian hero... I will cut out the entire Muslim generation from the Caspian Sea to the Shahdagh Mountains.”

As follows from the testimony of Gelovani to the investigation commission established by the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR), Srvantzian’s detachment was dispatched to Guba to commit punitive acts as personally instructed by Stepan Shahumian.

The following is the description of events by the Bolshevik Ilyantsev, who served in the Red Guard detachment of the Jewish settlement of the Guba District: “After a few days, we heard about the arrival of Amazasp's brigade of 1500 men. They burned the villages along their way. Disguised as Bolsheviks, Amazasp and his brigade committed national slaughter burning the villages and cities, plundering the civilians...”

Another witness, a member of the Red Guard detachment Mir Musa recalled: “Dashnak Amazasp executed the Turkic population. We witnessed the acts of mass terror, robbery, and murder.”

Information about the atrocities of Amazasp's brigade can also be found in the memoirs of the only Azerbaijani participant of the Dashnak march in Guba, Mir Jafar Bagirov, who has later headed Azerbaijan SSR for many years. In his autobiography written in early 1923 when he was the Chairman of the State Political Administration of Azerbaijan SSR, Baghirov described in detail the situation in Guba before and during the tragic events of 1918: “To my great regret and against my will, I was a witness of the nightmare in Guba. Not only could I provide any significant help to the innocent part of the population against the brutal actions of the Dashnaks, but I could not even save my own relatives. My uncle, an old man of 70, Mir Talib, his son Mir Hashim, son-in-law Haji Eybat and several other relatives were brutally killed.”

Much later, when Bagirov was demoted from his position as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party and prosecuted, he had to recall those events responding to questions of the USSR Prosecutor General R. Rudenko on April 9, 1954 in the Butirskaya prison about his involvement in Amazasp’s punitive expedition to Guba. Baghirov noted that he was attached to that brigade under the order of the emergency commissioner of the Baku Soviet of People's Commissars in Daghestan, V. Naneishvili, who had instructed him “to control that there were fewer Dashnak atrocities.” But Baghirov confessed that Dashnaks had slaughtered a lot of innocent people in just a week.

According to available documents, 122 villages were destroyed and thousands of Turk and Lezghi residents were killed in the Guba District. Amazasp's “merits” were highly appreciated by Shaumian. After the tragic events in Guba, he was appointed a commander of military brigade created by the Baku Soviet and made up of Dashnak fighters.

The Baku Council has also maintained close contacts with the leaders of Armenian gangs who committed violence in eastern Anatolia and western Azerbaijan. Thus, Shaumian probably accomplished the task assigned to him in accordance with the decree of the Bolshevik government of Russia on January 11, 1918, to provide “all kinds of assistance” in settling the issue of establishing an Armenian state in eastern Anatolia. The head of the Baku Council has highly appreciated the merits of Andranik Ozanian, whose military detachments exterminated Azerbaijanis in Nakhchivan, Sharur, and Zangezur. In a telegram sent to Andranik, Shaumian hails him as a “true national hero.”

Next target: Ganja

The punitive operations of the Baku Council against the Azerbaijani people finally consolidated the Dashnak-Bolshevik regime in Baku and the Baku Province. Unification of the so-called Red Army forces with the Dashnak military teams has played an instrumental role in this consolidation. At the meeting of the Chairman of the Baku Council, Shaumian, and the head of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Bolshevik Caucasian Army, Korganov, with the leaders of the Armenian National Council and the Dashnaktsutyun Party, an agreement was reached on dissolving the council, disbanding Armenian national military units, and merging them with “international Soviet troops.”

On April 25, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars of the Baku Council was formed, where Armenians occupied the leading positions. Shaumian became the Chairman of the Baku Council of People's Commissars and Commissioner for Foreign Affairs. The army of the Baku Council consisted of 20 battalions divided to three brigades led by Amazasp, Bek-Zurabian, and Harutyunian. Colonel Ghazarian became the Commander of Corps; Colonel Avetisian was the Chief of Staff. The Baku Council launched a large-scale offensive against Yelizavetpol (Ganja), the centre of Azerbaijani national movement.

Just before the creation of ADR, Shaumian has tried to obtain powerful military, political, and financial assistance from the leadership of the Soviet Russia. In his letter to the Council of People's Commissars of RSFSR dated May 24 (a few days before the proclamation of the independence of Azerbaijan), he complained that he had not received a response to his earlier appeals to the leader of the Soviet Russia, V. Lenin. In the same letter, he pays attention to the growing threat of external enemies, primarily the Ottoman Turkey, to the Soviet power in the Caucasus. Shaumian believed that the Ottoman troops were soon going to take control of the northern part of Persia, South Azerbaijan, an area that he reasonably described as “strongly Turkophile”.

Those days were decisive to the destiny of Transcaucasian statehood, the creation of which was strongly influenced by anti-Bolshevik regional forces, including the leading political organisations of Azerbaijan. Incidentally, Shaumian received information from Dashnaks about the progress of negotiations between the countries of the Quadruple Union and the government of the Transcaucasian Federation proclaimed on April 22. Dashnaks were active simultaneously on all “fronts” that could contribute to the creation of an Armenian state on Azerbaijani lands. Therefore, the Dashnak forces were grouped around not only Shaumian’s Baku Council, but also the Transcaucasian authorities functioning in Tiflis (Tbilisi). It is not surprising that Shaumian referred to Dashnaks when he warned Lenin in May 1918: “Dashnaks received a message from Tbilisi that Georgians are allegedly promised an autonomy under the protection of Wilhelm (the German Kaiser, R+) in Batumi. The rest of Transcaucasia should be an autonomous Azerbaijan.”

Complex political processes in the region inevitably led to its sovereignization, of which the establishment of an independent Azerbaijani state was a part. Azerbaijani political leaders who undertook truly titanic efforts to save their people were aware of this.

ISMAIL KHAN ZIYADKHANOV (1867-1920)

A prominent Azerbaijani state and political figure, Ismail Khan Abulfat Khan oghlu Ziyadkhanov, was a descendant of Ganja khans from the Ziyadoghlu clan and a great-grandson of the last ruler of Ganja Khanate, Javad Khan.

After graduating from the Law Department of the Moscow University, Ismail Khan has worked as a deputy prosecutor of the Tiflis District Court.

In 1905, Ziyadkhanov became one of the leaders of the Difai organisation established to counteract the Armenian terrorist organisations actively involved in massacres of Azerbaijanis. In 1907, he headed the Mudafia party, which conducted clandestine activities against Russian colonialism and promoted the unity and enlightenment of Muslims. In March 1907, at the congress of representatives of Muslim communities of the Caucasus and Crimea held in Yelizavetpol (Ganja), it was decided to create the Transcaucasian Union of Muslims headed by Ziyadkhanov.

Ismail Khan Ziyadkhanov has become more actively involved in politics after he was elected to the First State Duma (parliament, R+) in 1906. Being a member of the Muslim faction, he supported agrarian reforms, protested against the resettlement policy of tsarism, infringement of the interests of the Muslim population, and the excesses of the local administration. Ismail Khan was one of those deputies who signed the "Vyborg Appeal" in protest against the dissolution of the Duma, calling on the population of the empire to renounce taxes, recruitment and other forms of disobedience. The signatories of the appeal were prosecuted in December 1907. Ismail Khan Ziyadkhanov was accused of "inciting the population of Russia to disobedience" and spent three months in custody.

A new stage in the socio-political activities of Ziyadkhanov began after the February Revolution of 1917. In early March 1917, the Executive Committee of public organisations of Ganja appointed Ismail Khan the chief of the city police.

In spring 1918, Ismail Khan Ziyadkhanov directed Azerbaijani armed detachments that opposed the Dashnak military forces in Shamakhi and Goychay districts. Ziyadkhanov's brigades were dispatched to these districts from Ganja to prevent further extermination of Turkic-Muslim population. In the first battle with the Dashnaks, the cavalry regiment of Ziyadkhanov, which consisted of three hundred equestrians, defeated the enemy and saved Shamakhi from complete destruction. It is no coincidence that the head of the Baku Council S. Shaumian called I. Kh. Ziyadkhanov "the most dangerous person" in Azerbaijan.

After the establishment of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR), Ziyadkhanov demonstrated himself as one of the most consistent supporters of Azerbaijan’s independence. After some permutations in the second cabinet, he was appointed to the position of military commissioner. Later, he played an instrumental role in building up the diplomatic service of the young state of Azerbaijan. In spring 1919, I. Ziyadkhanov was sent to Iran as the head of the Extraordinary Diplomatic Mission of Azerbaijan for negotiations with the Shah government. As a result, the parties agreed to open a permanent representation of ADR in Tehran, as well as Azerbaijani consulates in a number of other cities of Iran. Furthermore, draft agreements on cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iran on trade, postal and telegraph services and other areas of mutual interest were prepared.

Soon after the occupation of ADR by Soviet Russia and the suppression of the May 1920 uprising in Ganja, Ismail Khan Ziyadkhanov was shot along with many other Azerbaijani patriots. But his name will remain forever in the memory of Azerbaijani people, which knows him as a dedicated fighter for the salvation and freedom of his compatriots.