STALWART FIGHTER OR SHODDY CHARACTER

Sometimes one can find in the archives of secret services the documents, the origin of which is in no way related to their activities. This definitely makes the documents more interesting for study. I found one such case related to the 1912 trial of the Dashnaktsutyun party in St. Petersburg in the archives of the State Security Service of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The study of this case reveals why the state security bodies of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Azerbaijan SSR and even present-day Azerbaijan suddenly became so interested in the documents of the Russian imperial judiciary.

The title of the document sounds clerical and even laconic: Indictment. But that is the only thing that makes it similar to existing documents of preliminary investigation, because the criminal case is dealing not with one person but an entire anti-government organisation, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun operating against the Russian Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Remarkably, the trial of the Dashnaks involved about 800 people, including judges, prosecutors, lawyers and witnesses, while the indictment and judicial documents were collected in one large volume of 270 pages. To understand the scale of preliminary investigation, it is enough to note that the text of the indictment against 158 Dashnaks covered 1300-1500 pages written in modern computer fonts. This is not surprising, as the investigation had to describe both the main crimes of the Dashnaktsutyun party committed in more than five years starting from 1904, and to reveal the involvement of each of the accused individuals in counter-state and illegal activities.

By the way, the contents of the document completely refute many of the statements of the official Armenian propaganda about the participation of Garegin Nzhdeh (Ter-Harutyunyan) in the Armenian nationalist movement in the early twentieth century and about his allegedly active role in the counter-state activities of Dashnaks against the Russian Empire. Thus, Nzhdeh's official biographers claim that in November 1909 he was arrested together with 163 activists of the Dashnaktsutyun Party by tsarist authorities and was put in prison. He later served the sentence and was interrogated in four prisons in the cities of Julfa, Nakhchivan, Novocherkassk, and Petersburg. In March 1912, Nzhdeh was released and moved to Bulgaria.

The document reveals that the persecutions of tsarist authorities against Nzhdeh were not as severe as his apologists claim. In fact, Garegin Ter-Harutyunyan did not play a prominent role and did not enjoy significant authority among the Dashnaks, as they considered him a chance companion rather than an ideological supporter. The reason is simple: Nzhdeh joined Dashnaksutyun only in 1907, i.e. after the so-called 1905-1906 Armenian-Tatar massacre. That is why he could not be a fedai-fighter, and was too young and inexperienced to be a young leader (he was charged with participation in anti-state activities when he was only 23 years old, while the majority of his accomplices were 30-50 years old).

In the text of the document, the name Nzhde is mentioned three times in the general lists of Dashnaks. He is initially listed under No. 134 as Garegin Ter-Arutyunov, the second time he is referred to as "the son of a priest, Garegin Egishe Ter-Arutyunov, 23 years old" (No. 135), and the third time under No. 92. It is therefore very difficult to determine the real place of the young Nzhdeh among the Dashnaks, but it is obvious that he was far from being the first. However, it is much more interesting to know from the third list where he was summoned to court from. It turns out that Garegin Egishe Ter-Arutyunov was summoned from the village of Verkhniaya Aza of Nakhchivan County of Erivan Province, while the other criminals from the same list—Hayk M. Soghomonian (No. 91) and Vratazar Galustovich Mnatsakarian (No. 943) were summoned to St. Petersburg from the Rostov and Metekh (Tiflis) prisons, respectively.

It turns out that as of 1911 Garegin Nzhdeh was imprisoned neither in Julfa, nor in Nakhichevan, Novocherkassk, and St. Petersburg. He used to enjoy a relatively comfortable life under the police supervision in the Armenian village of Verkhniaya Aza and could move freely within the boundaries of the county (magal). In other words, the authorities did not consider Nzhdeh potentially dangerous for the state to take him into custody and force him to testify. As a person under investigation, he most likely appeared very malleable, did not try to mislead investigators and did not hide anything. Therefore, it was decided to leave him free as a person of a completely harmless and non-conflict character. His supporters however claim that Nzhdeh had served sentence in various Russian prisons for at least two or three years, trying to glorify his personality and to make him "a martyr for faith", "a fiery revolutionary", "a stalwart fighter for the ideals of Armenian people", who he really never was.

The accusations against the Dashnaks at the 1912 St. Petersburg trial process consisted of two parts, which can be conditionally called as 'common' and 'personal'. The former were more political in nature and included crimes against the state and the order of management, while the latter were dealing with crimes of a general criminal nature committed by each of the accused independently or separately from the general activities of the party. It should be noted that a similar structure was used in drafting of prosecution and indictment acts of the International Military Tribunal held in Nuremberg 34 years later (1945-1946). The only difference was that the accused criminals were the Nazis, not the Dashnaks convicted in St. Petersburg in 1912.

The list of crimes incriminated to Dashnaks looks more than impressive. If translated in modern legal language, the Armenian nationalist party Dashnaktsutyun were accused of committing the following types of crimes:

* establishment of a terrorist community and participation in it;

* establishment of a terrorist organisation and participation in it;

* public calls for terrorist activities, public justification and propaganda of terrorism;

* commitment of terrorist acts;

* banditism;

* mass riots,

* illegal distribution of weapons, ammunition, explosives and devices;

* illegal manufacture of weapons, ammunition, explosives and devices;

* theft or extortion of firearms, components, ammunition, explosives or explosive devices;

* infringement on life of state or public figures;

* infringement on life of law enforcement officers;

* violence against representatives of the authorities;

* armed rebellion;

* assassination of government officials in the course of duty;

* assassination committed in a generally dangerous way;

* mercenary motivated or contract killings;

* assassination attempts provoked by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or based on hatred or enmity against any social group;

* assassination threats or the infliction of grievous bodily harm;

* unauthorised entry to protected objects;

* extortion;

* obstruction of legitimate business and other activities;

* evasion of taxes and fees;

* usurpation of authority;

* illegal business activities;

* obstruction of justice or preliminary investigation.

Based on the above accusations, we can suggest with certainty that at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Dashnaktsutyun party managed to create a parallel administrative system with its own office, as well as well-managed accounting and banking systems in the regions of the Russian Empire predominantly populated by "individuals of Armenian origin". The organisation had its own military detachments, armouries, and courts issuing decrees, which were implemented mercilessly and with religious fanaticism inherent in Armenians. By the way, the history and structure of the Nazi NSDAP party in Germany had a similar development period. The only difference was that the Nazis from the very beginning of their movement were financed and supported by the large German bourgeoisie, while the Armenian nationalists in Russia, to ensure their physical existence and activities, had to engage in extortion and other illegal activities, including plundering, terrorism and keeping the own people in awe.

Therefore, the extent of anti-government acts incriminated to Garegin Nzhdeh look ridiculously insignificant and arrogant when compared to the above set of crimes committed by Dashnaks. His bill of indictment included only the following items: "In 1908, he urged his fellow villagers in the village of Kaznut (Nakhichevan County of Erivan Governorate) to close the government school and open a private one for the benefit of the organisation and the community. He forced people to collect money for the community and kept in his apartment a copy of publication entitled 'Resolution of the Mkrstan district assembly of the Armenian revolutionary party Dashnaktsutyun, dated May 21-27, 1906." In other words, in 1908-1909 Nzhdeh did not leave his native village, lived with his parents and tried to convince fellow countrymen to stop educating their children in a public school and send them to a private school of national-religious orientation, and also kept a single brochure of abstract pseudo-revolutionary content. In addition, he was the treasurer of the local branch of Dashnaksutyun (if any existed in his village). His outspokenly foolish activities looked more like a quixotism and naivety than a real threat to imperial power. Therefore, it is not surprising that the authorities left him untouched and free. The trial of Dashnaks in St. Petersburg in 1912 completely exempted Nzhdeh from criminal responsibility due to his complete harmlessness and worthlessness.

He made up a myth of his hardships "in the dungeons of the Russian Tsarism" much later, in 1944, when he was arrested in Bulgaria by the local police and handed over to the representatives of the Soviet Main Directorate of Counterintelligence (SMERSH) as a Nazi accomplice. In order to raise his own significance before the military counterintelligence officers and officers of the Soviet state security bodies, he deliberately attributed to himself the crimes he had allegedly committed against the Russian imperial authorities. In USSR, such criminals were called "shoddy characters", who took credit for criminal acts they never did to enhance authority among other prisoners—an act frowned upon and harshly punished by criminals. According to the document, the Soviet state security authorities knew this very well, and therefore they did not agree to any cooperation with Nzhdeh, despite all his requests to use him, his experience and connections abroad in the fight against Turkey and NATO in the interests of the Soviet Union.