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Index

Armenia

The Urartu Civilisation

Victory for Independence

Artashisian Dynasty on the Armenian Throne

Armenia caught between Rome and the Arsacids

The Acceptance of Christianity

Defending Christianity

Armenia Under the Bagratouni Dynasty

Cilicia - the New Armenia

Armenia Under Turanian Rule

The Renaissance or the Resurrection of Armenia

The Eastern Question

Russia in the Caucasus

The Armenian Question

Battle on Two Fronts

Tsarist Russia Against the Armenians

The Revolution of the Young Turks and the Armenian People on the Eve of World War I

The First World War

The Resurrection of Armenia

Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

- Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918

Eastern Armenia

Western Armenia

"The Fateful Years" (1914-1917)

"Hopes and Emotions" (March-October, 1917)

The Bolshevik Revolution and Armenia

Transcaucasia Adrift (November, 1917

Dilemmas (March-April, 1918)

War and Independence (April-May, 1918)

The Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia

The Suppliants (June-October, 1918)

In conclusion

Soviet Armenia

The Second Independent Republic of Armenia

Epilogue

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The Armeno-Tatar Conflict and the Revised Platform of Dashnaktsoutiun

Despite settlement of the issue, however, Transcaucasia was not pacified, for the Russian Revolution continued and, even more momentous, strife between Armenians and Tatars engulfed the entire region. The Russian bureaucrats were accused by their many enemies of instigating interracial enmity, of provoking Armeno-Tatar conflicts so that both peoples would be distracted from the current of revolution. Testimony of the participants in the hostilities and of tsarist officials themselves indicates that the indictment against the bureaucracy is not without validity. Much bloodshed could have been prevented if the representatives of the Tsar had used the power at their disposal to halt the spreading violence. But not until 1907, after the Russian Revolution had run its course, did they and regular Russian military contingents take measures to terminate the holocaust. However, it cannot be proved, as some attempt to do, that the full responsibility rested with the Russian bureaucracy, for, although, the psychology of divide and rule was certainly prevalent, bases for interracial hostilities already existed. National, religious, economic, and social incompatibilities separated the two neighbouring peoples. In the electrified atmosphere of 1905-1907, mutual suspicions, jealousies, and rivalries exploded into fierce combat. 63 Thousands of casualties and property losses amounting to over forty million roubles were the result of two years of anarchy. 64 Yet when the Armeno-Tatar clashes were evaluated, when the dead were counted and the material losses assessed, Armenian political leaders seemed not entirely unhappy. National consciousness had advanced another step. A moral victory had been won, for the myth of Moslem invincibility had been dispelled; Armenians had once again learned to fight. Nor were the results entirely negative for the Tatars. Intensified distrust of the Armenians, who had long dominated the middle-class professions, provided added impetus for the Moslems to develop their own artisan and bourgeois class, from which would stem a more progressive educational system, several Turkish language journals, and a network of philanthropic-cultural societies. The political-social mind of the Moslems of Transcaucasia was taking shape.

The stirring incidents that began the confiscation of Church properties were among the items considered by the Fourth General Congress of Dashnaktsoutiun, which convened at Vienna in 1907. The radical wing of the party had been reinforced by the Caucasian disturbances. After bitter debates concerning the proposed revision of the organisation's program, the Congress overruled the objections of the conservatives and adopted an explicit socialist platform. In the same year, despite vigorous Bolshevik opposition, the party was granted membership in the Second Socialist International. 65 The nationality plank of the 1907 platform reiterated liberation of Western Armenia as the primary goal of Dashnaktsoutiun. Such emancipation would entail delimitation, within the Ottoman Empire, of an autonomous Armenian region that would be guaranteed initiative in local affairs; representative assemblies elected by secret, direct, equal, and proportional suffrage; freedom of press, assembly, and speech; separation of church and state; free, universal education; and communal ownership of land. The Congress also advocated a similar arrangement for all Transcaucasia, which, as a member of the future federated democracy of Russia, would provide for national-cultural progress of all its constituent peoples. 66 The strategy of Dashnaktsoutiun was to combine nationalism and socialism, but the latter was always subordinate. Party theoreticians reasoned that, by serving his nation, the individual assisted humanity toward its ultimate aim – socialism. An Armenian who was not a dedicated patriot could not be a true socialist.

63) For the descriptions of the "Armeno-Tatar War" and the culpability of tsarist officials, consult Luigi Villari "Fire and Sword in the Caucasus" (London, 1906); and Victor Bérard, "The Russian Empire and Czarism", trans. by G. Fox Davies and G. O. Pope (London, 1905), pp. 204-213. In his "Vsepoddanneishaia zapiska", pp. 10-14, Vorontsov-Dashkov reviewed the problem and confirmed the charge that officials and military contingents were inactive or indifferent during the hostilities. For accounts of participants, consult A. Giulkhandanian, "Hai-tatarakan endaroumnere" [The Armeno-Tatar Clashes] (Paris, 1933); and Aramayis, "Mi kani gloukh hai-tatarakan endharoumnerits" [A Few Chapters from the Armeno-Tatar Clashes] (Tbilisi, 1907), 2 pts.

64) Filip Makharadze, "Ocherki revoliutsonnogo dvizheniia v Zakavkaz'e" (Tbilisi, 1927), pp. 300, 307, gives the number killed in Baku in February, 1905, as more than 1,000, most whom were Armenian, while he contends that the total losses for 1905-1907 were more than 10,000 killed and 15,000 uprooted. E. Aknouni, "Political Persecutions: Armenian Prisoners of the Caucasus" (New York, 1911), p. 30, states that 128 Armenian and 158 Tatar villages were sacked and ruined. D. Ananun, "Rousahayeri hasarakakan zargatsoume, III, 1901-1918" [The Social Development of the Russian Armenians: 1901-1918] (Venice, 1926), p. 180, calculates that no fewer than 1,500 Armenians and 1,600 Tatars were killed, and that the Armenians sustained more than 75 percent of the property damage.

65) Mikayel Vardanian, "H. H. Dashnaktsoutian patmoutyoun" [History of the A. (Armenian) R. (Revolutionary) Federation], I (Paris, 1932), I, 493-494; D. Ananun, "Rousahayeri hasarakakan zargatsoume, III, 1901-1918" [The Social Development of the Russian Armenians: 1901-1918] (Venice, 1926), p. 325

66) H. H. Dashnaktsoutyoun, "Tzragir" [Program] (Geneva, 1908), pp. 18-19; "Programma armianskoi revoliutsionnoi I sotsialisticheskoi partii Dashnaktsoutyoun" (Geneva, 1908).