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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

- In conclusion

Soviet Armenia

The Second Independent Republic of Armenia

Epilogue

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Soviet Armenia

The short-lived experiment in Armenian independence collapsed late in 1920 as the isolated republic came between the dual threats of advancing Soviet power and the Turkish Nationalists in Anatolia. With Western Armenia in the hands of triumphant Kemalists, only Eastern Armenia, that small portion of historic Armenia that had been under Persian rule until 1828 and then part of the Russian Empire until 1917, remained under the control of Armenians at the end of the Russian civil war (1918-1921). When General Dro (Drastamat Kanayan), the plenipotentiary of the Dashnakist government of Armenia, and Silin, the representative of Soviet Russia, proclaimed Armenia an "independent socialistic republic" on December 2, 1920, the country was at the nadir of its modern history. Armenians had been driven out of the Turkish-held parts of the Armenian plateau in the genocidal massacres and deportations of 1915. The population of Russian Armenia had also fallen precipitously since the outbreak of World War I because of warfare, migration, and disease. By 1920 only 720,000 lived in Eastern Armenia, a decline of 30 percent. Moreover, almost half of that population was made up of refugees. Many of the social and political institutions that Armenians in the Caucasus and in Turkey had built up over centuries had been destroyed. The Armenian middle class, the once-privileged elite of Tbilisi and Baku, was now suspect tin the eyes of the new Soviet governments in Georgia and Azerbaijan. Their unenviable choice was either to accommodate themselves to the alien socialist order or to emigrate to the West. The seven years of war, genocide, revolution, and civil war (1914-1921), had in many ways been "demodernised", thrown back to its precapitalist agrarian economy and more traditional peasant-based society.

The first tasks of the new Soviet government in Yerevan were to rebuild the economy, feed the "starving Armenians", and establish their new political order. The Dashnakists and the Communists had agreed that all power was to be handed over to a Revolutionary Committee (Heghkom) made up of five Communists and two Dashnakists, the latter to be approved by the former. No repressive measures were to be carried out against the Dashnak or other non-Communists. It is generally understood that the Dashnaktsoutyoun remained the most popular party among the Armenians and that the Communists had very little support in the country, except for a few hundred radical intellectuals and workers. The population was weary of war, hunger, sick, and politically apathetic. There was no resistance to the entry of the Red Army into Yerevan. Rather than protest, silence greeted the new government. The "revolution" that had brought the Communists to power had been allowed to happen in order to prevent Eastern Armenia from being overrun by the Turks, and Armenians hoped that the Red Army would drive the Turks from Alexandropol and other parts of occupied Armenia.

The first Soviet government, headed by Sarkis Kasian (1876-1937), was made up of very young and militant Communists, such as Askanaz Mravian, Avis Nurijanian, Ashot Hovhannisian and Alexandr Bekzadian. Marked by years of underground work, these young Communists were deeply hostile to the Dashnaks, who after all, had suppressed the revolts by Armenian Bolsheviks and executed some of their comrades. Completely inexperienced as administrators, insensitive to the weariness and desperation of the people they now governed, the Heghkom moved quickly to impose its authority. A secret police organisation modelled on the Russian Cheka was set up within days, and all governmental institutions of the old republic were abolished. Disregarding the agreement creating a coalition government, the Communists arrested many Dashnaks. The old Russian imperial law code, which had been used in the independent republic, was replaced by the legal statutes of the Soviet Russian republic. And most onerous of all, the economic policy, later known as War Communism – nationalisation of banks and industries, confiscation of foodstuffs, severe restrictions on the market – was imposed on Armenia.