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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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Until the first years of the twentieth century, the focus of Armenian revolutionary activities lay within the Ottoman Empire. 47 Dashnaktsoutiun made a conscious and concentrated effort to avoid active involvement in the Russian opposition movement. Despite the fact that tsarist bureaucrats harassed and imprisoned Armenian political leaders and ordered the border patrols to kill or arrest the armed bands that attempted to slip into Turkey, Dashnaktsoutiun, imposing strict party discipline, forbade retaliation. Engrossment in a struggle on two fronts would only dissipate the organisation's limited strength. The undesirable occurred, however, in 1903, when in addition to Abdul Hamid hand his Hamidiye cavalry units, the Russian bureaucracy became the object of Armenian terrorism. What had provoked Dashnaktsoutiun to alter its strategy?

The Armenian Church Crisis, 1903-1905

The reaction following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 was characterized by attempts to Russify the minority groups of the Empire. Russian colonists were sent to the border regions to weaken the cohesiveness of the respective nationalities. Limitations were imposed in the educational privileges of the non-Russians, whose schools, after being closed for a time, were obliged to adopt a Russian-style curriculum. In the Caucasus the Governor-General, having superseded the Viceroy and possessing greater military prerogatives, intensified measures for assimilation. At that post, Prince Grigori Golitsyn 48 counselled Tsar Nicolas II to confiscate the properties of the Church of Armenia and to take from its jurisdiction the established network of schools. The national wealth and influence concentrated in the Church would be shattered; schools, placed under state supervision would accelerate the process of Russification, thus depriving the revolutionaries of their primary source of strength. Golitsyn anticipated little resistance from the aged Catholicos. 49 The exhortations of the Governor-General convinced Nicholas of the wisdom of the project. In June, 1903, the Tsar decreed that all goods and properties not essential to the performance of religious services were to be expropriated and transferred to the ministries of Agriculture, State Properties, and Interior. In return the Ministry of Interior would provide sufficient funds for the operation of Armenian schools and churches. 50

The Armenian reaction was immediate and overwhelming. Golitsyn had miscalculated, for the decree inspired greater nationalism and incited thousands who previously had remained aloof from the revolutionary movement to turn toward Dashnaktsoutiun in the expectation that it would provide direction for the expression of public indignation. Socialist societies, including Marxist groups, deviated from their anticlerical tradition to rise in defence of the Armenian Church, so frequently criticized by them. Dashnaktsoutiun took control of the Central Committee for Self-Defence and, in conjunction with the Catholicos, organized mass protest demonstrations in nearly every Armenian community of the Russian Empire. In a bloody reign of violence which lasted two years, hundreds of Russian bureaucrats fell before the bullets, knives, and bombs of Armenian "terrorists". Golitsyn himself was critically wounded. 51 Nevertheless, during the first year of unrest, Minister of Interior V. K. Plehve, the influential collaborator of Golitsyn, prevailed upon the Tsar to remain resolute and uncompromising. As the fate of the national properties lay in balance, the General Congress of Dashnaktsoutiun in 1904 responded officially to the Russian challenge. Revising its program, the party declared that, although amelioration of the unbearable conditions in Western Armenia remained the basic concern, oppression within the Russian Empire could be ignored no longer. Dashnaktsoutiun pledged itself to defend the basic rights of all Armenians, whether in realm of sultan or tsar. 52

Other socialist-oriented circles also condemned the tsarist confiscations but utilised the opportunity to attack Dashnaktsoutiun as well. Marxist Social Democrats mocked the decision of the nationalist party. Tsarist suppression was not new; why had Dashnaktsoutiun only in 1904 raised its voice in opposition? The Marxists answered their own query by postulating that Dashnaktsoutiun, by combining the question of Western and Eastern Armenia and assuming socialist phrases, was attempting to deceive the masses in order to divert them from the mainstream of the Russian revolutionary movement. 53 However, the Armenian Marxists, few and divided, had little influence upon those masses. Not until 1903 had they been able to form a Social Democrat group in the Yerevan guberniia, although in 1899 Stepan Shahoumian, later a close associate of Lenin, had initiated a Marxist study group in neighbouring Lori. 54 Moreover, while some Marxists belonged to the multinational Caucasian Union of the Russian party, others founded their own Social Democratic Workers Armenian Organization. The latter, referred to as the "specifist", contended that the realities of the Armenian situation were quite different from those affecting the general proletariat, and that, therefore, the "specific" disparities warranted particular consideration. Consequently this group represented itself as the only true spokesman of the Armenian toilers and advocated the principles of federative government, national-cultural self-determination, and, within the Marxist movement, regional party autonomy. 55