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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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Lenin's Declarations about Armenia

In articles contributed to Pravda in the spring of 1917, Lenin painted a dismal picture of the suffering in Western Armenia, the victim of imperialistic rivalries. Members of the Provisional Government, especially Foreign Minister Miliukov, were attacked for advancing plans to annex the area and for continuing tsarist practices toward such subject peoples as the Poles and the Armenians. 11 In May, Lenin complained that "the Russian capitalist government holds part of Galicia, Western Armenia, Finland the Ukraine, etc." 12 He also asserted: "The annexation of Belgium, Serbia, etc., will not cease being annexation because the German Kadets have replaced Wilhelm, just as the annexation of Khiva, Armenia, Finland, the Ukraine, etc., did not stop being annexations by the substitution of Nicholas by Russian Kadets, the Russian capitalists." 13 During the same month, at the May, 1917, Bolshevik conference that called for "All Power to the Soviets," Lenin again accused Lvov's cabinet of selfishly continuing the imperialistic, predatory war, and assailed the government's confirmation of the shameful tsarist secret treaties, which "promise the Russian capitalists freedom to rob China, Persia, Turkey, Austria, etc." 14 While discussing the nationality question, he exclaimed, "if the Soviet seize power tomorrow… we shall then say: Germany, out with your armies from Poland; Russia, out with your armies from Armenia – otherwise, it will be a lie." 15

The voice of Lenin reached relatively few at the Bolshevik conclave, but several hundred delegates from all parts of Russia heard him on June 22 as he addressed the First Congress of Soviets. Execrating the Entente annexationist agreements, he shouted: "If we publish these treaties and clearly say at meetings to the Russian workers and the Russian peasants, especially in each remote little village: this is what you are fighting for, for the Straits, for the retention of Armenia, then everyone would say: we do not want such a war." 16 Proceeding a step further, Lenin made the following suggestion: "There is our army on the Turkish front; its size I do not know. Let us assume it is about three million. If this army, now kept in Armenia and carrying out annexations which, while preaching peace without annexations to other people, you tolerate, even though you have the power and the authority – if that army turned to this program, if it made Armenia into an independent Armenian republic, and gave it the money that is being taken from us by the Anglo-French financiers, that would be much better." 17

Such statements elicited a negative response from most Armenian leaders. Kadets and Populists, Social Revolutionaries and Moslems, added their voices to those of the Dashnakists, who ridiculed the "adventuristic" manoeuvres of the Bolsheviks. If Russian armies were withdrawn, there would not be "an independent Armenian republic," but a Turkish offensive into Transcaucasia. Soviet historian B. A. Borian has contended that, though realising evacuation would place the Armenian before the threat of new massacres, Lenin was more intent on inciting international revolution. Retention of Ottoman territory would expose the Soviet government to the charge of hypocrisy. Only by renouncing pretensions to Armenia could Russia convince the Asian peoples of her sincere desire for peace without annexations. Assured of that, the oppressed masses of the East would unite with the Soviets to strike a deadly blow against the imperialistic, colonialist governments of the Occident. 18 In this light, the December 3 Sovnarkom "Appeal to the Moslems of Russia and the East" is particularly significant. One of the pledges reads, "We declare that the treaty for the partition of Turkey, which was to deprive her of Armenia, is null and void." 19

As the prestige of Bolshevism increased in many parts of Russia, Lenin continued to hammer forth his demands. A month before the November coup, in his "Aims of the Revolution," he explained: "The it is our duty immediately to satisfy the demands of the Ukrainians and the Finns, to guarantee them, as well as other nationalities in Russia, complete freedom, including freedom to secede, and to apply the same to the whole of Armenia, undertaking to evacuate it as well as the Turkish lands occupied by us, etc." 20 This position was clarified two weeks later: "Having assumed power we would naturally recognise immediately this right [of separation] of Finland, The Ukraine, Armenia and any other nationality which has been oppressed by tsarism (and by the Great Russian bourgeoisie). But we, on our part, do not at all desire that separation. We want the largest possible state, the closest possible union, the largest possible number of nations who are neighbours of the Great Russians…" 21 Of the Transcaucasian peoples, only the Armenians were mentioned specifically in these representative statements. Even to the Bolsheviks, the future of the Armenians seemed to warrant special consideration. It was indeed enigmatic that the cherished goal of the Armenian revolutionaries – autonomy and self-determination – was being offered by the Bolsheviks but now spurned and suspected by the veterans of the Armenian liberation movement.