Nearly every attempt to gain Russian assistance was thwarted, however, by the Soviet Commissariat for Nationalities, directed by Stalin. Soon after the establishment of the Sovnarkom, the Commissariat had created departments for specific nationalities. In January, 1918, V. A. Avanesov, secretary of the Bolshevik Central Committee, and Vahan Terian were placed in charge of the Armenian division. The initial task of the Armenian Affairs Commissariat was the translation and dissemination of Marxist literature, especially among the thousands of Western Armenians who had found refuge in the mountains and steppes of Russia. The suffering people were informed of the great Leninist principle, self-determination, and reassured that the Sovnarkom would guide the oppressed to freedom. 54 Soon Stalin's Armenian assistants turned their division into a militant body espousing "War Communism." All organisations associated with the Armenian National Council in Tiflis were brought under attack. In March, Terian and Avanesov convinced the Sovnarkom to liquidate the Petrograd Armenian Defence Committee, headed by tsarist General Hovhannes Bagratouni. The valuable properties and treasury of the society were transferred to the Commissariat for Nationalities. This was only the first step in destroying the broad network of Armenian newspapers and organisations operating in Russia. In June, the famed Lazarian Academy of Moscow, cradle of the Eastern Armenian cultural renaissance, was expropriated. The denouncement came in July when the Sovnarkom decreed that all groups and establishments associated with the Tiflis National Council were to be dissolved and their assets transferred to the Commissariat for Nationalities. In cities without an Armenian division of the Commissariat, these properties would be placed under the jurisdiction of the local soviet. 55 This decisive action in mid-1918 was taken after it was clear that a rapprochement between Dashnaktsoutiun and the Sovnarkom was more remote than ever. By that time, Dashnaktsoutiun not only had condoned the separation of Transcaucasia from Russia but also had taken the road to Armenian independence.
The Moscow rulers watched Transcaucasian events anxiously. Lenin usually favoured a conciliatory policy toward the border regions and expressed sympathy for the Armenians. The Seim's action of April 22, however, drew angry accusations from the chief tactician of Bolshevism. Speaking before the All-Russian Soviet Executive Committee and the Moscow Soviet on May 14, Lenin attributed the perplexing situation on the Caucasus boundaries to the unforgivable indecisiveness of the Tiflis rulers. They had first repudiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and then declared independence without identifying the territories they coveted. He continued: "We have asked in numerous radio telegrams: please be kind enough to identify the territory to which you have pretensions. To claim independence is your right, but you are obliged, if speaking about independence, to say which is that territory you represent. That was a week ago. An enormous number of radiograms has been written, but there has been not a single answer. German imperialism is taking advantage of that. Thus Germany, with Turkey as a supporting government, found it possible to advance and to advance without having to answer to anyone, without having to pay attention to anything, announcing: we will take whatever we can take; we are not violating the Brest treaty, since the Transcaucasian Army does not recognise it, because the Caucasus is independent." 56
A week later, Stalin, too, discussed Transcaucasian affairs, but without repeating Lenin's frequent references to the right of self-determination. Instead, he stressed that the independence of the Tiflis Mensheviks would inevitably turn into slavish dependence on the Turkish and German "civilised beasts." 57 Mentioning the Transcaucasian crisis fomented by the Kars episode, Stalin reported that the Armenians had refused to participate in the Chkhenkeli cabinet and that mass demonstrations against the declaration of independence were taking place: "All Armenia is protesting against the usurpers of the Tiflis self-appointed ‘government' and demanding the resignation of the Seim deputies… The population of Transcaucasia is opposed to the Tiflis ‘government.' The population of Transcaucasia is opposed to the secession from Russia. The workers and peasants of Transcaucasia favour a referendum, in spite of the handful of Seim members, for nobody, absolutely nobody, has authorised the Seim to separate Transcaucasia from Russia." 58 Foreign Affairs Commissar Chicherin likewise denounced the separation of Transcaucasia. In a note to Count Wilhelm von Mirbach, German envoy to Russia, he asserted that the Tiflis government was an unpopular clique and that, without Soviet Russia's participation, the negotiations in which Transcaucasia was now involved were illegal. 59 Chicherin was alluding to the Batum Conference.
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