The Eastern Armenian National Congress
The Bolshevik conference was short and calm in comparison to the charged, boisterous sessions of the Armenian National Congress, which opened on October 11 in the Artistic Theatre of Tiflis. Initiative for the meeting belonged to the National Bureau, which in April had invited civic leaders, the inter-party council, and representatives of the former volunteer units to consider the situation in Petrograd and at the front. All agreed that a broader assembly of Eastern (Russian) Armenians should convene in Yerevan within two months to express more democratically the national will. The inter-party council was charged with supervising the elections, which were to be based on equal, secret, direct suffrage and proportional representation, with one delegate per ten thousand of the Empire's two million Armenians. 95 Plans to implement democratic procedures were overly optimistic, for son it was learned that the holding of elections on the stated principles was as near impossibility in the existing chaotic conditions of Russia. Moreover, the opponents of Dashnaktsoutiun complained that in direct elections their numbers would be so insignificant that the proposed meeting would simply evolve into a party gathering rather than a national congress. 96 Therefore, democratic ideals gave way to imposing realities. The established method of selecting representatives from the various cultural, economic, professional, benevolent, religious, and political societies was employed once again. 97 Not only election procedures but also the final selection of the meeting site was determined by actualities. True, Yerevan was the heartland of the Armenian provinces, but this overgrown village with dirty, winding streets did not offer the comfort, convenience, or attraction of Transcaucasia's largest and most beautiful city, Tiflis. Rural Armenia yielded once again to the Armenian-dominated capital of Georgia.
Over two hundred delegates from Armenian communities scattered throughout Russia presented their credentials at the opening session. Political affiliation was as follows: 98
Dashnakist |
113 |
Populist |
43 |
Social Democrat |
9 |
Social Revolutionary |
23 |
The Congress, which lasted a fortnight, was the most comprehensive Eastern Armenian gathering since the Russian conquest of Transcaucasia. Only the Bolsheviks were missing, although they had sent a statement of their views. 99 They had refused to participate, repeating the declaration of their party's Tiflis committee, which alleged that the Congress would be a bourgeois-clerical assembly, ignoring the interests of the workers and peasants, and that, in its counter-revolutionary capacity, it would intrigue to deceive the Armenian people and to prolong their subservience to capitalism and imperialism. The attempt to solve current problems through a national organisation was treachery, for only the Russian and Caucasian proletariat and revolutionaries striving together could attain that goal. The Bolsheviks appealed to the Armenian masses to deny support to the Congress. 100 Of a similar nature was the proclamation of the Temporary Executive Committee of Spartak, a Marxist youth organisation, which cursed Dashnaktsoutiun and the Populists for attempting to estrange the Transcaucasian peoples from one another. 101 In 1917, however, the popular influence of the Armenian Bolsheviks was so slight that their absence from the National Congress seemed to perturb no one.
At the inaugural session, the chairman, Stepan Mamikonian, active civic leader from the Moscow Armenian Committee, called for cooperation among the numerous politically opposed delegates in order to formulate a workable national policy. On the following day, Simon Vratsian, member of Dashnaktsoutiun's Bureau, the party's supreme body, analysed the situation in Russia. Drawing attention to the general demoralisation, anarchy, and economic and military collapse, he proposed that a strong central coalition government liquidate the major source of evil – war. But he added that although "war to a decisive victory" was folly, peace without the agreement of the other Entente members was impossible. Therefore, until the workers of Western Europe could compel their respective governments to halt the bloodshed, the peoples of Russia would support only a "defensive war." 102 Obviously that views of Dashnaktsoutiun on war and peace were identical with those expressed by most soviets throughout the spring and summer. Representatives form of the other organisations agreed in essence with this policy, but, while accepting coalition, the SD's and SR's chastised the bourgeois parties of Russia and their Armenian counterpart. Kristapor Vermishian of the Populist denied the bourgeois character of his party and testified to its "classless" nature. Supporting the proposal for a strong coalition government, he reminded his colleagues that coalition necessitated compromise and that the moderate elements should not be expected to make all the concessions. 103
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