Two days later Kachaznouni presented his cabinet's platform. He explained that utter disorganisation prevailed throughout the land and that even the basic apparatus essential for rule was lacking. Four years of war, the Bolshevik Revolution, Russian abandonment of the front, the unsuccessful attempt to withstand the Turks, and enemy occupation of most of Armenia disrupted and destroyed the nation's economy. Thousands upon thousands of homeless, sick, and hungry refugees depended on the pitiful resources of the government. Only one word could describe the situation – catastrophe. Therefore, all the idealistic phrases so common to inaugural addresses would be omitted and the government's program would deal only with the bare realities. The immediate objective was to check the process of dissolution and to deliver the nation from anarchy. With this in mid, the cabinet would strive to achieve the following aims:
- in Internal Affairs
- to safeguard the life and property of all residents,
- to restore the routes of communication and the postal-telegraph system,
- to mitigate the plight of the refugees;
- in Financial Affairs
- to prepare for adoption of a national monetary system,
- to revive trade and industry;
- in Judicial Affairs
- to adjust judicial procedures to local customs and conditions,
- to include civilian jurists in the trial of accused criminals;
- in Military Affairs
- to reorganise the nation's military forces,
- to build an army not large, but strong in spirit and discipline;
- in Foreign Relations
- to honour all treaty obligations with the Ottoman Empire,
- to effect the withdrawal of Turkish troops from occupied portions of the Republic,
- to secure permission for refugees to return home,
- to determine in a friendly manner the boundaries with Georgia and Azerbaijan, using as a guide the ethnic principle, the only one applicable in democratic states,
- to conclude an agreement with Georgia and Azerbaijan for the liquidation and distribution of the properties and assets of the former Transcaucasian Federation. 97
Fulfilment of these "realistic" goals in the prevailing conditions of 1918 would have been a miracle.
The reactions of the several fractions to Kachaznouni's program filled the agenda of the third and fourth sessions of the legislature. 98 Social revolutionary Khondkarian complained that the statements included no specific proposals and no indication of how the program was to be implemented. He was especially perturbed that relations with Russia had not been mentioned. The Social Revolutionary fraction firmly championed the reestablishment of the Transcaucasian Democracy as a federative unit of the Russian Democratic Republic. Rising from the far left of the chamber, Social Democrat Azatian then declared that what Kachaznouni had proposed was reminiscent of Stolypin's tactic of "first peace, then reforms." The Armenian Marxists decried the fact that labour legislation, economics, enlightenment, and health had been ignored by the Premier. Arshavir Melikian, the lone Bolshevik of the SD fraction, used the occasion to extol world revolution and to belittle the ideal of national independence. The ideal should instead be reunion with Russia. 99 While the parties of the left objected to Kachaznouni's declarations, those of the right were content with his conservative and cautious strategy. There was nothing in the platform to indicate that for over a decade Dashnaktsoutiun had been a socialist party. Populist and Moslem members of the Khorhourt joined with the Dashnakists to giver Kachaznouni a vote of confidence. Even the SR's and SD's did not cast dissenting ballots. As long as Turkish armies stood in the heart of the Yerevan guberniia, the fractions of the left tacitly collaborated with the Premier by abstaining rather than voting in opposition. 100
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