The Armeno-Tatar Conflict and the Revised Platform of Dashnaktsoutiun
Despite settlement of the issue, however, Transcaucasia was not pacified, for the Russian Revolution continued and, even more momentous, strife between Armenians and Tatars engulfed the entire region. The Russian bureaucrats were accused by their many enemies of instigating interracial enmity, of provoking Armeno-Tatar conflicts so that both peoples would be distracted from the current of revolution. Testimony of the participants in the hostilities and of tsarist officials themselves indicates that the indictment against the bureaucracy is not without validity. Much bloodshed could have been prevented if the representatives of the Tsar had used the power at their disposal to halt the spreading violence. But not until 1907, after the Russian Revolution had run its course, did they and regular Russian military contingents take measures to terminate the holocaust. However, it cannot be proved, as some attempt to do, that the full responsibility rested with the Russian bureaucracy, for, although, the psychology of divide and rule was certainly prevalent, bases for interracial hostilities already existed. National, religious, economic, and social incompatibilities separated the two neighbouring peoples. In the electrified atmosphere of 1905-1907, mutual suspicions, jealousies, and rivalries exploded into fierce combat. 63 Thousands of casualties and property losses amounting to over forty million roubles were the result of two years of anarchy. 64 Yet when the Armeno-Tatar clashes were evaluated, when the dead were counted and the material losses assessed, Armenian political leaders seemed not entirely unhappy. National consciousness had advanced another step. A moral victory had been won, for the myth of Moslem invincibility had been dispelled; Armenians had once again learned to fight. Nor were the results entirely negative for the Tatars. Intensified distrust of the Armenians, who had long dominated the middle-class professions, provided added impetus for the Moslems to develop their own artisan and bourgeois class, from which would stem a more progressive educational system, several Turkish language journals, and a network of philanthropic-cultural societies. The political-social mind of the Moslems of Transcaucasia was taking shape.
The stirring incidents that began the confiscation of Church properties were among the items considered by the Fourth General Congress of Dashnaktsoutiun, which convened at Vienna in 1907. The radical wing of the party had been reinforced by the Caucasian disturbances. After bitter debates concerning the proposed revision of the organisation's program, the Congress overruled the objections of the conservatives and adopted an explicit socialist platform. In the same year, despite vigorous Bolshevik opposition, the party was granted membership in the Second Socialist International. 65 The nationality plank of the 1907 platform reiterated liberation of Western Armenia as the primary goal of Dashnaktsoutiun. Such emancipation would entail delimitation, within the Ottoman Empire, of an autonomous Armenian region that would be guaranteed initiative in local affairs; representative assemblies elected by secret, direct, equal, and proportional suffrage; freedom of press, assembly, and speech; separation of church and state; free, universal education; and communal ownership of land. The Congress also advocated a similar arrangement for all Transcaucasia, which, as a member of the future federated democracy of Russia, would provide for national-cultural progress of all its constituent peoples. 66 The strategy of Dashnaktsoutiun was to combine nationalism and socialism, but the latter was always subordinate. Party theoreticians reasoned that, by serving his nation, the individual assisted humanity toward its ultimate aim – socialism. An Armenian who was not a dedicated patriot could not be a true socialist.
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