Massacre of Muslims in Shamakhi

On 2 (15) November 1917, a week after the fall of the Provisional Government in Petrograd, in Baku was formed the Baku Soviet of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Deputies (Baksovet), which was later headed by the Bolshevik Stepan Shaumyan. In the beginning of 1918, the number of Russian and Armenian soldiers was growing rapidly in Baku.[4] In January, the Soviet began to form the Red Guard, on which the revolutionary power could rely. However, the Bolsheviks were forced to share power with the Armenian nationalists of the "Dashnaktsutyun" party. As a German historian, Jörg Baberowski, notes, already in January 1918, the Armenian regiments in Baku numbered 8 000 soldiers. Armenian soldiers were distributed in the center of Baku and in the Armenian quarters. They spread fear all around that gripped the Muslim population of the city.[5]

In March 1918, the Bolsheviks managed to seize all the power in Baku. Nevertheless, according to Baberowski, for the success of the coup, it was necessary to suppress the claims to power of representatives of the Azerbaijani "Musavat" party, while relying on the help of the Armenian national movement.[6] The leader of Baku Bolsheviks, the chairman of the Baku Soviet, Stepan Shaumyan, was himself an Armenian. And although he did not share the creed of the Armenian nationalists, in his political speeches, according to Baberowski, he was guided, among other things, by hostility towards the Muslim population. Shahumyan considered the demand for autonomy by the Musavatists as the dream of Azerbaijani nationalists to turn Baku into the "capital of the Azerbaijani Khanate". As the leader of the Musavat Party, Mammad Amin Rasulzade, later recalled that in March 1918 his party had neither the will nor the means to organize an uprising against the Soviet in Baku. As a result, at the end of March 1918, the Baku Council unleashed punitive actions against the Muslim population of Baku.[7] As a result of the pogroms, in which the armed detachments of the Dashnaktsutyun party also took part, about 12 thousand Muslims died in Baku, while half of the Muslim population of the city fled the city.[8] A member of the Gummet party, Movsum Israfilbekov, subsequently noted that after the March events, the Muslim masses finally turned their backs to Soviet power and were looking forward to the arrival of the Turks, who, as they believed, “could put an end to the rule of the Dashnaks”.[9]

According to Baberowski, 70% of the revolutionary troops consisted of Armenians, who carried out bloody pogroms on behalf of the commune. Shaumyan openly admitted that the revolution could only be won as an uprising of Armenians against Muslims.[2] The first time after the seizure of power in Baku, the zone of Soviet influence did not extend beyond the city outskirts. Beyond them were Muslim peasants, refugees and soldiers of the Wild Division, while in Shamakhi and Elizavetpol - the main forces of the Musavatists: several thousand soldiers, who were trained and armed by the Nuri Pasha.[10]

The pogroms in the Shamakhi district began, according to Baberovski, as early as mid-March 1918, when a 3 000-strong Baku Armenian group under the commandment of the Dashnak officer Stepan Lalayev attacked this region with terror.[2] During the first pogrom, marauding gangs killed about 7 thousand people, and to prevent the refugees from returning, the rioters stole cattle and destroyed the houses of villagers.[11][12]

In early April, a Muslim detachment headed by Ismail Ziyatkhanov approached the city from the side of Elizavetpol. While Shamakhi, for some time, was under the rule of Ziyatkhanov, many residents returned to their city.[2]

In mid-April, the Armenian contingent again entered the region. This time he was following the official directive of the Baku Commune. As Baberowski notes, atrocities were committed in the city that are deeply embedded in the memory of the survivors. Lalayev's soldiers killed childrenm and the elderly, women were raped and thrown from balconies. Many women and children took refuge in the city's mosques, however the soldiers set them on fire and the refugees were burned alive. One of the eyewitnesses of what was happening later recalled that Shamakhi had turned into a grandiose "cemetery".[2]

In addition to Shamakhi, 58 villages were almost completely destroyed. According to Baberowski, in mid-April, Lalayev, accompanied by hundreds of Armenians and Molokans, arrived in the village of Nuz-Kesh and announced to its inhabitants that he was now their "king" and began to demand their property. The soldiers stole cattle from the village, while the peasants were shot in the forest.[11]

The news of the massacre of Muslims committed by the Baku troops and local Armenians in the city of Shamakhi, and the weakness of the Azerbaijani militia units, impressed Nuri Pasha,[13] who later became the commander of the Caucasian Islamic Army. He subsequently won a victory over the troops of the Baku Commune in the battle for Baku.

Ruins of Shamakhi in 1918

According to Baberowski, as a result of the massacres and pogroms, Shamakhi ceased to exist as a settlement. The fact that there was once a city there, only the ruins of an Orthodox Church reminded. About 30 thousand inhabitants of the city were brutally either killed or expelled.[2] From the massacre in Shamakhi, according to Baberowski, the ethnic cleansing process began, which soon covered the entire Transcaucasia.[11]

In late April 1918, to study the consequences of the aggressive expedition of Armenian militants on behalf of the Baku Commune, in the area of military operations arrived the head of the medical department of Baku, Movsum Israfilbeyov, and the Commissar of Internal Affairs, Prokofy Japaridze. They witnessed a completely devastated area. The surviving residents took refuge in the mountains and forests. The famine raged, people were forced to eat grass, and neighboring villages were overflowing with refugees. An epidemic of typhoid and typhus spread among the population. Only ruins remained of the city itself.[11]

There is evidence that the Baku provincial commissar, Meshadi Azizbeyov, was an eyewitness to the consequences of the tragedy that occurred in Shamakhi, for whom those were a heavy blow. So, S. M. Efendiyev reported that Mashadi Azizbeyov, being in Shamakhi district, “took with great pain and heart” the destruction of Shamakhi. Efendiyev wrote that “the torn bodies and burned houses he saw made an overwhelming impression on him and greatly shocked him”.[14] Nariman Narimanov noted in one of his reports that Azizbeyov, having returned from Shamakhi, “told about the tragedy with tears in his eyes”.[11][15] Narimanov, after his arrival, realized that the "Soviet power in Baku is in the hands of the Dashnaks, as if in captivity".[15]

After the stories of Azizbekov, Narimanov considered "it is quite natural that after the cruelties that were inflicted on the Muslim population... the Muslim proletariat had the right to turn away from the Soviet regime, to become under the protection of their bourgeoisie and from them, and through them from Turkey, to wait for help".[11]

In 1921, Shamakhi was already a village with a population of 1 700 people.[1]