The situation that emerged produced a so-called double standard in the RSFSR’s foreign policy. On the one hand, official diplomatic correspondence regarding the Transcaucasian Republics consistently avowed a striving to develop mutually beneficial relations and peaceful coexistence. On the other hand, with the ongoing strategic aim of realizing a proletarian revolution, a broad range of measures were undertaken to foment armed rebellion and overthrow the republic governments of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. In this context, the Soviet Russian government regarded diplomatic activities in the Caucasus as a necessary step that could serve to mask preparations for more decisive action.
The Caucasian Territorial Committee of the Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks), or RCP(b), headed by Grigol “Sergo” Orjonikidze, became the coordinator of such subversive activities in the region. In November 1918, the Transcaucasian organizations of the RCP(b) held their first conference near the village of Digomi outside Tiflis and set their course for overthrowing the national governments.
The RCP(b) created a whole series of institutions to supervise and coordinate actions in the Transcaucasus. In Moscow, it formed a Central Bureau of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East, attached to the RCP(b) Central Committee, with separate Azerbaijani, Armenian, and Georgian sections within it. A second important agency was the Section for Transcaucasian Muslim Affairs, established on January 16, 1919 under the RSFSR People’s Commissariat for Ethnic Affairs. An important role in implementing decisions was accorded to the Commissariat for Muslim Affairs, headed by Nariman Narimanov (1870–1925), and operated out of Astrakhan.
On May 2, 1919, a meeting of the Baku city Party Conference formulated the slogan “Independent Soviet Azerbaijan” as the main political objective for the future. As historians have noted, “In view of the errors committed in 1918 on the ethnic issue, and in order to wrest the banner of struggle for national independence from the hands of the Azerbaijani bourgeoisie and landowners, communist organizations carrying out Lenin’s instructions have adopted the slogan, ‘Independent Soviet Azerbaijan.’ “17 The slogan of national independence was reinforced by another essential tactical change—the creation of a Communist Party of Azerbaijan. Initially discussed in May 1919 by the Party’s Caucasian Territorial Committee, the idea of an “independent” Communist Party of Azerbaijan and its future course of actions was thoroughly discussed at meetings in July, September, and December in Moscow of the Politburo and Organizing Bureau of the RCP(b) Central Committee.
At the same time, the Bolshevik leadership took a hard-line position on official recognition of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic and establishment of diplomatic relations. In a telegram dated February 12, 1920, addressed to People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin (1872–1936), Stalin stressed that “we consider the unconditional and categorical recognition of the independence of Azerbaijan unacceptable.”
On January 3, 1920, the Politburo of the RCP(b) Central Committee adopted a resolution, one item of which read: “The struggle with local chauvinism and the creation of favorable conditions for promoting socialist revolution among ethnic groups under the aegis of tsarism makes it necessary for communist organizations in the ‘independent’ states that formed within the former Russian Empire to operate as independent communist parties. This method of organization is especially important in the East.”18
On February 11–12, 1920, a Congress of communist organizations was held at the Workers’ Club in Baku, where the Azerbaijani Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) was formed. Mirza Davud Baghir Huseynov was elected chairman of the presidium of the Central Committee and the Congress identified the preparation of armed rebellion to overthrow the government as the top priority for Party organizations.
The situation in the region soon escalated and on March 22, 1920, civil unrest and armed demonstrations initiated by local communist organizations broke out in densely populated Armenian areas in the Ganja and Kazakh Districts and in the Karabakh hills. This forced the government of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic to send its few armed units to these areas, leaving its Dagestani border effectively undefended, so that by mid-April, units of the Caucasian Front’s 11th Army had marched right up to the northern borders of Azerbaijan.
The 11th Army was headed by former Staff Captain Mikhail Levandovsky (1890–1937), and Sergey M. Kirov (1886–1934) and Konstantin Mekhonoshin (1889–1938) were members of the Revolutionary War Council. The Caucasian Front was commanded by former Second Lieutenant Mikhail Tukhachevsky (1893–1937), and the old Bolshevik Sergo Orjonikidze (1886–1937) was a member of the Revolutionary War Council.
Before the military operation, Lenin told the Revolutionary War Council and commanders of the 11th Army: “I ask you once again to act cautiously and always show the maximum good will toward the Muslims.... In every way, demonstrate... sympathy for Muslims, their autonomy, and their independence in the most serious manner.”19
On April 15, 1920, the head of state of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic, Fatali Khan Khoyski, sent an urgent telegram to People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin: “We are observing a concentration of considerable military forces of the Russian Soviet government within the borders of Dagestan in Derbent District along the border of the Azerbaijani Republic. The Azerbaijani government, which has not been informed of the Soviet government’s intentions, urgently requests an explanation of the reasons and purposes of the concentration of troops in these districts.” However, no response from Moscow to Baku was forthcoming.
On April 27, 1920, units of the Caucasian Front’s 11th Army crossed the border of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic and entered Baku without opposition the next day. In his memoirs, the noted Soviet statesman Anastas Mikoyan (1895–1978) described the situation: “The Revolutionary War Council of the Army appointed me its representative, and I was to be dispatched along with the vanguard of trains commanded by Yefremov. This detachment had been charged with coming to the aid of the Baku proletariat, in order to prevent the bourgeois government from destroying the oil fields.... The lead armored train arrived at the Baku terminal at daybreak on April 28, where Soviet rule won peacefully, without bloodshed due to the overwhelming numerical advantage of the revolutionary forces.”
With the entry of Soviet troops into Baku, the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic ceased to exist. A statement by the Provisional Revolutionary Committee dated April 28, 1920 read: “All authority in the country has passed into the hands of the working classes. A bright new era of socialism is opening up for the workers and peasants of Azerbaijan.” The following day, April 29, 1920, Lenin noted that: “The position of Soviet Russia will change for the better; we know that our industry lacks fuel, and we have now received news that the Baku proletariat has taken power into its own hands.... This means that we now have an economic base on which to revitalize all our industry.... Thus, our transportation and industry will receive substantial assistance from the Baku oil fields.”20
On May 5, 1920, Baku received a telegram from Lenin, stating: “The Council of People’s Commissars welcomes the liberation of the working masses of the independent Azerbaijani Republic and expresses its firm confidence that, under the leadership of its own Soviet Government, the independent Republic of Azerbaijan, together with the RSFSR, will defend its freedom and independence from the sworn enemy of the repressed peoples of the East, from the imperialists.”21