STEPAN SHAUMYAN: DOOMED TO OBLIVION?
Vestnik Kavkaza
April 27 2012
Russia
The All-Russian Azerbaijani Congress organized a presentation of a
book by Azeri historian Eldar Ismailov “Stepan Shaumyan: doomed to
oblivion. Portrait of the ‘legendary communard’ without retouch”
As Mikhail Huseynov, secretary general of the All-Russian Azerbaijani
Congress, told VK, the book which was presented yesterday is dedicated
to the life and work of one of the twenty six “Baku commissars.”
“After you read this book, you will see that for such a long time in
the Soviet period we knew him as a hero, but the facts, information
and materials prove that he did a lot against the Azerbaijani people.
The researcher Eldar Ismailov has exposed the figure of Stepan
Shaumyan. Today we are presenting this book for your attention. I
believe that Russian readers should also know about Stepan Shaumyan”.
Chingiz Huseynov, Russian and Azerbaijani writer, characterized the
situation around the topic of the book by mentioning three contexts.
‘The first context is All-Russian, as I wanted to say, or even
All-Soviet, but I will call it “Eurasian” context. This context
represents opinions of the Russians and opinions of others. There
is an Azerbaijani context, which became the background context of
this work. There is also a context associated with the figure of the
historian. I would like to talk about all these three contexts. First
of all, Shaumyan for Azerbaijan is an unconditionally malicious
figure. I have in mind the March massacre. In connection with this,
for Georgians Shaumyan is also a negative figure, but they almost
do not talk about him. For Armenians he is a complex figure. First,
since they are rejecting the Bolshevik path, they are not proud of him,
but on the other hand, he was not only born in Armenia, but he was also
in contact with people who are considered national heroes in Armenia.
‘In Russia there is a complex attitude to Shaumyan, not only because
there is a street named after the twenty six Baku Commissars, there is
this issue, but I personally would not like this street to be renamed.
For Azerbaijan… Russia certainly does not have a clear understanding
of Shaumyan either. A colossal role is played here by the Armenian
lobby, the powerful Armenian lobby in Russia, which existed in Soviet
times and before that and I will not go deep into this subject. For
Azerbaijan he is on the one hand a malicious figure. But on the other
hand we should not… And I even had a thesis: in Baku newlyweds are
taken to the Monument to the 26 Baku Commissars, which symbolizes the
friendship of peoples. The brand of friendship of Armenians, Georgians,
Azerbaijanis and Russian people including Fioletov, Dzhaparidze and
Shaumyan had been developed very well. This brand worked well and
played a significant role in developing an international consciousness
in Azerbaijan, because in the Soviet times at all high and not
very high levels I always heard: “Everyone knows that Armenians are
nationalists, but Azerbaijanis are internationalists.”
‘This thesis was present in all the spheres of state government. In
fact, the Armenian lobby played a great role in those years as well.
In order to prove my thesis I always say that Armenians take their
newlyweds to the Monument to the so-called victims of the Ottoman
Empire. In the course of decades Azerbaijan had been adopting the
idea of internationalism, while Armenia had been adopting ideas of
nationalism, including ideas of hatred, anger, and so on. I should also
speak about the creative context of the historian, Eldar Ismailov. He
is one of the rare – and I would like to repeat it once again – one
of the rare, perhaps there is even enough fingers on this hand to
count all of them, historians in Azerbaijan who, amidst the crisis of
history, are trying to voice the objective truth and objectively talk
about what happened. He has a great book, “The History of Azerbaijan.”
‘With the collapse of Soviet Union, in Russia as well as other
regions there is an ongoing preponderance of anti-historicism. The
anti-historicism is on such a great scale!… For instance, Uzbekistan
has published “The History of Uzbekistan.” Everything that happened
before the Soviet period is described in great detail, the Soviet
period is entirely absent and with the president starts the new
history of Uzbekistan. So amidst great myths… There were myths even
in the Soviet period and the class-specific approach to history is
mythical. We should know that the class-specific approach to history
is mythical: we take what we need and we reject what we do not need.
But nowadays there is a great mythologization of history and in
Azerbaijan as well. I once again repeat that Eldar is one of the
few who are trying to show the actual course of history, although one
would never find an objective history. Perhaps there has never been any
objective history, entirely objective. But Eldar Ismailov demonstrates
his closeness to objectivity and that is the value of his book’.
According to Stalislav Chernyavsky, Director of the Center for
Post-Soviet Research, MGIMO, a book with such title is a great
commitment, especially nowadays, when the elimination of myths about
the lives of true as well as fictitious figures became especially
popular. ‘Historians offer great benefit, when they contribute to
explaining, correcting and specifying perceptions from our youth about
historical figures that played a significant role in the development
of our countries. Certainly objectivity is very important and I hope
that this book is objective’.
The author of the book, professor Eldar Ismailov, also addressed
the meeting.
‘We are all people of a certain generation who grew up with the movie
“26 Baku Commissars.” We have certain images, a beautiful image of
Shaumyan. And they sank deep into our minds, and we remembered that
Shaumyan. When I started to study the theme, I had that image of
Shaumyan. However, it was very interesting. In general there were only
two books about Shaumyan by two Armenian authors in Soviet times. I
don’t say they are bad. They are classical Soviet works written in
a certain style. One of them is better, it was published in Moscow,
another is weaker, it was published in Yerevan. There was one more
book, unfortunately, that was published in Baku. It was worse than
the two previous books. However, this is not the point. It was
difficult to talk about it. But when I started to write the book,
it was different times, different views, different approaches.
‘I was interested in who Shaumyan is. I made a conclusion that
if Shaumyan in 1918 – as I’m sure that on September 20th he was
killed, despite everything that is written and contradicts it,
he was beheaded, it is a fact – survived, he would have been a
typical Trotskyite. Shaumyan wrote two volumes of works. None of it
contains information on whether Lenin… He loved Lenin. I agree. He
communicated with Bolsheviks: Lunacharsky, Bogdanov, and so on. Even
though he was the second person in the state, there is no mention that
he communicated with Trotsky. It is impossible. I have read these two
volumes of his works, I was reproached for it, but I managed to cite
Shaumyan 107 times, only because I have read it. And as I have read
it, I came to the conclusion that he was a supporter of permanent
world revolution. He was confirmed. Lenin was confirmed too, but
Shaumyan was a dogmatic inflexible politician. His activity failed
from beginning to end.
‘He was a supporter of world revolution. But what did he suggest for
the Caucasus? His program on the ethnic issue was described by Lenin
as “a chirp from an Armenian henhouse.” I don’t lie, it is written
in Lenin’s collected works. It is an interesting appraisal of Shaumyan.
Lenin didn’t understand the ethnic issue, he had poor knowledge about
the ethnic issue on the peripheries. Lenin proposed Shaumyan, as a man
from the Caucasus, to write a work on the ethnic issue. He hesitated,
and Lenin said it would be better if Makharadze wrote the work,
and in the end Stalin did it. Stalin’s “Marxism and the ethnic issue.”
Shaumyan wouldn’t get through it, as his point of view was so dogmatic,
he thought only regional autonomies could be in the Caucasus. It is
an interesting point of view, and he stood for it till the end. Even
though the Bolsheviks’ session in 1917 focused on it, there was a
different position at the April conference in 1917 on the possibility
of granting autonomies. On April 1st, 1917, Stalin wrote a letter
to Shaumyan: “Comrade Shaumyan, Muslims want autonomy. Give it to
them.” He heard that something was going on. In April, at a meeting
of the two Bolsheviks in Baku, Stalin said that Shaumyan pitted the
two ethnic groups in Baku against each other, it was not our position.
‘What had Shaumyan done? I wrote that it was a Nazi action. Of
course, he didn’t know about existence of Nazism. You know better
than I when this notion appeared. The 7th Congress of Communist
Internationals gave a definition of Nazism. That it is an expression
of very aggressive positions of the bourgeoisie. But it went out of
date. I don’t agree with this definition, because Nazism needs another
definition. Nazism is pitting people against each other on ethnic and
religious principles. That is the most precise definition of Nazism.
And Shaumyan is a pioneer of it. Not because he was a confirmed Nazi,
but because he provided such a policy for improving his power.
‘There is an interesting moment in this context. Lenin appointed
Shaumyan the Extraordinary Commissar for Caucasus Affairs in December
1917. Stalin wrote to Lenin, who found himself in Finland in December
1917. Stalin wrote: “Proshyan came to me” Proshyan was a left
socialist-revolutionary and Stalin made a contemptuous remark “with
his Armenians. They demanded autonomy for Turkish Armenia.” Stalin was
very contemptuous of the issue. The Decree of Sovnarkom on Turkish
Armenia was called by Mikoyan “a senseless document.” But that is
another question. Shaumyan made a lot of mistakes. Lenin made the
mistake of appointing Shaumyan as the extraordinary commissar for
Caucasus affairs. The Georgians didn’t recognize him, they kicked him
out of Tbilisi. Then he returned to Baku, full of hatred for those
who didn’t agree with him. He had to make decisions.
‘The Bolsheviks didn’t have a majority in Baku. They failed to win the
first and the second elections. Why did he appear at the top of the
Baksoviet? Because the democratic coalition was unconsolidated. They
did not manage to agree between each other and decided he would be
the head, as at least the central government supported him. It was a
failing tactic. They all hated him. He couldn’t control the situation.
Why did he rely on Armenian armed groups? Because he had no other
groups. Read the memoirs of Baikov, who was born in Baku and later
migrated. He wrote about the mess: “What did he do, being the chairman
of the Sovnarkom?! Mistake after mistake.” It is disgusting how
Shaumyan characterizes the government. He wrote about Zevin’s wife,
Kolesnikova: “She is a crazy madwoman. Her only merit is that she
spent a lot of time in prison.” On Karinyan, the future academician
of the Science Academy: “An ignorant lawyer.” And on other people.
‘Shaumyan is a political loser. He destroyed the Baku Bolsheviks
organization ahead of the revolution. Nobody wrote about it. He was
elected twice at the fourth and the fifth sessions of the party. Read
verbatim records, Zhordania said: “How could you be elected from
the Borchaly organization, if there are no workers at all? Where
did you hold the conference?” The same thing concerned the fifth
session. What a mess was in the party organizations, elections were
held incorrectly. The Bolshevik party got the least number of votes in
October 1917, but Shaumyan became the chairman of the Baksoviet. There
were a lot of unclear moments which had to be studied.
‘I have been teaching the history of Soviet society for 35 years. I
don’t see a principle difference in writing about Shaumyan, Molotov,
Kaganovich or Khrushchev. I’m interested in the history of Soviet
society in general. It deserves to be studied. The Shaumyan issue is
not about Shaumyan, but about the system that they established. If
we have inter-ethnic conflicts and problems today, one of those who
laid a firm fundament for these conflicts was Shaumyan with his crazy
fantasies, misunderstanding of terms, and he dealt with things he
shouldn’t deal with, not only he, but many others too. The result
is obvious”.
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