KALIGIAN ANALYZES ARF AND OTTOMAN RELATIONS AT NAASR
Armenian Weekly
February 1, 2010
Dr. Dikran Kaligian presented a lecture entitled "The Armenian
Revolutionary Federation Under Ottoman Rule, 1908-14," on Thursday,
January 21, at the National Association for Armenian Studies and
Research (NAASR) Center. The lecture was the first of the year
for NAASR.
Kaligian is a historian who has taught at Clark University, Regis
College, and other institutions, as well as the managing editor of
the Armenian Review and a former chairman of the Armenian National
Committee of America, Eastern U.S. He is the author of Armenian
Organization and Ideology Under Ottoman Rule, 1908-1914 (Transaction,
2009), which provides a comprehensive picture of relations between
the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) and the Committee of
Union and Progress (CUP) both before and after the CUP reached power
in the constitutional revolution of 1908.
Kaligian explained that his reason for undertaking this particular
research was that there is a lot of research that has been done on the
Armenian Genocide "but the years immediately before are critical…The
party that will end up implementing the Armenian Genocide is the CUP,"
and yet the CUP had been allied with the Armenians and in particular
the ARF. "How do you go from two parties, both revolutionary parties,
both working to overthrow Sultan Abdul Hamid, to just a few years
later one committing genocide against the people of the other,"
Kaligian asked. "That’s the question I wanted to look at."
An "Armenian Uprising"?
He briefly described the Turkish state-aligned historiography,
which generally describes "how there was no genocide and why it was
justified," and places blame for violence against the Armenians,
including the 1909 Adana Massacres and the Armenian Genocide, as a
natural response to an Armenian uprising. The ARF is often portrayed
as leading this uprising and its long-term alliance with the CUP is
seen as entirely insincere.
In his book, Kaligian "traces ARF policies and initiatives to answer
the important question of whether or not the party and the Armenian
community in general largely remained loyal to the constitutional
regime and only resumed their appeals to Europe after the government’s
repeated failures to implement promised reforms." Making extensive
use of the ARF archives in Watertown, Kaligian was able to give a
detailed picture of the inner workings of the party and its internal
debates and discussions.
Backtracking to the turn of the 20th century, Kaligian explained,
the ARF and Verakazmial Hnchakian Party entered into a dialogue with
Turkish opposition groups and both parties took part in the First
Congress of Ottoman Opposition Forces in 1902 along with Turkish, Arab,
Greek, Kurdish, Albanian, Circassian, and Jewish representatives. At
the end of 1907, the Second Congress of Ottoman Opposition Forces
met in Paris. This congress resolved to overthrow the Sultan and
to restore the Ottoman constitution using radical means, including
refusal to pay taxes, propaganda, and armed resistance, if necessary.
When the Sultan was indeed overthrown in 1908 and the Ottoman
constitution reim-plemented, there was jubilation among all of the
opposition parties, including the ARF. The ARF published a program
which recognized the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire
and called for a federal, decentralized government that would allow
a high degree of local autonomy. Parliamentary elections held late
in the year brought a multi-ethnic governing body which included 11
Armenians into existence.
Adana Crisis
However, in the spring of 1909 a counterrevolution temporarily drove
the CUP from power and in April 1909 the Adana massacres took place,
claiming upwards of 20,000 Arme-nian lives in and near Adana.
Kaligian stated that this "created the first major test for ARF-CUP
relations," and the ARF was faced with a decision: to continue or to
break off their cooperation with the CUP.
The party, Kaligian explained, had to weigh the degree of CUP
culpability in the massacres against the benefits of continuing to
work with the CUP toward a true constitutional regime. The party was
"torn between solidarity with the progressive elements within the
CUP and their revulsion at the murderous acts of its chauvinistic
elements." While the ARF clearly wanted to assist the progressive
elements within the CUP, they were forced to gamble on whether Adana
was an aberration or a sign of things to come. This, Kaligian said,
with their credibility at stake, was "a serious political gamble by
the ARF." The decision made-to continue cooperation under certain
conditions-may have been determined partly by self-interest, insofar
as the ARF "may not have wanted to admit their policy of cooperation
was a failure."
Although there was heightened distrust after Adana, Kaligian stated,
apart from that major incident conditions did, indeed, improve for
Armenians under the constitution, with acts of violence substantially
decreased.
However, less headway was made on the other issue most critical to the
ARF, that of land reform. While the CUP never officially retreated
from its promises to restore lands confiscated from Armenians under
the Sultan and to improve conditions for the peasants, neither did they
take any action, ultimately convincing the ARF that their pledges had
not been made in good faith. The CUP’s failure to act proved to be a
"crippling blow" to relations with the ARF, said Kaligian.
Kaligian explained that in a joint CUP and ARF meeting in
Constantinople on April 1, 1911, in response to worsening security
conditions "the CUP agreed to take steps to control persecution by
having the government arm all villages, Armenian and Kurdish."
Impatience with Unfulfilled Promises
In the summer of 1911, the ARF held its 6th World Congress, with the
main item on the agenda being relations with the CUP. The congress
passed a resolution stating, among other things, that "despite a
series of hopeful initiatives … the CUP has gradually withdrawn from
constitutional and democratic principles" and "failed to take steps
to combat and cleanse itself of right-wing elements which, increasing
their numbers over time, have developed a preponderant influence."
Therefore, "if, after the party’s appeal, the CUP and the cabinets
drawn from it do not show through their deeds that the realization of
their repeated promises are imminent, the Western Bureau is authorized
to cease its relations with the CUP."
Kaligian noted that it was not simply a clear case of the CUP’s being
uninterested in carrying out promised reforms. The CUP, in fact, was
struggling to maintain control and was confronted with a series of
crises, culminating in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. The year 1912 would
be critical for the two parties: disagreements over the parliamentary
elections that year, in which the CUP sought to limit the number of
potential Armenian elected representatives, combined with ongoing
frustration over unkept promises, led the ARF to break off relations.
In the wake of the Balkan Wars, the European powers sought to place
inspectors to oversee the Armenian provinces and institute the
promised reforms. Such a measure was bitterly opposed by the CUP and
the Ottoman leadership in general. For various reasons, the inspectors
did not arrive in Constantinople until May 1914-only months before
the outbreak of World War I and too late to have any impact.
With the outbreak of war, Kaligian explained, a final breach came
when the CUP offered the ARF a deal it could not accept: to organize
an uprising among the Armenian population in the Russian Empire
(roughly in today’s Republic of Armenia) in exchange for autonomy
after the war. The ARF refused, saying that Armenians in Russia would
do their duty as Russian subjects and the Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire would do their duty as citizens. Talaat Pasha and the CUP
leadership seemingly regarded this as a final act of be-trayal.
Kaligian ended his presentation with the outbreak of World War I.
Following his lecture there was a lengthy discussion period and he
signed copies of Armenian Organization and Ideology Under Ottoman
Rule, 1908-1914.
More information about the lecture is available by calling
617-489-1610, faxing 617-484-1759, e-mailing [email protected], or writing
to NAASR, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA 02478.