The Government, which had vainly asked Georgia for assistance, and had proposed to Armenia, before the common danger, to put an end to the hostilities at Karabagh in order to withdraw its troops and dispatch them to the northern frontier, was compelled on April 28 to hand over the power to the people’s commissioners. The members of the Cabinet, against whom the Bolshevists had issued a writ of arrest, hurried away and the communists immediately resorted to their usual methods of terrorism and plunder.
Instead of the “Moslem Brethren” the Bolshevist emissaries had spoken of, the inhabitants of Baku saw some Russian Bolshevists, accompanied by Armenians who had been expelled by the former Government, take possession of the town. As soon as they arrived, the latter arrested all the foreign missions, except the Persian mission. As the national army was detained on the southern frontier by constant Armenian attacks, the invaders dispatched Russian detachments in all directions, to take possession of the entire country. They addressed an ultimatum to Armenia, demanding the evacuation of Karabagh. At the same time Russian forces were sent via Zakatali towards the Georgian frontier. At Baku the Moslem militia was replaced by Russian workmen, and at the same time orders were given immediately to disarm the population of Ganjha (Elisavetpol), where the governor and some notables were arrested and incarcerated.
It is reported that at Ganjha 15,000 Moslems were slaughtered by the Reds.
A correspondent of Il Secolo, on coming back from Caucasus, wrote an article entitled “The East on Fire” on May 25, 1920:
“The information that we have just received from Constantinople, Anatolia, Caucasus, and Persia could not possibly be worse. Bolshevism has won over Caucasus to its policy, and from Baku it is carrying on a more and more energetic propaganda in Persia and Turkistan. The British are already fighting in the latter country with Bolshevism. All this might have been foreseen.
“As it is cut off from Europe and encircled by hostile bayonets, Bolshevism, which originated in Asia, is now spreading over Asia. This does not mean that Caucasus and Asia are ripe for a revolution of the poor against the rich. It would be a foolish thing to say this. In Asia everybody is poor, but nobody starves. In Asia there is no industry, there are no organisations; therefore, there is no socialist movement on the whole. But anybody who has been to Caucasus lately must necessarily have noticed, to his great surprise, evidences of a Moslem Bolshevism headed by Enver Pasha and his brother Noury. The Republic of the mountaineers of Daghestan, the first that joined the Bolshevist movement and made easier the advance of the Reds towards the south, is headed by Enver Pasha. In Azerbaïjan many fanatic admirers of Russia are to be met with.
“And what are the reasons for this? They are many. First, the desperate condition of the new States which came into being immediately after the Brest-Litovsk peace. In Paris the Conference laid down frontiers, but never thought the first thing to do was to put an end to the economic crisis prevailing in those countries. And so an absurd thing happened—wealthy countries living in frightful misery, and issuing paper currency which was of no value on the world’s markets. Typical is the case of Azerbaïjan, which had millions of tons of petroleum at Baku, but did not know where or how to export them.”
In July it was announced that the situation of the Moslems in Armenia had become critical, as for the last two months the Erivan Government and the “Tashnak” party had been carrying on a policy of violence and massacres against them. What remained of the Moslem populations had been compelled to leave their homes and property and flee to Persia. The Armenian Government had even appointed a Commission especially to draw up a list of the crops left by the Moslems and the Greeks in the district. At the end of June, in the district of Zanguibazar, about twenty Moslem villages had been destroyed by bombardments and their inhabitants put to death. By that time the Moslem population of Transcaucasia was being attacked both by the Armenians and the Bolshevists.
M. Khan-Khoiski, ex-Prime Minister, and Dr. H. Aghaef, former Vice-President of the Parliament of Azerbaïjan, were assassinated at Tiflis, where they had sought refuge, the former on June 19 and the latter on July 19, by Armenians belonging to the “Tashnak” party, of which the leader of the Armenian Government and most Ministers are members.