What role did Dashnaktsutyun play in collapse of Russian Empire and USSR

A few days ago, Moldovan news channel TVC 21 broadcasted a documentary film about victims of terrorism and ethnic conflicts "Domino Principle", filmed by the Eurasian Film Schools Alumni Association with participation of historians and documentary filmmakers from Russia, Israel, Hungary, Serbia and Germany. Authors of this film talk about collapse of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, emphasizing the fact that the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun played a big role in the collapse of these great states.

In an hour long film authors discussed the history of this party, its program, which envisaged creation of armed groups, designed to fight against what was percieved as negative phenomena, including through terrorist methods. Documentary also tells about the beginning of subversive activities of the Dashnak, in particular when it seized the building of the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul in 1896. Then, after taking European staff hostage and threatening to blow up the bank, terrorists demanded to carry out political reforms from Turkish government. As a result of negotiations, they left this bank thanks personal guarantee of the Russian embassy's representative.

However, at the beginning of 20th century, this party took anti-Russian positions - the reason for this was a government decree, aimed at limiting economic base of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which undermined financial well-being of nationalist parties. In 1903, terrorists from the Hnchak Party organized an attack on commander in chief of the Russian army in the Caucasus, Prince Vasily Vasilyevich Golitsyn, who was considered to be responsible for the property confiscating policy of the Armenian church.

Nationalists from Dashnaktsutyun and Hnchak also killed banker Jamgarov, Baku governor, Prince Michael Nakashidze, General Maksud Alikhanov-Avarsky, carpet dealer Tavshanjyan. Many rich Armenians often received threats that they will be killed if they don't pay "taxes" to the Dashnaktsutyun.

In the modern history, Dashnaktsutyun is also accused of a series of terrorist attacks in Moscow in 1977, carried out by Armenian terrorists Hakob Stepanyan, Zaven Baghdasaryan and Stepan Zatikyan, as well as of fueling conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, which became the catalyst for collapse of the USSR. Authors of this film's note that several Armenian advisers and assistants were close associates of Mikhail Gorbachev. It was stressed that by the order of Western political circles they fueled national conflicts, primarily the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which led to a chain reaction in the entire Soviet space and, ultimately, to the collapse of the Soviet Union.