Stepan Shaumyan: doomed to oblivion?

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”.