History of the Baku Oil Industry - 15

After the discovery of the oil fields, Baku became a special place, where various economic and political interests of international coalitions, industrial clans and leaders were concentrated and clashed. VK begins publishing chapters from the book by Ismail Agakishiev "History of the Baku Oil Industry and the Second Oil Boom (second half of the 19th century - beginning of the 20thcentury.)". The book presents a historical analysis of the emergence and current state of the Azerbaijani oil industry.

During the oil boom, Baku became a second home for the people of different nationalities.  One of them was the world-famous engineer and entrepreneur Ludwig Nobel. Converted to Zoroastranism, he chose the Sarukhan temple of fire worshippers as the emblem of his company, while his first oil tanker was named Zoroastra.

The events of World War One showed the importance of the oil resources for all countries without exception. It became obvious that the progress of each country depends on the technical and technological level of its industry, including the oil sector. The military industry connected to the production of planes, tanks and transport became particularly important. Thus, the regions with fuel resources turned into the potential objects of future expansion, local conflicts and wars. Baku remained one of the main centers of oil extraction by the 1920s. Access to Baku oil became an important factor of military planning in the countries that claimed world leadership.

The February Revolution in Russian in 1917 started a new stage in the development of the regions rich in energy resources.  The agenda of the national muslim movements now included the goal of territorial autonomy. This was stated at the first all-Caucasian Muslim Congress in April 1917 in Baku and at the Muslim Congress in Moscow in May 1917. The latter Congress voted for a resolution saying that the federal democratic republic is a form of state organization that best suits the Muslim peoples. This resolution became the herald of the creation of a new independent state in the Caucasus – Azerbaijan.

After the fall of tsarism, the Provisional Government was generally positive about the federal reorganization of Russia. The final decision on this question was left to the Constitutional assembly that was supposed to be convened after the end of the war.


There is a point of view in academic literature that the Provisional Government continued active participation in the war in order to push Turkey away and gain control over the straits. It was claimed that Russia abstained from active involvement in the European theatre in order to activate military operations on the Caucasian front. The loss of Baku as an important energy basis would have created severe difficulties with fuel for the whole of Russia. That is why the offensive on the Caucasian front continued.

It is difficult to agree with this point of view. The operations on the German front continued, although unsuccessfully. The threat of losing Baku in 1917 was also hardly real, because the front was quite far from the city. In general, the Provisional Government was concerned with its own stability and did not get involved in the question of the oil industry. There was no time and resources for that. During 1917, the Baku industry managed to supply the country with the necessary oil and oil products.  The situation changed drastically when the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917. The intention of the Bolsheviks to conclude the peace treaty without the annexations and contributions and the beginning of the separate negotiations with the countries of the Quadruple Alliance  and the dissolution of the Constitutional Assembly changed the situation in all the parts of the Russian Empire. Keeping the Baku region had a special meaning for the Soviet government, therefore it invested a lot of effort to bring its supporters to power in the region. It was difficult to do, because there was only one Bolshevik from the South Caucasus in the Constitutional Assembly. An absolute majority of the regional deputies belonged to the national parties of Azerbaijan, Georgia or Armenia. Bolsheviks yielded even to the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks.

After the dissolution of the Constitutional Assembly in January 1918 the political crisis in the former Empire got only worse. If before that the democratic forces hoped to establish a democratic government and believed Bolshevik power to be temporary, the dissolution of the Constitutional Assembly showed that the Bolsheviks were not going to share their authority.

Noy Jordnia, the head of the government of the Georgian Democratic Republic (1918-1922) wrote in his memoirs: “After the dissolution of the Constitutional Assembly we remained alone and had to think of ourselves. It meant separation from Russian and the creation of life according to our own views. This conclusion came from the following known facts: the Bolshevik coup d’état that we did not recognize; the Brest peace treaty, due to which we lost a part of our territory.”