The first congress of the peoples of the East of 1920 was held in Baku, as the city embodied all the main goals of this event, the Dean of the Faculty of Political Science at Rio de Janeiro Federal University, Ph.D Beatriz Bissio said, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza on the sidelines of the international scientific conference titled 'The Centennial of the Russian Revolution of 1917'.
On the one hand, according to the scientist, then, as now, Baku was a very important oil producer in the region, so the economy of Soviet Russia and other Soviet regions depended heavily on Baku's oil. "In addition, it was a Muslim region where the Soviet government took power very recently. Therefore, on the one hand, it was a communist state with a solid economy, and on the other, a Muslim region, that is, a bridge to the East, which was very important for the Congress. Due to all these important factors, Baku was an ideal platform for its goals," Bissio stressed.
The issues important for the Revolution's future were discussed at the Congress, the existence of which prompted the Communists to understand that the path to rights and freedoms, the path of revolution, in all countries of the world don't have to be the same. "Moreover, there could be no single revolutionary path in Germany, Russia, Latin America and the East, because each region has its own characteristics - cultural, religious, linguistic. It seems to me that the Communists, at least some of them, understood that it is necessary to respect the choice of the revolutionary path that each of these peoples has made," the Brazilian political scientist said.
The scientist drew attention that the most powerful message of the First Congress of the Peoples of the East is that tolerance, understanding and respect for diversity, differences were key issues on the agenda in 1920. This is extremely important even now, when we are facing monstrous intolerance in many regions of the world.
Beatriz Bissio talked about the speeches of a woman delegate from Turkey who analyzed the role of women in the revolutionary, national struggle. "She mentions that the main problem of women in the Muslim world from the point of view of public opinion was how they should dress, which is nonsense. What really matters is equal rights in education, politics, self-government,and this is what needs to be achieved now," the professor said.
"She outlined the problem of the need to consider the struggle for women's rights in the framework of culture. At the conference she voiced such requirements as equal rights in marriage, the opportunity to say 'no' to polygamy, equal rights in education and politics," the scientist stressed.
"It is really important that in 1920 a Muslim woman made such a speech about the need for equality in any society, particularly in the socialist society," Beatriz Bissio concluded.
