Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic

The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (ArSSR), also known as Soviet Armenia, or simply Armenia, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union, located in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Soviet Armenia bordered the Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia and the independent states of Iran and Turkey. The capital of the republic was Yerevan and it contained thirty-seven districts (raions). Other major cities in the Armenian SSR included Leninakan, Kirovakan, Hrazdan, Etchmiadzin, and Kapan. The republic was governed by Communist Party of Armenia, a republican branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Soviet Armenia was established on 29 November 1920, with the Sovietisation of the short-lived First Republic of Armenia. Consequently, it has been referred to as the Second Republic of Armenia. It became part of the Transcaucasian SFSR (TSFSR), along with neighboring Georgia and Azerbaijan, which comprised one of the four founding republics of the USSR. When the TSFSR was dissolved in 1936, Armenia became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union.

As part of the Soviet Union, Armenia initially experienced stabilization under the administration of Alexander Miasnikian during Vladimir Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP). During its seventy-one year history, the republic was transformed from a largely agricultural hinterland to an important industrial production center, while its population almost quadrupled from around 880,000 in 1926 to 3.3 million in 1989 due to natural growth and large-scale influx of Armenian genocide survivors and their descendants.

Soviet Armenia suffered during the Great Purge of Joseph Stalin, but contributed significantly to the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War of World War II. After the death of Stalin, Armenia experienced a new period of liberalization during the Khrushchev Thaw. Following the Brezhnev era, Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms of ''glasnost'' and ''perestroika'' saw the rise of nationalist movements challenging the republic's territorial configuration within the Soviet Union. Local authorities declared state sovereignty on 23 August 1990 and boycotted the March 1991 referendum on the New Union Treaty. An independence referendum held on 21 September 1991 was supported by more than 99% of voters. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991, the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic ceased to exist and Armenia became an independent state.

Formal name

Following the Sovietization of Armenia, the republic became officially known as the ''Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia''. After the dissolution of the TSFSR in 1936, the name was changed to the ''Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic'', which was used until 1991.

In Armenian, the official name had been variously changed since the creation of the ArSSR. It was initially "''Hayastani Socʼialistakan Xorhrdayin Hanrapetutʼyun''" (, ''Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia''). The second name, in accordance to the then latest Soviet Constitution, was adopted on 5 December 1936 as ''Haykakan Xorhrdayin Socʻialistakan Hanrapetutʻyun'' (, ''Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic''), with the term ''haykakan'' ( հայկական, "Armenian") replacing ''Hayastani'' ( Հայաստան, "Armenia"), and transposing the second (սոցիալիստական, ''socialist'') and third (Խորհրդային, ''soviet'') words. It was ratified by the ninth All-Armenian Extraordinary Congress of Soviets on 23 March 1937.

Thereafter, direct borrowings of ''soviet'' (սովետական, ''sovetakan'') and ''republic'' (ռեսպուբլիկա, ''ṙespublika'') were included in the formal name on 22 August 1940, in accordance with a regulation approved by the People's Commissariat of Enlightenment of the Armenian SSR. In 1966, the original term for republic was restored.

On 25 June 1989, the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR passed the bill that constitutionally restored the 1936 name, as well as in other legislative acts.
After declaring the sovereign polity, the Supreme Council adopted the Declaration of Independence in which the formal name was declared ''Hayastani Hanrapetut’yun'' (, ''Republic of Armenia'') on 23 August 1990.

History

Sovietization

Prior to Soviet rule, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, Dashnaksutiun) had governed the First Republic of Armenia. The Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia was founded in 1920. Armenian diasporas were divided about this; supporters of the nationalist Dashnaksutiun did not support the Soviet state, while supporters of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) were more positive about the newly founded Soviet state.

Eastern Armenia had been part of the Russian Empire, since the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay up until the October Revolution, and partly confined to the borders of the Erivan Governorate. After the October Revolution, the Bolshevik government led by Vladimir Lenin announced that minority cultures of the empire could pursue a course of self-determination, and in May 1918 Armenia, and its neighbors Azerbaijan and Georgia, declared their independence from Russian rule and each established separate republics. However, the Red Army overthrew the Azerbaijan Republic and established Azerbaijan SSR by May 1920, and the Armenian government, worried about their sovereignty, responded by sending a mission to Moscow in May to convince the Bolsheviks that "an independent and friendly Armenia would be better for Russian interests in the region". In the meantime, the Bolshevik movement had already arrived in Armenia. Although a minority, the Bolsheviks were vocal and managed to lead a small May uprising in Alexandropol, the largest city of the Eastern Armenia, demanding the establishment of a Soviet Republic. The revolt was suppressed by the Armenian government by May 14 and its leaders executed or exiled.

The sources mentioned in ''A Concise History of the Armenian People'' give different interpretations of the precursor events that led to the Red Army's invasion of Armenia and the establishment of Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (ArSSR). The sources, sympathetic to the Armenian nationalist and anti-Sovietism movement ( Dashnaks), claim that the Bolsheviks gave the Armenians false assurances, while awaiting the results of the Soviet-Turkish negotiations. The anti-Dashnak sources point out that the Dashnak government was to blame, because the majority of them refused to work with the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, bringing tension to the relations and forcing the Russian Bolshevik into making a treaty with the Turkish government, signed in Moscow on August 20, 1920. A number of Bolsheviks insisted that the Turks had to give Armenians some territory from western Armenia, but the Turks refused to discuss the issue of borders. Both Joseph Stalin, who did not favor the Armenians, and Vladimir Lenin, who was more concerned about other diplomatic matters, agreed to the proposals of the agreement. Additionally, the Russian Bolsheviks assured cooperation and noninterference during the Turkish invasion of Armenia in late September, the agreement which they effectively was broken shortly afterwards.

By mid-November, the Turks recaptured most of the territories they controlled before the end of WWI, and the Russian government, worried by the rapid advancement of the Turkish armies, approached the Yerevan government and offered to intercede on their behalf. At the end of November the Bolsheviks encroached onto Armenian territory and sent an ultimatum, proposing that "Armenia's salvation lay in becoming a Bolshevik state, and cutting its ties to the West". Clench between two powerful forces, the Armenian government sent the former Prime Minister Alexander Khatisian to negotiate with the Turks and appointed a team headed by General Drastamat Kanayan to transfer the government to the Bolsheviks. On December 2, General Kanayan signed a short-living pact with the Bolsheviks guaranteeing Armenian sovereignty as "independent Soviet state", and moreover, the Bolsheviks promised to restore its pre-September 1920 borders. Dashnaks, as well as other party representatives were guaranteed freedom and continued to serve the state in a number of positions. "A few days" later, Bolsheviks of the Revolutionary Committee, led by Sarkis Kasyan and Avis Nurijanyan and supported by the Red Army, arrived in Yerevan and, violating the agreement made with General Kanayan, arrested a number of Dashnak officials and officers, "wreak nghavoc for the next two months". In the aftermath, the nationalist of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation started a short-lived, anti-Bolshevik rebellion in February–April 1921.

After the Yerevan was recaptured from the anti-Bolshevik rebellion, the Turks and Russians, without any representatives from Armenia or Georgia, negotiated the fate of Armenia and the rest of Transcaucasia. In the treaties of Moscow and Kars, Turkey renounced its claims on Batumi to Georgia and guaranteed the independence of Armenian Republic—in exchange they gained rights to the regions of Kars, Ardahan, and Surmalu, including the medieval Armenian capital Ani and the cultural icon of the Armenian people (Mount Ararat). Additionally, despite opposition from Armenian Bolshevik revolutionary Alexander Miasnikian, the Soviet government granted Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan to Soviet Azerbaijan, as they did not have direct control over those areas at the time and were primarily concerned with restoring regional stability. Finally, the sides agreed that the treaty would be later signed and ratified by the Transcaucasian Republics.

New Economic Policy (NEP)

From 12 March 1922 to 5 December 1936, Armenia was a part of the Transcaucasian SFSR (TSFSR) together with the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. The policies of the first Soviet Armenian government (the Revolutionary Committee, headed by young, inexperienced, and militant communists such as Sarkis Kasyan and Avis Nurijanyan) were implemented in a high-handed manner and did not take into consideration the poor conditions of the republic and the general weariness of the people after years of conflict and civil strife. As the Soviet Armenian historian Bagrat Borian, who was to later perish during Stalin's purges, wrote in 1929:

Such was the degree and scale of the requisitioning and terror imposed by the local Cheka that in February 1921 the Armenians, led by former leaders of the republic, rose up in revolt and briefly unseated the communists in Yerevan. The Red Army, which was campaigning in Georgia at the time, returned to suppress the revolt and drove its leaders out of Armenia.

Convinced that these heavy-handed tactics were the source of the alienation of the native population to Soviet rule, in 1921, Lenin appointed Myasnikyan, an experienced administrator, to carry out a more moderate policy and one better attuned to Armenian national sensibilities. With the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP), Armenians began to enjoy a period of relative stability. Life under Soviet rule proved to be a soothing balm in contrast to the turbulent years of the First Republic. Alexander Tamanian began to realize his city plan for Yerevan and the population received medicine, food, as well as other provisions from Moscow.

Prior to his debilitating illness, Lenin encouraged the policy of ''korenizatsiya'' or "nativization" in the republics which essentially called for the different nationalities of the Soviet Union to "administer their republics", establishing native-language schools, newspapers, and theaters. In Armenia, the Soviet government directed all illiterate citizens up to the age of fifty to attend school and learn to read Armenian, which became the official language of the republic. Throughout the Soviet era, the number of Armenian-language newspapers (''Sovetakan Hayastan''), magazines (''Garun''), and journals (''Sovetakan Grakanutyun'', '' Patma-Banasirakan Handes'') grew. A Kurdish newspaper, '' Riya Teze'' (''The New Path''), was established in Armenia in 1930.

An institute for culture and history was created in 1921 in Ejmiatsin and the Yerevan Opera Theatre and a dramatic theater in Yerevan were built and established in the 1920s and 1930s. Popular works in the fields of art and literature were produced by Martiros Saryan, Yeghishe Charents, Axel Bakunts, and Shushanik Kurghinian who all adhered to the socialist dictum of creating works "national in form, socialist in content." Armenkino released the first Armenian feature film, '' Namus'' (Honor) in 1925 and the first Kurdish film, '' Zare'', in 1926. Both were directed by Hamo Bek-Nazaryan, who would later direct the first Armenian sound film '' Pepo'', released in 1935.

Stalinism and the Great Purge

The situation in Armenia and the USSR significantly changed after the death of Lenin and the rise of Joseph Stalin to Soviet leader. In the Caucasus, Stalin's ally in Georgia, Lavrentiy Beria, sought to consolidate his control over the region, resulting in a political struggle with Armenian First Secretary Aghasi Khanjian. The struggle culminated in Khanjian's assassination by Beria in Tiflis (Tbilisi) on 9 July 1936, beginning the Great Purge in Armenia. At first, Beria framed Khanjian's death as "suicide", but soon condemned him for abetting "rabid nationalist elements".

After Khanjian's death, Beria promoted his loyalists in Armenia, Amatuni Amatuni as Armenian First Secretary and Khachik Mughdusi as chief of the Armenian NKVD. Under the command of Beria's allies, the campaign against "enemies" intensified. Expressions of "nationalism" were suspect and many leading Armenian intellectuals were executed or imprisoned, including Charents, Bakunts, Gurgen Mahari, Vahan Totovents, Nersik Stepanyan, and others. According to Amatuni in a June 1937 letter to Stalin, 1,365 people were arrested in the ten months after the death of Khanjian, among them 900 "Dashnak-Trotskyists".

The arrest and death of Sahak Ter-Gabrielyan in August 1937 was a turning point in the repressions. When being interrogated by Mughdusi, Ter-Gabrielyan "either jumped or was thrown from" the window of the NKVD building in Yerevan. Stalin was angered that Mughdusi and Amatuni neglected to inform him about the incident. In response, in September 1937, he sent Georgy Malenkov, Mikhail Litvin, and later Anastas Mikoyan to oversee a purge of the Communist Party of Armenia. During his trip to Armenia, Mikoyan tried, but failed, to save one individual ( Daniel "Danush" Shahverdyan) from being executed. More than a thousand people were arrested and seven of nine members of the Armenian Politburo were sacked from office. The trip also resulted in the appointment of a new Armenian Party leadership, headed by Grigory Arutinov, who was approved by Beria.

The Armenian Apostolic Church was not spared from the repressions. Soviet attacks against the Church under Stalin were known since 1929, but momentarily eased to improve the Soviet Union's relations with the Armenian diaspora. In 1932, Khoren I became Catholicos of All Armenians and assumed the leadership of the church. However, in the late 1930s, the Armenian NKVD, led by Mughdusi and his successor, Viktor Khvorostyan, renewed the attacks against the Church. These attacks culminated in the 1938 murder of Khoren and the closing of the Catholicate of Ejmiatsin, an act for which Beria is usually held responsible. However, the Church survived and was later revived when Stalin eased restrictions on religion at the end of World War II.

In addition to the repression of the Church, tens of thousands of Armenians were executed or deported, as with various other ethnic minorities living in the Soviet Union under Stalin. In 1936, Beria and Stalin worked to deport Armenians to Siberia in an attempt to bring Armenia's population under 700,000 in order to justify an annexation into Georgia.

Great Patriotic War

Armenia was spared the devastation and destruction that wrought most of the western Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War of World War II. The Wehrmacht never reached the South Caucasus, which they intended to do in order to capture the oil fields in Azerbaijan. Still, Armenia played a valuable role in the war in providing food, manpower and war material. An estimated 300–500,000 Armenians served in the war, almost half of whom did not return. Many attained the highest honor of Hero of the Soviet Union. Over sixty Armenians were promoted to the rank of general, and with an additional four eventually achieving the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union: Ivan Bagramyan (the first non- Slavic commander to hold the position of front commander when he was assigned to be the commander of the First Baltic Front in 1943), Admiral Ivan Isakov, Hamazasp Babadzhanian, and Sergei Khudyakov. Another prominent wartime figure was Artem Mikoyan, the younger brother of Anastas, who, along with Mikhail Gurevich, was the designer and co-founder of the Soviet MiG fighter jet company.

In an effort to shore up popular support for the war effort, the Soviet government allowed certain expressions of nationalism with the publication of Armenian novels such as Derenik Demirchian's '' Vardanank'', the production of films like '' David Bek'' (1944), and the easing of restrictions placed against the Church. Stalin temporarily relaxed his attacks on religion during the war. This led to the election of bishop Gevorg in 1945 as new Catholicos Gevorg VI. He was subsequently allowed to reside in Ejmiatsin.

At the end of the war, after Germany's capitulation, the Soviet government attempted to annul the Treaty of Kars, allowing it to regain the provinces of Kars, Ardahan, Artvin

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases