26 Baku Commissars
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The 26 Baku Commissars were
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
and Left Socialist Revolutionary (SR) members of the Baku Commune. The commune was established in the city of
Baku Baku (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Azerbaijan, largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and in the Caucasus region. Baku is below sea level, which makes it the List of capital ci ...
, which was then the capital of the briefly independent
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (), also known as the Azerbaijan People's Republic (; ), was the first secular democracy, democratic republic in the Turkic peoples, Turkic and Muslim worlds. *Tadeusz Swietochowski. ''Russia and Azerbaijan: ...
, and is now the capital of the
Republic of Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russi ...
. The commune, led by
Stepan Shahumyan Stepan Georgevich Shaumian (; ; 1 October 1878 – 20 September 1918) was an Armenians, Armenian Bolsheviks, Bolshevik revolutionary and politician active throughout the Caucasus. His role as a leader of the Russian Revolution in the Caucasus ...
, existed until 26 July 1918 when the Bolsheviks were forced out of power by a coalition of Dashnaks, Right SRs and
Mensheviks The Mensheviks ('the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist ...
. After their overthrow, the Baku
commissar Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means ' commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and ...
s attempted to leave Baku but were captured by the Centrocaspian Dictatorship and imprisoned. On 14 September 1918, during the fall of Baku to Ottoman forces,
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
soldiers broke into their prison and freed the commissars; they then boarded a ship to Krasnovodsk, where they were promptly arrested by local authorities and, on the night of 20 September, executed by a firing squad between the stations of Pereval and Akhcha-Kuyma on the Transcaspian Railway by Turkmen SR soldiers of the Ashkhabad Committee. They were executed for essentially letting the Islamic Army of the Caucasus seize Baku.


Baku Commune

The Baku Commune lasted from 13 April to 25 July 1918. It came to power after the bloody confrontation with the
Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
population, known as the March Days in Baku. During its brief existence, the Commune had to face several problems: from the shortage of food and supplies to the threat of a strong
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...
Army which wanted to attack Baku. Despite the difficult conditions, the Commune carried out several social reforms, such as the
nationalization Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with p ...
of the oil industry. Modeled on the Paris Commune, the Baku Commune included its own
Council of People's Commissars The Council of People's Commissars (CPC) (), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (), were the highest executive (government), executive authorities of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the Soviet Union (USSR), and the Sovi ...
(Sovnarkom) and Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. On 5 June 1918 the Baku Red Army repulsed an assault by overwhelming Ottoman troops, but later it launched an unsuccessful assault on
Ganja ''Ganja'' (, ; ) is one of the oldest and most commonly used synonyms for cannabis flower, specifically marijuana or hashish. Its usage in English dates to before 1689. Etymology ''Ganja'' is borrowed from Hindi (, IPA: aːɲd͡ʒa ...
, the headquarters of the Ottoman Army of Islam, and was obliged to retreat to Baku. At this point, Dashnaks, Right SRs and Mensheviks started to negotiate with General Dunsterville, the commander of the British troops in Persia, inviting his troops to Baku in order to defend the city from an imminent Ottoman attack. The Bolsheviks and their leftist allies opposed this scheme, but on 25 July the majority of the Soviet voted to call in the British, and the Bolsheviks resigned. The Baku Commune was imprisoned by Turkmen Social Revolutionaries for participation in unlawful military formations, particularly for the March Days atrocities and was replaced by the Central-Caspian Dictatorship. In contrast to what happened in many parts of Russia, where the Bolsheviks earned a reputation for ruthlessness executing those who did not support them, the Bolsheviks of Baku were not so strict. The
Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...
in Baku executed only two persons, both members of the Soviet caught in embezzling public funds: the Commissar for Finance, Aleksandr Kireev, and the commissar of the steamship ''Meve'', Sergei Pokrovskii.


The executions

After the fall of the Baku Soviet in July 1918, the Bolshevik leaders and some loyal troops tried to reach
Astrakhan Astrakhan (, ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the Caspian Depression, from the Caspian Se ...
, the only Caspian port still in Bolshevik hands. However, their ship was intercepted by the military vessels of the Caspian fleet and after undergoing an hour's bombardment in mid-sea they surrendered and returned to Baku. Most of the Bolshevik militants were arrested and remained in prison until a commando unit led by
Anastas Mikoyan Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan (; , ; ; – 21 October 1978) was a Soviet statesman, diplomat, and Bolshevik revolutionary who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the head of state of the Soviet Union. As a member of th ...
freed them from their prison. Shahumyan, Dzhaparidze, Azizbekov, and their comrades, along with Mikoyan, then boarded the ship ''Turkmen'', intending to reach Astrakhan by sea. According to recent historians, the sailors chose instead to sail to Krasnovodsk for fear of being arrested in Astrakhan. At Krasnovodsk the commissars were arrested by the town's commandant who requested further orders from the " Ashkhabad Committee", led by the Socialist Revolutionary Fyodor Funtikov, about what should be done with them. Three days later, British Major-General Wilfrid Malleson, on hearing of their arrest, contacted Britain's liaison-officer in Ashkhabad, Captain Reginald Teague-Jones, to suggest that the commissars be handed over to British forces to be used as hostages in exchange for British citizens held by the Soviets. That same day, Teague-Jones attended the committee's meeting in Ashkabad which had the task of deciding the fate of the Commissars. For some reason, Teague-Jones did not communicate Malleson's request to the committee, and claimed he left before a decision was made. He further claimed that the next day he discovered the committee had eventually decided to issue orders that the commissars should be executed. According to historian Richard H. Ullman, Teague-Jones could have stopped the executions if he wanted since the Ashkabad Committee was dependent on British support and could not refuse a request from its powerful ally, but he decided not to do so. On the night of 20 September, three days after being arrested, twenty-six of the commissars were executed by a firing squad between the stations of Pereval and Akhcha-Kuyma on the
Trans-Caspian railway The Trans-Caspian Railway (also called the Central Asian Railway, ) is a railway that follows the path of the Silk Road through much of western Central Asia. It was built by the Russian Empire during its expansion into Central Asia in the 19t ...
. How Anastas Mikoyan, who was part of the group, managed to survive is still uncertain, as is the reason why his life was spared. In 1922, V. Chaikin, a Socialist Revolutionary journalist, published a description of the moments before the execution.


Impact

Soviet officials later blamed the executions on British agents acting in the Baku area at the time. When Soviet rule was established in the whole Caspian area, Funtikov, the head of the Ashkhabad 'Directorate' responsible for the executions, was imprisoned. Funtikov put all blame for the executions onto Britain, and in particular Teague-Jones who, he claimed, had ordered him to have the commissars shot. Funtikov was tried and shot in Baku in 1926. Britain denied involvement in the incident, saying it was done by local officials without any knowledge of the British. This accusation caused a further souring of relations between Britain and the nascent Soviet government and helped lead to the confrontational attitude of both sides in the coming years. According to
Soviet historiography Soviet historiography is the methodology of history studies by historians in the Soviet Union (USSR). In the USSR, the study of history was marked by restrictions imposed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Soviet historiography i ...
, two British officers on board the commissars' ship ordered it to sail to Krasnovodsk instead of Astrakhan, where they found a government led by SRs and British officers who immediately ordered the arrest of the commissars. The Soviets would later immortalize the 26 commissars as fallen heroes, through movies, artwork, stamps, and public works including the 26 Commissars Memorial in Baku. In Isaak Brodsky's famous painting, British officers are depicted as being present at the executions.


Soviet investigations

Boris Vladimirovich Sennikov published a book in 2004 about his findings on the
Tambov Rebellion The Tambov Rebellion of 1920–1922 was one of the largest and best-organized peasant rebellions challenging the Bolshevik government during the Russian Civil War. The uprising took place in the territories of the modern Tambov Oblast and part ...
where he mentioned several facts about the event. Sennikov claims that the famous Brodsky's painting is an invention of the Soviet historiography. The truth was established by the special commission of the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee The All-Russian Central Executive Committee () was (June – November 1917) a permanent body formed by the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies (held from June 16 to July 7, 1917 in Petrograd), then became the ...
(VTsIK) that arrived from Moscow. The commission was headed by Vadim Chaikin ( PSR). The commission also consisted of a big group of a high-ranking Moscow's
Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...
officers headed by
Yakov Peters Yakov (alternative spellings: Jakov or Iakov, cyrl, Яков) is a Russian or Hebrew variant of the given names Jacob and James. People also give the nickname Yasha ( cyrl, Яша) or Yashka ( cyrl, Яшка) used for Yakov. Notable people People ...
, an international criminal associated with the Siege of Sidney Street. Sennikov also brings up a quote of Chaikin in the article of Suren Gazaryan "That should not be repeated" in the Leningrad magazine " Zvezda": "The painting of Brodsky ''Execution of the 26 Baku Commissars'' is historically false. They were not shot, but rather decapitated. And the executioner of the penalty was a single man - a Turkmen, a gigantic strength
bogatyr A bogatyr (, ; , ) or vityaz (, ; , ) is a stock character in medieval Bylina, East Slavic legends, akin to a Western European knight-errant. Bogatyrs appear mainly in Kievan Rus', Rus' epic poems—Bylina, ''bylinas''. Historically, they came i ...
. That Turkmen by himself with his own hands using a
shashka The shashka or shasqua (Abkhaz language, Abkhaz: Аҳәа, Асахәа; , – ''long-knife''; Georgian language, Georgian: ჭოლაური, ch'olauri; Chechen language, Chechen: ''Гlорда, Гlурда''; ) is a kind of Caucasian sabr ...
beheaded all of them." The pit with remains of the commissars and their heads was uncovered under the surveillance of the VTsIK special commission and representatives of
Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...
. The report on the death of Baku commissars was sent by the commission to VTsIK,
Sovnarkom The Council of People's Commissars (CPC) (), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (), were the highest executive authorities of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the Soviet Union (USSR), and the Soviet republics from 1917 ...
, and the Central Committee of RKP(b). In 1922 Vadim Chaikin published his book ''To the history of the Russian Revolution'' through the Grazhbin Publishing (
Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
) commemorating the first part "Execution of 26 Baku Commissars" to the event. After serving time in the Oryol Prison Chaikin on 11 September 1941 he was executed by a firing squad along with 156 other Oryol prison inmates during the Medvedev Forest massacre.


The Commissars

The 26 Baku Commissars comprised
Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
and Left Social Revolutionaries, and excluded the Right SRs, Mensheviks, and Dashnaks. There were many ethnicities among them:
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
, Latvian,
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
,
Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...
, Georgian,
Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...
and Azerbaijani. The 26 "commissars" were: * Stepan Shaumian – Chairman of the Baku
Council of the People's Commissars A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or nation ...
, Commissar Extraordinary for the Caucasus * Meshadi Azizbekov – Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, gubernial commissar for Baku * Prokopius Dzhaparidze – Chairman of the executive committee of the Baku Soviet * Ivan Fioletov – Chairman of the Soviet of National Economy * Mir-Hasan Vazirov – People's Commissar for Agriculture * Grigory Korganov – People's Commissar for Military and Navy Affairs * Yakov Zevin – People's Commissar for Labor * Grigory PetrovMilitary Commissar of the Baku region from the
Sovnarkom The Council of People's Commissars (CPC) (), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (), were the highest executive authorities of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), the Soviet Union (USSR), and the Soviet republics from 1917 ...
of the
Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...
* – Deputy Chairman of the
Military Revolutionary Committee The Military Revolutionary Committee (Milrevcom; , ) was the name for military organs created by the Bolsheviks under the soviets in preparation for the October Revolution (October 1917 – March 1918).
of the Caucasian Army * – Chief Editor of Baku Worker newspaper * Meyer Velkovich Basin – Member of the Military Revolutionary Committee * – Chief Editor of ''Izvestia of the Baku Council'' newspaper * – Sailor * Vladimir Polukhin – Collegiate Commissar for Military and Navy Affairs of the Russian SFSR * – Commissar of the military instruction school * – Journalist * – Political commissar of a brigade * Mark Koganov – Member of the Military Revolutionary Committee * – Military Commandant of Baku * – Shahumyan's bodyguard * Ivan Nikolayshvili – Dzhaparidze's bodyguard * Aram Kostandyan – Deputy People's Commissar for Agriculture * – Member of the Military Revolutionary Committee * Anatoly Bogdanov – Clerk * – Secretary of the Military Revolutionary Committee * Tatevos Amirov – Commander of a cavalry unit, member of Dashnaktsutiun


Demolition of the 26 Commissars Memorial and reburial

In 1920, the remains of the commissars were exhumed and reburied as Soviet martyrs in a central square in Baku. They remained their until 2009 when Azerbaijani authorities began demolishing the city's 26 Commissars Memorial. This was the latest monument of several that had been built to commemorate the Commissars erected in that park during the Soviet period. This last monument itself had been fenced-off since July 2008. The remains of the commissars were reburied at Hovsan Cemetery on 26 January 2009, with participation of Muslim, Jewish and Christian clergy, who conducted religious ceremonies. The dismantling was opposed by some local left-wingers and by the
Azerbaijan Communist Party The Azerbaijan Communist Party (; ) was the ruling political party in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, Azerbaijan SSR, making it effectively a branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It was formed on 20 February 1920, when ...
in particular. It also upset Armenia as the Armenian public believed that the demolition and reburial was motivated by the reluctance of the Azerbaijanis, after the Nagorno-Karabakh War to have ethnic Armenians buried in the center of their capital. Another scandal happened when Azerbaijani press reports claimed that during the exhumation only 21 bodies were discovered and that "Shahumyan and four other Armenian commissars managed to escape their murderers". This report was questioned by Shahumyan's granddaughter Tatyana, now living in
Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
, who told the
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n daily
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that: Almost all monuments in Azerbaijan dedicated to the commissars including Shahumyan, Azizbekov, Dzhaparidze and Fioletov, have been demolished. Most streets named after the commissars have been renamed.


In popular culture

Russian prominent poet Sergei Yesenin wrote "Ballad of the Twenty-six" to commemorate the Baku Commissars, poem first published in ''The Baku Worker'', 22 September 1925.Peter Hopkirk, ''On Secret Service East of Constantinople: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire'', Oxford University Press, 1994, . Russian band WOMBA named one of its albums ''The 27th Baku Commissar''. Italian prominent writer Tiziano Terzani wrote about the Baku Commissars in his book ''Buonanotte, signor Lenin'' (''Goodnight, Mr Lenin: A Journey Through the End of the Soviet Empire'', 1992). A street in southwest-central Moscow is named after the 26 Baku Commisar
Ulitsa 26 Bakinskikh Komissarov


See also

* Transcaspian Government


References


Further reading

*


External links

Nine Photos of past monuments dedicated to the 26 Baku Commissars, plus photo of the funeral
Azerbaijan International, Vol. 15:2–4 (2011)
pp. 167–169.

{{Political activity in Azerbaijan until 1920 Leninism Executed politicians 1918 in Azerbaijan Commissars Articles containing video clips Communism in Azerbaijan Baku in the Russian Civil War *