March Days

The March Days or March Events refer to an inter-ethnic warfare during the Russian Civil War, which resulted in the massacre of up to 12,000 Azerbaijanis in the city of Baku and other locations of Baku Governorate. Azeri sources refer to the event as "genocide".

Preceding events

The building of the editorial office of Kaspi newspaper on Nikolayevskaya street (modern day Istiglaiyyet street) in Baku, ruined during the March days in 1918.

After the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, "the Bolsheviks, led by Stepan Shaumyan, the ‘Caucasian Lenin’, had virtual control of Baku, the richest and largest city in the Azerbaijani heartland. To make matters worse, Shaumian was an Armenian, and already there were alarming signs that, at his instigation, Armenian nationalists and Bolsheviks in Baku had reached an accommodation clearly directed against the Azerbaijanis". This success could be partly attributed to millions in gold roubles paid to the Armenians by the British government .

On March 9, 1918, the staff of the Azerbaijani regiment of Savage Division arrived in Baku. The group comprising of 50 officers arrived to oversee the funeral of Mahammad Taghiyev, the son of the famous Azerbaijani oil magnate and philanthropist Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev . The young man was killed by the Russian-Armenian forces in the southern town of Lenkoran, and his body was brought to Baku for the funeral scheduled on March 27, 1918 .

Only a few days before the arrival of General Talyshinski and his staff, Stepan Shaumyan, the leader of Baku Soviet, had received a telegram from Lenin which read:

Dear Comrade Shaumyan:

Many thanks for the letter. We are delighted by your firm and decisive policy; do unite with it a most cautious diplomacy, which is doubtlessly made necessary by the present most difficult situation, and we shall win.
The difficulties are unfathomable; up to now we have been saved by the contradictions and conflicts and the struggle among imperialists. Be able to use these conflicts; now it is necessary to learn diplomacy.
Best wishes and greetings to all the friends.

V. Ulyanov (Lenin)

Despite this appeal for calm from Lenin to Shaumyan, immediately upon its arrival, some officers of the Azerbaijani division including its commander, General Talyshinski, were arrested by the Baku Soviet, which resulted in calls for armed resistance to the Soviet among the Azerbaijanis in the city and sparked the violence that pursued on March 30th through April 3rd in Baku , known as "the March Days of 1918."

On 30 March the Soviet based on the unfounded report that the Muslim crew of the ship Evelina was armed and ready to revolt against the Soviet, disarmed the crew which tried to resist . In response, a huge crowd gathered in the yard of one of the Baku mosques and adopted a resolution demanding the release of the rifles confiscated by the Soviet from the crew of the Evelina. One of the Bolshevik leaders, Prokopius Dzhaparidze, promised to satisfy this demand, but in the meantime shooting started in the streets .

Massacre on 30-31 March, 1918

Ismailiyye building, ruined during the March days in 1918.

By 6 p.m, 30 March, 1918, Baku was filled with fighting. Trenches were being dug, barricades erected, and preparations made for warfare . The Soviet side, led by Shaumyan, realized that full civil war was starting and its own forces were insufficient against Azerbaijani masses led by Musavat. Allies were found among Baku Mensheviks, S.R.'s, and the Kadets (right-wing liberals), which promised support the Bolsheviks as the champions of the "Russian Cause."

Musavat quickly noticed the nationalist nature of the conflict perpetrated by the Shauyman-led Soviet . Musavat's newspaper, Achiq Söz, wrote that the Bolsheviks, who had fought the Mensheviks for a whole year, were now uniting even with Kadets and the Dashnaks, and that such cooperation could only be explained by policy of provoking one nationality against the other. It further stated that instead of fighting a class war, Soviet was involved in a tragic capitulation of democracy .

But it was neither the Kadets, nor the Mensheviks, nor the S.R.'s who saved the Soviet during the March Days. It was the Dashnaktsutiun, with its military organization, that tipped the scaled in its favor. At first, the Armenian National Council proclaimed its neutrality in the quarrel between the Musavat and the Soviet; it has even been suggested that the Armenians told the Musavat that the latter might expect their help against the Bolsheviks. If this was the case, then the Armenians were largely responsible for provoking the massacre that ensued, because the Musavat plunged into the armed conflict, thinking that it had only one enemy to face . In fact, Suren Shaumyan, the son of Stepan Shaumyan wrote that "the Muslim National Council would not have taken up arms, had it not confidence in its ally [the Dashnaks]"

Once the Soviet had called upon the Dashnaktsutiun to lend its assistance in the struggle against the Azerbaijani nationalists in Baku, the "civil war" degenerated into massacre, with ethnic Armenians and Azeris killing each other irrespective of their political affiliations or social and economic position

On 31 March 1918, the ultimatum was issued by the Baku Soviet to Musavat, with the term of compliance set at 3 p.m. on 1 April, 1918 . Although Musavat accepted the ultimatum, the fighting was uncontrollable on the streets of Baku, and the Armenians who had loudly proclaimed their neutrality suddenly swung towards the Soviet and joined the attack against the Musavat:

In that bloodthirsty episode, which had such fatal effects upon the Muslims, the principal part was played by the Armenians, who were then in Baku, clustering as elsewhere around their nationalist party [Dashnaktsutiun]... The truth is that the Armenians under the guise of Bolshevism, rushed on the Muslims and massacred during a few frightful days more than 12,000 people, many of whom were old men, women, and children .

According to Peter Hopkirk:

Armenians, seeing that at last they had their ancient foes on the run, were now out for vengeance. The fighting thus continued, until virtually the entire Muslim population had either been driven from the city or been slaughtered. By the fifth day, although much of the city was still ablaze, all resistance had ceased, leaving the streets strewn with dead and wounded, nearly all of them Muslims.

An Azerbaijani Boshevik and Hummet member, Sultan Medjid Efendiev, wrote:

The Dashnaks, who for handsome pay protected the capitalists, Taghiev, Naghiev, and others, massacred to a man, in the name of the Soviet, the population of entire blocks and sections inhabited by the Muslim poor. The Dashnaks under the command of such millionaires as Lalaiev and others, were now destroying not only the Musavatists but Muslims in general... The course of events led to a situation in which the comrades who stood at the head of the Soviet, Shaumyan, Japaridze, and others, became themselves prisoners of Dashnaks..

That the attack was directed just as much against the civilian population as against the military detachments of Musavat there can be no doubt. Every Azerbaijani whom the Dashnak bands could catch was killed, and many Persians lost their lives too. According to various sources, a total of between 3,000 to 12,000 Muslims were killed during the violence . In fact, Shaumyan said that 20,000 men took part in the fighting:

For us the results of the battle were brilliant. The destruction of the enemy was complete. We dictated to them the conditions which were signed without reservation. More than 3,000 were killed on both sides.

Shaumyan further "admitted that the participation of the Armenian units ‘lent the civil war, to some extent, the character of a national massacre’, adding that ‘the Muslim poor suffered severely’"

In his letter to the Council of People's Commissars dated April 13th, Stepan Shaumyan writes:

During three days - 30 - 31st March and 1st of April, a fierce battle was raging in Baku. From one side it was Soviet Red Guards, Red International Army organized by us, Red Fleet that was also reorganized in short time by us, and Armenian national troops. From the other side, it was Savage Division, which had many Russian officers in its ranks, and gangs of armed Muslims, headed by Musavat Party... The results of battles for us were brilliant. The enemy was completely defeated... Three thousand were killed from both sides... The Soviet power in Baku was always hanging from a hair, due to the resistance of Muslim nationalistic parties. These parties headed by feudal intelligentsia (beks and khans) settled in Elisavetpol and Tiflis thanks to the degraded and coward politics of the Mensheviks became very aggressive in Baku too. If they had taken the control of Baku, the city would have been declared the capital of Azerbaijan and all non-Muslim elements would have been disarmed and killed... Dashnaktsutiun had 3-4 thousand national troops that were at our disposal. The participation of the latter lent the civil war, to some extent, the character of an ethnic massacre, however, it was impossible to avoid this. We were going for this deliberately. The Muslim poor suffered severely, however they are now getting united around the Bolsheviks and the Soviet.

Joseph Stalin, who was Bolshevik People's Commissar at the time, tried to justify the provoking of the March Days by the Baku Soviet in Bolshevik "Pravda" newspaper: "While the center of Muslims, Baku, the citadel of Soviet power in Transcaucasus, unified around itself the entire Eastern Transcaucasus, from Lenkoran and Kuba till Elizavetpol, with arms in hands is asserting the rights of people of Transcaucasus, who try by all forces to maintain a link with Soviet Russia" .

According to one source, pro-Bolshevik Moslems from the Hummet party also took part in the attack on the Azeri quarters in Baku. However this claim is not supported by other sources. S.M. Efendiev, one of the leaders of the Hummet, was very critical on the conduct of the events. Eventually when the civil war started, most of the Muslims of Russia allied themselves with the Bolsheviks, as the other side seemed even less attractive . However, in the mind of Azerbaijani people, the Baku Commune became the bitter symbol of the Bolshevik - Armenian collusion born out of the March Days bloodbath

The opinions of scholars about the motives of Dashnak militants differ. According to Michael P. Croissant, the Dashnaks set out to take revenge for the persecution and genocide suffered by Armenians at the hands of the Ottomans, while Tadeusz Swietochowski states that "Armenian historians do not offer an explanation for the political calculations behind this move, which was bound to entail terrible retribution, and they hint rather at an uncontrollable emotional outburst".

• 
• 
• 
• 

Aftermath

"The March events touched off a series of massacres all over Azerbaijan" . "The brutalities continued for weeks. No quarter was given by either side: neither age nor sex was respected. Enormous crowds roamed the streets, burning houses, killing every passer-by who was identified as an enemy, many innocent persons suffering death at the hands of both the Armenians and Azerbaijanis. The struggle which had begun as a political contest between the Musavat and the Soviet assumed the characters of a gigantic race riot" .

The Armenian archbishop, Bagrat, wrote a letter to the Armenian mission in Baku, explaining the March Events. The letter began with the accusation that the Azerbaijanis, being the disciples of the Turks and the Germans, could not be trusted. Having thus disposed of the Azerbaijani version of the events, Bagrat stated that the battle was waged by the Musavat and the Soviet, while the Armenians remained neutral. He continued by saying that some Armenian soldiers took part in the fighting, but that those were only isolated individuals for whom the Armenian National Council could not be held responsible. The Archbishop placed the entire guilt upon the Musavat, calling it the helper of Turks . As far as massacre of civilians was concerned, Bagrat denied that the Armenians had anything to do with it; in fact, he claimed that the Armenians gave shelter to some 20,000 Muslims during the struggle . Persian Armenians in Baku tried to and saved many lives of their fellow citizens, which may have been the basis for Bagrat's exaggerated assertion that some 20,000 Muslims were saved by Armenians .

Although not an isolated incident, given the participation of the Azerbaijanis during the Ottoman offensive on Armenia in early 1918, the March Days played a significant role in bringing pre-existing inter-ethnic tensions to the forefront of Armenian-Azeri relations . Less than six months after the March Days, when up to 12,000 Azerbaijanis were massacred in Baku, in September 1918, Nuru Pasha's Army of Islam supported by Azerbaijani forces recaptured Baku massacring "an estimated 10,000 Armenians" . A special commission formed by the Armenian National Council (ANC) reported a total of 8,988 ethnic Armenians massacred, among which were 5,248 Armenian inhabitants of Baku, 1,500 Armenian refugees from other parts of the Caucasus who were in Baku, and 2,240 Armenians whose corpses were found in the streets but whose identities were never established . It must be noted that these figures were gathered by the Armenian National Council, whom one can hardly expect to be objective in such a matter ; yet, considering the general run of events, they cannot be much exaggerated .

See also

• September Days