The Sickle and Hammer Came and the Independence of 'Azerbaijan' Disappeared

A series of programs by the faction, broadcasted by Radio Farda coinciding with the seventieth anniversary of the establishment of the autonomous government in Azerbaijan, Iran, is dedicated to examining this historical event. This is the third episode of this program. (In the first and second episodes, we saw how the Caucasus regions north of the Aras were separated from Iran and how the names of the Muslim regions in southern Caucasus were changed to 'Azerbaijan.' However, the lifespan of the newly established Azerbaijan Republic was very short.) When the Bolshevik communists consolidated their power in Moscow and came to their senses, they adopted a completely different policy towards the newly established countries in various parts of what was once called the 'Russian Empire' than what they had promised before the revolution. They soon built a large army called the 'Red Army of Workers and Peasants.' The revolutionaries claimed that this large army was created to counter the White Army, a coalition of anti-communist forces. However, the Russian Civil War between the old military and armed communists quickly turned into a war of the Red Army against independent nations, most of which did not even have an army to defend their independence. Abbas Milani, a historian and Stanford University professor, describes what happened: 'In the Soviet Union, no nation was given the right to freedom, and every nation that tried to separate was kept under complete suppression. They did not allow Georgians to leave, nor Azerbaijanis, nor Tajiks. They fought huge wars, contrary to the promises they made. Lenin had said that if we come to power, we will free Russia, which he called the prison of nations, and anyone who wants to separate has the right to do so. But when they came to power, anyone who tried to separate was labeled as a lackey of the bourgeoisie and imperialism, and they violently suppressed them, keeping them all within the Soviet Union.' Following these wars, five years after the collapse of Tsarist Russia, a new country called the 'Union of Soviet Socialist Republics' was established, which was supposed to be a modern utopia in the twentieth century based on the ideas of a German theorist named Karl Marx. In this vast utopia, what had formed as the 'Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan' around Baku was transformed into the 'Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan,' where the famous communist sickle and hammer replaced the crescent moon of Muslims on its flag. Many founders of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan (Musavatists) either fled and died in exile or stayed and were killed. When the Soviet Union was established, and this vast country swallowed the independence of the newly established republics in the Caucasus, a unique political system emerged that had no precedent in the world until that time. In this new political system, at least in appearance, a group of Turks north of the Aras were united in a republic, and the region was governed by the Communist Party of Azerbaijan. Abbas Javadi, a researcher of Azerbaijan's history and a manager at Radio Free Europe, describes the governance of southern Caucasus during this period: 'During this time, the sovereignty of all Soviet republics was in the hands of local communist parties. In theory, these parties felt united beyond ethnic and linguistic differences. The personal, group, or ethnic interests they pursued in secret is another matter.' At this time, Iranians who went to work north of the Aras faced additional pressures and quickly realized that this new political system would not bode well for them, many of whom were simple workers. Touraj Atabaki, a historian and Leiden University professor, discusses the situation of these migrant groups, many of whom were Turks from Azerbaijan, saying: 'This group was constantly pressured by the Soviet government to either accept Soviet citizenship or leave the Soviet Union. Many of these Iranians did not want to accept Soviet citizenship; they wanted to remain citizens of Iran and be accepted as migrants there. This was not to the liking of the Soviet government. By the 1930s, the Soviet government had stabilized and consolidated, and pressure on migrant groups increased, which was not limited to Iranian migrants.' During this time, the excited communist revolutionaries quickly thought about exporting their revolution; an idea that, based on their ideological teachings, was supposed to guarantee the survival of this new system. However, according to Jamil Hasanli, a former professor at Baku University and a historian, after successive defeats discouraged the Bolsheviks from the success of radical leftists in Europe, they turned their attention eastward to establish communist governments in Iran and Turkey. He states: 'After the establishment of the Soviet government in Azerbaijan, and after the defeats of the Bolsheviks in Europe, the first strategic issue for the Soviet leadership was to establish a council system in Iran, and the first step for this was initiated from Gilan. They intended to establish the council government in the southern Caspian Sea with military support for the movement of Mirza Kuchak Khan and gradually expand it to Tehran. Many activities were carried out in this regard. The leadership in Baku also paid attention to this and assisted. However, events did not unfold as expected. Although there was a brief period when the Soviet Republic of Iran was established, most of its ruling body consisted of Iranian migrants sent from the Soviet Union. After Mirza Kuchak Khan observed Bolshevism up close, he distanced himself from them. The Bolsheviks even wanted to play a role in the street events in Tabriz during the Khiyabani period, but Khiyabani distanced himself from them and prevented their movements from taking root. Ultimately, in February 1921, a treaty was signed between Iran and Russia, based on which both parties were prohibited from interfering in each other's internal affairs. Although there was a clause in this treaty that allowed the Soviet government to send military forces into Iranian territory if there was a threat from Iranian lands, we later witnessed the practical use of this clause by the Soviets.' With the 1921 treaty, the Iranian government quickly reached a calm with its tumultuous northern neighbor. However, the relationship between Iranians and the Soviets did not end so easily, as for a long time the Soviet Union became a destination for political dissidents enamored with socialist ideologies; from the left wing of the Jangal Movement in Gilan to many members and activists of the Communist Party of Iran, which had been established by the social democrats of the Constitutional Movement, fled to the Soviet Union during the consolidation of Reza Shah's power and the harshness of his regime. A Soviet propaganda poster from 1937, which reads in Azerbaijani and Russian: 'Long live Stalin!' However, during this time, even the leaders of the Soviet Communist Party were not safe from Stalin's purges, and this group of Iranians did not have a different fate. Touraj Atabaki states: 'During this period, Iranian political activists, along with others, were arrested and tried, sentenced to long-term imprisonment, and a large number of them were executed between 1937 and 1938. It can be said with certainty that 95 percent of the leadership of the Communist Party of Iran were shot between 1935 and 1938.' Alongside these events, from 1925 onwards, Soviet control over its borders increased day by day, and alongside internal suppressions, the connection of citizens of this country with the outside world diminished. In such circumstances, the connection between the two sides of the Aras seemed harder than ever. According to Touraj Atabaki, during this time, the ties of citizens on the other side of the Aras with Azerbaijanis in Iran gradually diminished, and visits were limited to very few people who had family connections. This researcher, whose areas of expertise include the history of the Caucasus, states: 'During this period, citizens of the Soviet Azerbaijan began learning Russian, and the elites and experts of this land spoke Russian, and some were even unable to speak Azerbaijani. In fact, the 'new socialist man' that Lenin had promised was on the verge of formation and was going to overshadow other ethnic and regional affiliations.' And this 'new socialist man' in the Caucasus, who was becoming less similar to his compatriots in Iran, faced a difficult era until the onset of World War II, which is recorded in the history of the Soviet Union under titles such as 'Great Purge' or 'Great Terror.' Until World War II, when once again, the fate of the north and south of the Aras reached a common turning point. (The next part of the faction program will focus on the beginning of the war and the occupation of Iran by Soviet and British military forces. What were the Soviet activities in the occupied areas in northern Iran during the war? How did they manage these areas? And what was Stalin's strategy in dealing with these regions? All will be covered in the next episode of the faction program.)