ContentsNote To The Turkish Edition
Counter Revolutionary
Dashnagzoutiun And The Imperialist War 1914-1918 23
The Expectations of Dashnagzoutiun from the Imperialist War
An Agent of the Tsarist Regime and Western Imperialism Behind the National Mask
Imperialist Powers and "the Armenian Question"
Prior to the World War
From Words to Action
Dashnags; Tame Servants of the Tsarist Regime
Two Appraisals of the Volunteer Movement
The Volunteer Movement and Contrivances of the Armenian Capital
THE COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY ROLE OF THE DASHNAGZOUTIUN PARTY
The 1917 February Revolution and the Dashnagzoutiun
Dashnagzoutiun and the Socialist October Revolution . .
The Counter-revolutionary Dashnagzoutiun in the Transcaucasian Commissariat and Seym
The Counter-revolutionary
Dashnagzoutiun and the Baku Commune
The Counter-Revolutionary Activities of the Dashnag Government
Note To The Turkish Edition
This book by Lalaian is the second volume in the series "The Falsification of 'Armenian Genocide' in Armenian Documents", published by the Kaynak Publishing House.
The first in the series was the report written by Hovannes Katchaznouni and submitted to the Dashnagzoutiun Party Convention in 1923.1
Two Studies by Lalaian Complementing each other
I discovered the two lengthy works compiled in the present volume, as I was researching in Russia on the Armenian Question.
In these works, Lalaian brings into light the "so-called Armenian Question" , as he himself calls it.
The first one, which is titled "The Counter-Revolutionary Dashnagzoutiun and the Imperialist War 1914-1918" was published in issue 2-3 of Revolyutsionniy Vostok, the organ of the Institute of Researching National and Colonial Matters.
The second work was published in the second issue of Istroriçeskie Zapiski (Historical Notes), the organ of USSR Academy of Sciences, Institute of History. The title of this lengthy article is "The Counter-Revolutionary Role of the Dashnagzoutiun Party"
In his first study, Lalaian explores the role played by the Dashnags and the masses they led during the First World War. In the second study he concentrates on the activities of the Dashnagzoutiun Party during the February and October Revolutions and later during the period when the Armenian Republic was founded. For this reason, the second work is the continuation of the first one and they certainly complement one another.
With this book by Lalaian, we are, in a way, researching in the Armenian Archives, for Lalaian studies the Turko-Armenian relations in 1915-23 using the documents most of which were in the Armenian State Archives. The years 1915-23 are important, because in some Western Parliaments, especially in those of many USA states, it has been claimed that a genocide was conducted during those years, against the Armenian population.
Lalaian's Resolutions
A.A. Lalaian was a historian of the Soviet Armenia.
Lalaian wrote both of his studies on the threshold of the Second World War, feeling an urge arising from the support shown by the Dashnagzoutiun to the German and Japanese fascists. Connecting this support with the Dashnagzoutiun's dreams of "Great Armenia", Lalaian traces the reasons for this pro-war enthusiasm to the First World War and its aftermath and arrives at the following conclusions:
-Dashnagzoutiun, long before the First World War, started to cherish the illusion of occupying a part of Turkish land, in order to create a market for the Armenian commercial and industrial bourgeoisie and thus realizing its project of "From Sea to Sea, Great Armenia".
-Dashnags beguiled the Armenian masses with their nationalistic discourse and demanded them to annihilate Turks.
-The Tsarist Government used Armenians to capture the Turkish straits and establishing a stronghold in Eastern Anatolia, to reach the Mediterranean.
-Armenian volunteers were organized in troops by the Tsarist authorities, for this purpose.
-The Dashnagzoutiun volunteers murdered tens of thousands of Turkish peasants using savage methods.
- With such activities, the Dashnagzoutiun, incited mutual massacres and sacrificed the Armenian people for their own reactionary aims.
-Dashnags did not only massacre the Muslim peasants, but also plundered their property and belongings.
-Dashnags, in the period of Independent Armenia too, were used by the British, French and American Imperialists, both in Transcaucasia and on Turkish land.
-Dashnags, during this period, massacred hundreds of thousands of people, living in the present Armenia, with the slogan, "Muslims are our enemy". At the end of the 30-month period of Dashnagzoutiun Government, the Turkish population in Armenia decreased by 77%, the Kurdish population by 98% and the Yezid population by 40 %.
Dashnags savagely tortured the Armenians who did not want to fight against Turks they had been living together with, for hundreds of years.
Facts about Dashnagzoutiun and the Falsification of "Genocide" in Soviet Armenian Sources
The above deductions were not peculiar to Lalaian at the time. It can be said that these convictions put forward by Lalaian based on Armenian state sources, were shared by the statesmen of the Soviet Armenia and all the Armenian historians of the time. After the Dashnagzoutiun Government had collapsed and a Soviet government came to power, the Armenian Bolsheviks questioned Dashnag policies. The authorities and the intelligentsia of Soviet Armenia, seeing that peace could only be established in the country and in the region in this way, determined the position of the Dashnagzoutiun in relation to the exploited peoples of the world. Soviet sources emphasize the conspiring, terrorist character of the Dashnagzoutiun and their collaboration with imperialist powers. On the other hand, Turkey's war is seen as a just war and the responsibility of the tragedies is clearly attributed to the imperialist powers and the Dashnagzoutiun.
A.B. Karinian who held important positions within the Communist Party and the state organs in Soviet Armenia and who worked for Armenian Soviet Socialist Republics Academy of Sciences for quite a long time, A.F. Myasnikian, who was one of the outstanding statesmen of Soviet Armenia and the Soviet Union and also a leading Party member and B.A. Borian, a Soviet Armenian historian studied and analyzed the facts concerning the Armenian Question, with the greatest precision. All three works will be published by the Kaynak Publishing House in the coming months. For this reason, we will not discuss the ideas put forward by Karinian, Myasnikian and Borian at the moment. However, it was not only these three who boldly spoke out their opinions, but other Armenian statesmen and historians as well. Here, within this limited space we will suffice with only a few examples.
Ashot Ioannisian2, the First Secretary of the Armenian Communist Party , in a pamphlet titled " Dashnagzoutiun and War", written in 1924 showed Dashnagzoutiun's expectations from the First World War. It was Dashnagzoutiun's basic policy to secure imperialist intervention in the "Armenian Question" and to solve the problem with their help. However, the imperialist war brought pain and suffering to all the peoples, mainly the Armenian people.3
The writer V. Parsamian, in his pamphlet titled "Echmiadzhin and the Dashnagzoutiun" shows how the Armenian Church led by the Catholicos supported the nationalist and adventurous policies of the Dashnagzoutiun. Echmiadzhin played an active role in recruiting volunteers and organizing them in armed units during the First World War and always backed up the Dashnasgzoutiun Party to achieve its adventurous aims.4
Especially after Tsarist Russia had collapsed, the authorities of Soviet Armenia closely witnessed how the Dashnagzoutiun acted under the direction of the Western Imperialists. In the article concerning Dro, a Dashnag commander, published in Nor Nosk, the organ of Armenian internationalists, it was stated that Dro was promoted to the rank of general for "having cleansed" Armenia of the Turkish population.5 The people in charge of massacring Turks were rewarded this way.
In a pamphlet published by the Red Army, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Fighter Division of the Red Army, T. Hachikoglian describes the massacres carried out by the Dashnagzoutiun volunteer units:
"During the short period of the dishonorable Armenian 'republic', the wars fought with Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey and the atrocities carried out in the Turkish villages of Zangezour, Sharour, Daralagoz, Megri, Agapapa, Zanki-Bazar, Vedi-Bazar are still in people's memories. (...)"6
Hochikoglian, talking about the massacres conducted against Turks, studies the system of volunteer troops and comments on the type of soldier created by this system:
"The psychology of flattery and groveling, arbitrariness, plunder, living on others' expense and killing innocent and helpless people was deep rooted in the soldiers."7
Not only Muslims, but, as Lalaian documented, Armenians also got their share of the Dashnagzoutiun regime. The Armenian Communist Party, in the report submitted to the Comintern First Congress, describes the Dashnagzoutiun Government:
"The Armenian Government is a team of plunderers, blackmailers and executioners.
"The Armenian Ministers are the leftovers of the Armenian people, the loyal servants of Anglo-American imperialism, jackals nurturing on human flesh.
"The Armenian Communist Party has sworn on behalf of its peoples, to wipe out these dogs from the surface of the earth."8
The report states that the Dashnags attempted a liquidation even within the Armenian petty bourgeoisie and used terror even against "sacred families". The shooting of Karchikian, the head of the Eastern Bureau, by his own friends is given as an example.
As the report states, the Dashnagzoutiun government established the state power of the Armenian bourgeoisie under the patronage of the imperialists.
"Today, Armenia is ruled by Pogos Nubar Pasha and Enfiancants, the tobacco manufacturer and notorious servant of the British, with the help of the British Command and the whip in the hands of the same British Generals.
No doubt, the glimmering British golden coins blind people.
Nevertheless, the British Imperialists never hesitate to grab the last morsel from the mouths of Armenian labourers and they abandon the Armenian people to hunger and disease. This has been proved by the latest news and even the Armenian nationalists' own sources.
Tens of thousands of Armenians have been dying of hunger and diseases.
Children in Armenia steal bones from dogs' mouths.
Corpses are left in the streets to rot, no one picks them up nor buries them.
But 'the humanistic British', 'our glorious allies' pretend not to hear and not to see anything."9
The article published by the Armenian Daily Ayyastani Dzayn in its issue dated Nov. 28, 1920 describes similar things.
"The failure of the old Dashnagzoutiun Government is generally explained with the fact that Armenia had been turned into the personal property of the Dashnagzoutiun. It was as if the state was owned by the Party. Flocks of people were tested by the Party and then were positioned in posts where they would fill their purses."10
The Soviet historian, Vartanian states that the Dashnagzoutiun Government depended upon corrupt officials, blackmailers and plunderers.11 He draws attention to the oppression the Dashnagzoutiun practiced upon their own people. On the other hand, Dashnags also provoked a massacre among nationalities in their own country.12 For this reason, the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) Tbilisi Committee announced that they sharply protested "Dashnag savagery" and a Party authority, A. Mikoian of Armenian descent stated that all precautions would be taken to put an end to "the bloody murders" of the Dashnagzoutiun.13
All these statements by Armenian authorities have put forth how justified Turkey was in her war against the Dashnagzoutiun. The Soviet Armenian sources recognized the justice of Turkey's war against the Dashnagzoutiun not only in connection with the First World War but also as far as Turkey's military operation during the Liberation War was concerned. It was reflected in the reports of the Armenian Communist Party how the Armenian people welcomed the Turkish Army which is nowadays accused of committing the crime of genocide. According to these reports, the Armenians living in Alexandropol welcomed the Kemalists with salt and bread and the Communists with red banners.14 The following lines which appeared in Komünist, the organ of Alexandropol communists, are very striking:
"The war fought by the Kemalist movement against the Dashnagzoutiun has the character of a civil war as well, besides its international character and it opens new horizons before Armenian masses."15
As Turkey was defending its motherland against the terrorist and contriving Dashnagzoutiun, the responsibility of the pains suffered falls on the imperialist powers and the Dashnagzoutiun. The Soviet Armenian authorities openly establish this fact. The report submitted to the Constitutional First Congress of the Third Communist International by the Armenian Communist Party signed by Aikunin, a Central Committee member and a Congress delegate, refers to the Dashnagzoutiun as "a union of corrupted people" and states clearly that the Turkish Armenians were sacrificed by the Dashnagzoutiun. The number of Armenians sacrificed in mutual massacres "as a result of the short sighted and adventurous policies of the Dashnagzoutiun" is stated to be as 300-500 thousand. That Orhan Pamuk's claim as to the destruction of one and a half million Armenians was a false accusation is thus proved by Armenian sources as well.
"For what purpose did the Dashnagzoutiun open the way for the destruction of Armenians? The degenerate Armenian party dreamed of turning the 'free' mines and the wealth of Armenia into the personal property of the 'free' Armenian bourgeoisie. (…) The capital of the Armenian bourgeoisie had become quite powerful under the patronage of European countries. The physical existence of Armenian capitalists was not in danger under any circumstances."16
This report submitted to and declared openly in the First Congress of the Comintern describes the painful circumstances created by imperialism in the following manner:
"The 'patronage' of the European imperialist hyenas has turned into a dishonourable slavery of Armenian people. As a result of the intervention of the Imperialist plunderers, the Armenian population is dissolving. Tens of thousands of corpses lie unburied and rot in the streets of the towns and villages. Dogs nourish on the corpses of people who died of hunger and diseases. The famished Armenian children, on the other hand, steal bones from dogs' mouths. Millions of famished people hopelessly and weakly lie in wait for death.
The Armenian Communist Party declares war on the Anglo-American puppies."17
The report also mentions the so-called Armenian socialists and the role they played:
"The Armenian 'socialists' of the false International who obeyed Wilson and Lloyd George's League of Nations can never represent the Armenian proletariat and peasants.
"The 'Armenian socialists of Bern' belong to the ranks of social traitors who carry the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent Armenian labourers on their hands.
"The 'Armenian socialists' of Bern are the loyal mercenaries of Anglo-American imperialism. (...)"18
These statements made in the Communist International Congress reveal the true character of those who serve the falsifications about Armenian Genocide, in the name of "socialism" today.
This anti-imperialist stand which recognized the just stand of Turkey continued in the later years as well. A.A.Bekzedian, the People's Interior Affairs Commissar, in the letter he sent on December 10, 1920, to Tchicherin, the People's Foreign Affairs Commissar of Soviet Russia, states that the hostile policy Turkey had conducted against Armenia before the Soviets came to power was perfectly justified and observes that the greatest obstacle against the good relations between the two peoples was the Dashnagzoutiun government:
"The Armenian Soviet government has no doubt that the Turkish Great National Assembly wholeheartedly greets the revolutionary rebellion in Armenia and the establishment of the Soviet state power in a land which served as a weapon for the Allied powers. The Soviet Government has no doubt that the reasons for any hostility and conflict have disappeared. The new relations between the two peoples will develop on the foundation of a mutual and just recognition of the rights of the two peoples and establishing the necessary conditions for the free development of both countries without meeting any obstacles. The dark past must disappear with all the bloody traces of war and massacre and must leave its place to brotherly cooperation."19
Similarly, one of the theoreticians of Soviet Armenia, Marents calls the members of the Dashnagzoutiun, "fascists" and brings into light the instigators of the great tragedies the Armenian labourers underwent.
"We will not dwell on who was responsible for hundreds of thousands of Armenians living in foreign lands. However, there is an irrefutable fact for all sincere labourers and that is that neither the Turkish people nor the Armenian labourers were responsible for the crimes (Comrade Saumian would say 'this is their suffering, not their guilt'). The guilty ones were the Western European imperialists and mainly their loyal dog, the Dashnagzoutiun."20
Vartanian, as he states that Anglo-American imperialism instigated mutual massacres among sister peoples of Transcaucasia, emphasizes that one of the main reasons for the massacre practiced upon the Armenian people was the adventurous domestic and foreign policies of the Dashnagzoutiun.21
The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Armenian Communist Party, A. Ioannisian, in a telegram he sent from Yerevan to Stalin on October 10, 1922, stamped "strictly confidential", emphasizes that the Armenian people were sacrificed for the sins of the Armenian bourgeoisie and their national ambitions and that the Armenian Communist Party had to establish good relations with the Ankara Government, in order to stop this and to be better esteemed by the Armenian masses.22
"The Earth Turns Round"
Following the first volume published in the series, the report by Hovannes Katchaznouni, the First Prime Minister of Independent Armenia and a leading authority of the Dashnagzoutiun Party, this volume by A.A. Lalaian and other statesmen and historians of the Soviet era clearly depict the actual picture.
We owe gratitude to the Lalaians who left us the legacy of these historical facts. The valuable contributions of (retired) Colonel Kayhan Yükseler, who translated this volume from Russian into Turkish and of the distinguished Turkologist Arif Acaloğlu, who has never withheld his valuable help from the present series, will never be forgotten.
The Armenian people is a worthy people for having bred conscientious statesmen and scholars like Katchaznouni, Lalaian, Karinian, Myasnikian, Borian, Vartanian, who were brave enough to put forth facts which were hurtful for their own nation.
We can follow the events between 1914 and 1923 in their works, as if they were video-films. The present series published by the Kaynak Publishing House gives us the chance to rewind the film and watch it once more. And the end of the film always comes with the fact that the 'genocide' is an international falsification.
Now it is an obligation to ask: Is it not fighting against realities, to insist on 'genocide', despite all the evidence?
Yes, the 'Armenian Genocide' is an international falsification and it means tampering with historical facts. It is obvious that those who continue voicing this falsification have no respect for truth and have no conscience. Imperialist ambitions have long trampled upon these basic values owned by the democratic revolutions.
The British say that there is one thing the House of Commons cannot do: to turn a woman into a man and a man into a woman. They can achieve everything else.
For our part, we will say this: The Parliaments of Western countries do not have the right or the ability to turn a false accusation of genocide into a fact.
This falsification was a tool of psychological war until recently. However, it is no longer effective. We have entered an era when this manufactured accusation will hit back its manufacturers.
Those who stand on shaky grounds will fall.
Mehmet Perinçek
December 26, 2005, ul. Generala Tyuleneva/Moskova
1 See Hovannes Katchaznouni, Dashnagzoutiun Has Nothing to do Anymore, Kaynak Publishing House, April 2006, Istanbul.
2 Ashot Gareginovich Ioannisian was born in Shusa on June 5, 1887. One of the prominent historians within the Armenian SSR Academy of Sciences, Ioannisian joined the Communist Party in 1906 and took part in the revolutionary activities in Transcaucasia. He worked as a professor in Lazarev Institute in Yerevan (1918-19…)and in Yerevan University (1921-26) He served as the Minister in the USSR Armenian Commissariat of People's Education in 1920-21, as the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Armenian Communist Party (b) in 1922-27. He worked as the Assistant Director of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Institute of History. In 1954, he was the oldest academic of the Institute. He is the writer of numerous works on Armenian history.
3 See T.P. Agaian, Veliki Oktyabr I Borba Trudyaºihsya Armenii Za Pobedu Sovyetskoy Vlasti, Izdatelstvo AN Armyanskoy SSR, Yerevan, 1962, p. 29.
4 See op.cit.p. 32
5 RGASPI f. 80, l. 4, d. 83, y. 137.
6 T. Hachikoglian, 10 Let Armyanskoy Strelkovoy Divizii, Izdatelstvo Polit. Uprav. KKA, Tiflis, 1930, p.4
7 Op.cit. p.6
8 RGASPI f. 488, l. 1, d. 10, y. 28.
9 RGASPI f. 488, l. 1, d. 10, y. 25, 26.
10 RGASPI f. 80, l. 4, d. 83, y. 137.
11 S.A. Vartanian, op.cit. p. 17,19,29
12 op.cit. p.17.
13 Armenian SSR Central State Archive (TsGA Arm. SSR) f. 66/200, d. 401/144, l. 74. Quoted in: Vartanian, op.cit. p. 29.
14 RGASPI f. 64, l. 1, d. 137, y. 27,28 …
15 Kommunist (Aleksadropol), No. 1, Nov. 21, 1920. Quoted in: A. M. Elçibekyan, Velikaya Oktyabrskaya Sotsialistiçeskaya Revolyutsiya I Pobeda Sovyetskoy Vlasti V Armenii, Izdatestvo AN Armyanskoy SSR, Yerevan, 1957, p.208.
16 RGASPI f. 488, l. 1, d. 10, y. 18.
17 RGASPI f. 488, l. 1, d. 10, y. 27.
18 RGASPI f. 488, l. 1, d. 10, y. 27, 28.
19 RGASPI f. 5, l. 1, d. 2178, y. 40.
20 Marents, "Litso Armyanskogo Smenohovstva", Bolshevik Zakavkazya, No.
3-4, 1928, p.94.
21 S.A. Vartanian, op. cit.p. 20, 35.
22 RGASPI f. 5, l. 2, d. 92, y. 43.
Translated by Lale Akalin
This Introduction is Kindly Provided by Mehmet Perincek
Please contact Kaynak Yayinlari for the Full Version
