Encyclopedia
The
Azerbaijan SSR or the
Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic was the name given to
Azerbaijan when it was part of the
Soviet Union from 1936 to 1991.
Established as a
Soviet Socialist Republic on April 28 1920, from March 12 1922 to December 5 1936 it was part of the
Transcaucasian SFSR together with the
Armenian SSR and the Georgian SSR. The constitution of the Azerbaijan SSR was approved by the 9th Extraordinary All-Azeri Congress of Soviets on March 14, 1937. On November 19 1990 it was renamed into
Republic of Azerbaijan, remaining in the
USSR for a year before independence.
History
Establishment
The Azerbaijan SSR was established in April 1920 after the invasion by Russian Soviet forces and the surrender of the government of
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic to local communists under the leadership of Mirza Davud and Nariman Narimanov. The new governemnt was still in a state of war against neighboring Armenia, which by that time occupied large parts of western Azeri territory. In June the forces of Azerbaijan SSR together with the Russian Red Army and limited Turkish assistance staged a combined assault on Armenian-held territory in western Azerbaijan and successfully recovered all territories which Azerbaiajan previously lost to Armenia during the
Azeri-Armenian war of 1918-1919. In August 1920 the cease-fire agreement was signed in Yerevan ending open hostilities between Azerbaijan SSR and Armenia. Sporadic fighting continued in Karabakh and Zanghezur districts of Azerbaijan where several Armenian warlords refused to stop guerilla war.
However, the cease-fire was broken in November 28, 1920 when the Russian and Azeri forces crossed the demarcation line and invaded Armenia in support of the Armenian communist rebellion. The Soviets also justified their move by blaming Armenia for several invasions of Azeri territory. The Armenian army was unable to put up effective resistance and quickly surrendered. The communists then proclaimed a friendly
Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic in Yerevan.
In October 13, 1921, the Soviet republics of Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia signed an agreement with Turkey known as the Treaty of Kars. By this treaty, Karabakh province was recognized as part of Azerbaijan SSR, however, the Armenian-pupulated part known as Nagorno-Karabakh was given the status of ASSR - an autonomous area within Azerbaijan. This area would again become the source of conflict after the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991, however for a long time the conflict seemed to be firmly settled. The previously independent Naxicivan SSR would also become autonomous ASSR within Azerbaijan by the treaty of Kars. On the other hand, Armenia was awarded the region of Zhangezur and Turkey agreed to return Alexandropol.
Borders of Azerbaijan and Armenia were redrawn several times between 1922 and 1936. Some major “adjustments” were made in 1931. As a result, Armenia had to cede to Azerbaijan the northern half of Kazakh-Shamshadin district and a number of smaller parts of Zanghezur. However the same year, Armenia received territorial compensation by being assigned Lori district of Georgia . Neither side was completely satisfied with the results.
Transcaucasian SFSR
In March 12, 1922, under heavy pressure from Moscow, the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenian, and Georgian Soviet Socialist Republics established a union known as the
Transcaucasian SFSR. This was the first attempt at a union of Soviet republics, preceding the USSR. The Union Council of TSFSR consisted of the representatives of the three republics - Nariman Narimanov , Polikarp Mdivani , and Aleksandr Fyodorovich Miasnikyan . The First secretaries of the Transcaucasian Communist Party was Sergo Ordzhonikidze.
In December 1922, again under pressure from Moscow, TSFSR agreed to join the union with Russia,
Ukraine, and Belarus, thus creating
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which would last until 1991. The TSFSR, however, did not last long. In December 1936 the Transcaucasian Union was finally dismantled when the leaders in the Union Council found themselves unable to come to agreement over several issues. Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia then became separate
Republics of the Soviet Union.
Economy and Development
In the spring of 1921 a general change-over from revkoms and kombeds to Soviets took place. In order to help the Azeri oil industry the Supreme Council of the National Economy decided in the same year to provide it with everything necessary out of turn. The new oilfields, like Ilyich Bay, Qara-Chukhur, Lok-Batan and Kala have been discovered. In 1929 a great kolkhoz movement have developed and Azerbaijan became the second Soviet
tea producer after the Georgian SSR for the first time. On March 31, 1931 the oil industry of the Azerbaijan SSR, which supplied over 60% of the total Soviet oil production at the time, was awarded the
Order of Lenin. The republic gained the second Order on March 15, 1935 during the observation of the 15th anniversary. At the end of the second five-year plan Azerbaijan appeared on the 3rd place in the Soviet Union by the capital investment size.
Soviet-German War
In April, 1940 intelligence flights by the
British and
French Air Forces did fly over the
Absheron Peninsula. In the first year of the
Soviet-German War, Azerbaijan produced 25,4 million tons of oil - a record for the entire history of its oil industry. Meanwhile Great Britain and France seriously considered the possibility of bombing the Republic's oil fields. By the end of 1941, thousands of Azeris had joined the so-called People's Voluntary Corps. Mobilization affected all spheres of life, particularly the oil industries. A week after fighting began, the oil workers themselves took the initiative to extend their work to 12-hour shifts, with no days off, no holidays, and no vacations until the end of the war. Meanwhile in September 1942
Hitler's generals presented him with a large decorated cake which depicted the
Caspian Sea and Baku. Baku then became the primary strategic goal of Hitler's 1942 Fall Blau offensive. This offensive was unsuccessful, however. The German army was at first stalled in the mountaines of
caucasus, then decisevely defeated at the
battle of Stalingrad and forced to retreat from the area, abandoning all hopes for Reichskommisariat Kaukasus. In 1942 Azerbaijan also became the second largest
tea producer of the
Soviet Army. By the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in February of 1942, the commitment of more than 500 workers and employees of the oil industry of Azerbaijan was awarded orders and medals. Of the estimated 700,000 Azeris who were recruited into the Soviet Army, 400,000 never returned home.
The post-war period
Apart from the
Oil Rocks, Azerbaijan's first offshore field was opened in the early 50s.
An event that greatly impacted Azeris on both sides of the border was the Soviet occupation of Iranian Azerbaijan in the summer of 1941. The Soviet military presence south of the
Araks led to a revival of Pan-Azerbaijani nationalism. During the Soviet occupation a revival of the Azerbaijani literary language, which had largely been supplanted by Persian, was promoted with the help of writers, journalists, and teachers from
Soviet Azerbaijan. In November 1945, with Soviet backing, an autonomous "
Azerbaijan People's Government" was set up at Tabriz under Jafar Pishevari, the leader of the Azerbaijani Democratic Party. Secular cultural institutions and education in Azerbaijani blossomed throughout Iranian Azerbaijan, and speculation grew rife about a possible unification of the two Azerbaijans, under Soviet control. As it turned out, the issue of Iranian Azerbaijan became one of the first conflicts of the Cold War, and under pressure by the Western powers, the Soviet army was withdrawn. The Iranian government regained control over Iranian Azerbaijan by the end of 1946 and Democratic Party leaders took refuge in Soviet Azerbaijan. Jafar Pishevari, who was never fully trusted by Stalin, soon died under mysterious circumstances.
Soviet Azerbaijan in 1945-1991
Policies of de-Stalinization and improvement after the 1950s led to better education and welfare conditions for most of Azerbaijan. This also coincided with the period of rapid urbanization and industrialization. During this period of change, a new anti-Islamic drive and return to a policy of
Russification, under the policy of
sblizheniye , was instituted in order to merge all the peoples of the U.S.S.R. into a new monolithic Soviet nation.
In the 1960s, signs of a structural crisis in the Soviet colonial system began to emerge. Azerbaijan's crucial oil industry lost its relative importance in the Soviet economy, partly because of a shift of oil production to other regions of the Soviet Union and partly because of the depletion of known oil resources on land, while offshore production was not deemed cost effective. As a result, Azerbaijan had the lowest rate of growth in productivity and economic output among the Soviet republics, with the exception of
Tajikistan. Ethnic tensions, particularly between Armenians and Azerbaijanis began to grow, but violence was suppressed. In an attempt to end the growing structural crisis, the government in
Moscow appointed
Heidar Aliyev as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan in 1969. Aliyev temporarily improved economic conditions and promoted alternative industries to the declining oil industry, such as cotton. He also consolidated the republic's ruling elite, which now consisted almost entirely of ethnic Azeris, thus reverting the previous trends at "reapprochment". In 1982 Aliyev was made a member of the Communist Party's Politburo in Moscow, the highest position ever attained by a Muslim in the former Soviet Union. In 1987, when
Perestroika started, he was forced to retire by Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev, whose reform policies he opposed.
The late 1980s, during the
Gorbachov era, were characterized by increasing unrest in the Caucasus, initially over the
Nagorno-Karabakh issue. A political awakening came in February 1988 with the renewal of the ethnic conflict, which centered on Armenia's demands for the unification of
Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. Armenians expelled hundreds of thousands of Azeris from Karabakh and Armenia by March 1988, while pogroms of the Armenian population in
Baku and
Sumgait took place. Russia forced enforced military rule on several occasions but unrest continued to spread.
The ethnic strife revealed the shortcomings of the Communist Party as a champion of national interests, and, in the spirit of
glasnost, independent publications and political organizations began to emerge. Of these organizations, by far the most prominent was the Popular Front of Azerbaijan , which by the fall of 1989 seemed poised to take power from the Communist Party. The PFA soon experienced a split between a conservative-Islamic wing and a moderate wing. The split was followed by an outbreak of anti-Armenian violence in Baku and intervention by Soviet troops.
Unrest culminated in violent confrontation when Soviet troops killed 132 nationalist demonstrators in
Baku on January, 20 1990. Azerbaijan declared its independence from the USSR on August 30, 1991, and became part of the
Commonwealth of Independent States. By the end of 1991 fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh had escalated into a full scale war, which culminated into a tense cease-fire that has persisted into the 21st century. Although a cease-fire was achieved, the refusal to negotiate by both sides resulted in a stalemate as Armenian troops retained their positions in Karabakh as well as corridors taken from Azerbaijan that connect the enclave to Armenia.
Government
Chairmen and the Presidium of the Supreme Council
- Mir Timur Yakubov
- Mir Bashir Kasumov
- Nazar Geydarov
- Mirza Ibragimov
- Mustafa Topchibashev
- Abdulla Bayramov
- Gazanfar Jafarli
- Ilyas Abdullayev
- Saftar Jafarov
- Ali Tagi-zade
- Mamed Iskenderov
- Mamed Dadash-zade
- Gurban Khalilov
- Suleyman Rustam
- Elmira Kafarova
- Ayaz Mutalibov
- Heydar Aliyev
Chairmen of the Central Executive Committee
- Mukhtar Gajiyev
- Samed Aliyev
- Gazanfar Musabekov
- Sultan-Mejid Efendiyev
- Mir Bashir Kasumov
Military
Under the military structure of the former Soviet Union, Azerbaijan shortly before gaining independence was host to over 60,000 Soviet military personnel deployed throughout the country in units of the Ground Forces, Air Forces, Air Defense Forces, and Navy. The primary combat formation of Ground Forces in Azerbaijan was the Soviet 4th Army, which housed its headquarters and various support units in Baku. In addition to the independent
surface-to-air missile , artillery, and
SCUD brigades, the principal combat elements of the Fourth Army were the 23rd , 295th , 60th and 75th motorized rifle divisions , and the Ganja Helicopter Assault Regiment . The only ground forces training establishment in Azerbaijan was the Combined Arms Command School at Baku.
References
- ??????? ??????????? ? ????? ??????????????? ???. ?., ???????? ???? ???, 1964.
- ??????????? ?????? ??????????????? ???. ?., ????????? ?????, 1964.
- Madatov, G. Azerbaijan During the Great Patriotic War. Baku, 1975.
- ??????????? ??????, 12 August 1992, pp. 1-2.
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