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BAKU MASSACRES OF 1905
Excerpt from history
A short excerpt from British historian-journalist Simon Sabag
Montefiore's "Young Stalin".--Editor.
Nineteen-hundred-and-five began and ended with slaughter. It was the
year of revolution in which young Stalin, for the first time, commanded
armed men, tasted power, and embraced terror and gangsterism. On 6
February, he was in Baku when some Armenians shot a Tartar in the
centre of the city. Azeri Turks--or "Tartars" as they were often
called--retaliated. The news spread. The authorities who had long
resented Armenian wealth and success, encouraged the Muslim Azeri
mobs to pour into the city.
For five long days, Azeri gangs killed every Armenian they could find,
with the frenzied hatred that comes from religious tension, economic
jealousy and neighborly proximity. Baku descended into an orgy of
ethnic killing, burning, raping, shooting and throat-cutting. The
Governor Prince Nakashidze and his police chief did nothing. Cossacks
handed over Orthodox Armenians to be slaughtered by Azeri mobs, armed
by the police. One Armenian oil baron was besieged in his palace by
an Azeri mob, whom he picked off with a Winchester rifle until he ran
out of ammunition and was torn to pieces. Eventually, the Armenians,
wealthier and better armed, started to fight back and massacre Azeris.
"They don't even know why they're killing each other," said the mayor
as thousands of dead lay in the streets...everywhere women with mad
eyes sought their children, husbands were moving heaps of rotting
flesh. At least 2,000 died.
Stalin was there to see infernal and apocalyptic sights. He had
led a small Bolshevik Battle Squad in Baku. Now he gathered this
mainly Muslim gang and ordered them to divide the two communities
wherever possible while simultaneously taking the opportunity to
steal any useful printing equipment--and raise money for the Party
by protection-rackets.
Stalin, who according to his first biographer, Essad Bey, who grew up
in Baku, 'presented himself to the head of the [Armenian] household
and gravely informed him that the time was near when the household
would fall beneath the knives of the Muslims, but after a donation
to Bolshevik funds, Stalin conveyed the Armenian merchants to the
countryside.
Afterwards Stalin hurried back to Tiflis, where there was every danger
of an ethnic bloodbath between Georgians and Armenians or Christians
and Muslims. The city was paralyzed by strikes; the police arrested
revolutionaries and Cossacks charged demonstrators on Golovinsky
Prospect.
Stalin helped organize a demonstration of reconciliation to prevent a
massacre and wrote a passionate pamphlet which, printed and distributed
by Kamo, warned that the Tsar was using "pogroms against Jews and
Armenians to buttress his despicable throne on the blood, the innocent
blood of honest citizens, the groans of dying Armenians and Tartars."
http://www.keghart.com/Baku-Massacres-1905
Excerpt from history
A short excerpt from British historian-journalist Simon Sabag
Montefiore's "Young Stalin".--Editor.
Nineteen-hundred-and-five began and ended with slaughter. It was the
year of revolution in which young Stalin, for the first time, commanded
armed men, tasted power, and embraced terror and gangsterism. On 6
February, he was in Baku when some Armenians shot a Tartar in the
centre of the city. Azeri Turks--or "Tartars" as they were often
called--retaliated. The news spread. The authorities who had long
resented Armenian wealth and success, encouraged the Muslim Azeri
mobs to pour into the city.
For five long days, Azeri gangs killed every Armenian they could find,
with the frenzied hatred that comes from religious tension, economic
jealousy and neighborly proximity. Baku descended into an orgy of
ethnic killing, burning, raping, shooting and throat-cutting. The
Governor Prince Nakashidze and his police chief did nothing. Cossacks
handed over Orthodox Armenians to be slaughtered by Azeri mobs, armed
by the police. One Armenian oil baron was besieged in his palace by
an Azeri mob, whom he picked off with a Winchester rifle until he ran
out of ammunition and was torn to pieces. Eventually, the Armenians,
wealthier and better armed, started to fight back and massacre Azeris.
"They don't even know why they're killing each other," said the mayor
as thousands of dead lay in the streets...everywhere women with mad
eyes sought their children, husbands were moving heaps of rotting
flesh. At least 2,000 died.
Stalin was there to see infernal and apocalyptic sights. He had
led a small Bolshevik Battle Squad in Baku. Now he gathered this
mainly Muslim gang and ordered them to divide the two communities
wherever possible while simultaneously taking the opportunity to
steal any useful printing equipment--and raise money for the Party
by protection-rackets.
Stalin, who according to his first biographer, Essad Bey, who grew up
in Baku, 'presented himself to the head of the [Armenian] household
and gravely informed him that the time was near when the household
would fall beneath the knives of the Muslims, but after a donation
to Bolshevik funds, Stalin conveyed the Armenian merchants to the
countryside.
Afterwards Stalin hurried back to Tiflis, where there was every danger
of an ethnic bloodbath between Georgians and Armenians or Christians
and Muslims. The city was paralyzed by strikes; the police arrested
revolutionaries and Cossacks charged demonstrators on Golovinsky
Prospect.
Stalin helped organize a demonstration of reconciliation to prevent a
massacre and wrote a passionate pamphlet which, printed and distributed
by Kamo, warned that the Tsar was using "pogroms against Jews and
Armenians to buttress his despicable throne on the blood, the innocent
blood of honest citizens, the groans of dying Armenians and Tartars."
http://www.keghart.com/Baku-Massacres-1905