Türkçe TercümeThe Caucasian Mountaineers were the victors of their eight-month struggle against the Russian Volunteer Army, which the British had equipped with money, heavy artillery, and warplanes. During this struggle, the 9th and 10th armies of the Bolshevik Russians, who had been watching from the sidelines with great pleasure as the two rival forces battered each other, rushed into the North Caucasus with a mighty power equipped with heavy weapons and armored trains. The 11th Red Army, which had previously occupied Azerbaijan, had captured Armenia in a rearguard action and entered Georgia from the south.
Under these unfavorable conditions, the North Caucasian politicians who joined forces in Tbilisi first united among themselves in a formation called the “Union of Politicians of the Mountaineers” and then formed a working group for anti-Bolshevik struggle by including some Azerbaijani politicians who had defected to Georgia from Bolshevik-occupied Azerbaijan. On February 6, 1921, Haydar Bammat, on behalf of the Union of Politicians of the Mountaineers, reported this development to the Georgian Foreign Minister Yevgeni Gegechkori with the following statement:
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After the October Revolution, when state power in the center of Russia passed into the hands of the Bolsheviks, the Central Committee of the Union of Mountaineers, which stood for the anti-Bolshevik point of view, proclaimed itself the Mountaineers’ Government and assumed full state power throughout the territory of the Mountaineers. From this moment on, the active struggle of the mountain peoples against the Soviet power began.
In the spring of 1918, representatives of the Union of Mountaineers together with delegates of the Transcaucasian Commissariat took part in conferences in Trebizond and Batumi, the purpose of which was to regulate the relations of the Caucasus on the one hand and Turkey and the central European powers allied with it on the other. On May 11, 1918, the Mountaineers’ Government proclaimed the independence of the North Caucasian Republic.
On June 7, following the example of its neighboring republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, the Mountaineers’ Government concluded a treaty of friendship with the Ottoman government.
By entering into close relations with the Transcaucasian state formations, the Mountaineers’ Government set itself the specific task of achieving the unification of these formations and the Union of Mountaineers of the Caucasus into a single confederative Caucasus.
The Mountaineers of the North Caucasus, represented by their leading political organizations, stood on the point of view that, due to geographical, political, economic, and strategic conditions, the peoples of the Caucasus can count on the formation of independent republics and an existence independent of Russia only in the event of the closest contact between Transcaucasia and the North Caucasus.
The recent course of political events has proven the correctness of this view and at the present moment, the Mountaineers of the North Caucasus and their immediate neighbors with the Transcaucasians also face the task.
The Mountaineers’ Government was not strong enough to repel the attack of the Volunteer Army of General Denikin, which received moral and material support from the Entente Powers, and for a short time, the mountain territory was entirely under the control of General Denikin's troops. But already in the fall of 1919, an uprising against the Volunteer Army began in Dagestan, which took place under the banner of independence of the Mountaineers’ Republic and sought to recreate the Mountaineers’ statehood. The uprising, which lasted 8 months and took place in incredibly difficult conditions, ended with the cleansing of the entire territory of Dagestan from volunteer armies. Further offensive movement of the national Mountaineers’ troops was restored by the defeat of General Denikin by the Bolsheviks and the arrival of the Red Army in the Caucasus. Soviet troops were accepted on the mountain territory as friends and allies, since during the struggle against the common enemy, the Russian reaction, the central Soviet government repeatedly gave solemn promises to the Mountaineers about the unconditional and complete recognition of their independent democratic republic.
However, these promises were violated most shamelessly from the very first days of the entry of Soviet troops into the Mountaineers’ territory. The Provisional Mountaineers’ Government, the Council of Defense of the Republic of the North Caucasus, was liquidated, revolutionary committees were organized everywhere and experiments in the collectivization of the mountain economy began.
Moscow left the protests of the representatives of the Council of Defense about the violation of these promises without consequences. Local communist organizations with redoubled energy began to persecute these Mountaineers who stood for independence.
Terror in mass expulsion and imprisonment was raised to the level of a system. This lasted for several months, from April to July.
In July and August, the deep discontent of the population with the Soviet government began to spill out in the forms of open protests and armed uprisings. In Dagestan, on the borders of Georgia, an organized uprising began, which, however, for the first months did not spread widely. A group of political figures from the North Caucasus, now united around the Bureau of Socialist and Democratic Parties of the North Caucasus, believed that the moment for armed struggle against Soviet Russia had not arrived. Left to themselves, unable to obtain any moral or material support from their closest neighbors and the Great Powers of the West, surrounded on one side by Soviet Azerbaijan and on the other by Soviet Russia, cut off from Georgia by almost impassable mountains, the Mountaineers could not count on successfully bringing the unequal struggle to an end.
The group believed that the Mountaineers’ question could not be treated separately and that it was necessary to see the moment when the changed political conditions would allow the Mountaineers’ question to be raised on the scale of the all-Caucasian struggle against Russian imperialism.
On the other hand, it was clear that the Turkish national movement, for tactical reasons, seeking contact with the Soviet government, would soon be an important factor in the resolution of the Caucasian problem. Measures were taken to establish friendly relations with the Ankara government on the one hand, and with Georgian political circles and anti-Bolshevik elements in Azerbaijan and Armenia on the other.
Another consideration dictated a policy of waiting for the Mountaineers’ political figures.
General Wrangel, with the assistance of some foreign missions, tried to involve the mountain peoples in the fight against Bolshevism in the plan of the Russian counterrevolution without any political guarantees for the realization of the national ideal of the Mountaineers, their independence.
It was obvious that General Wrangel's attempts to recreate a united, indivisible Russia were doomed to failure and any connection with him was unacceptable not only for reasons of principle but also for practical reasons.
By the end of 1920, the political situation had changed dramatically. General Wrangel had been eliminated. The Russian danger of involving the Mountaineers in a civil war alien to them under the flag of the Russian Revolution had been eliminated.
The uprising in Dagestan, cleansed of the influence of Wrangel's agents, began to take on the character of a nationwide struggle for a national cause.
The anti-Bolshevik mood in the region of Chechnya, Ingushetia, and other Mountaineers’ lands reached a high level of tension.
Azerbaijan, which had meekly endured all the violence of the Bolsheviks, also began to show a certain nervousness.
Georgia began to experience the sharpest economic crisis, which was becoming more and more threatening with each passing day.
Nationalist Turkey, which had come into direct contact with Soviet Russia on the territory of Armenia and had become more closely acquainted with Bolshevik practice, had largely lost its illusions associated with the expectation of an agreement with Moscow.
In these conditions, the socialist and democratic parties of the North Caucasus, which stand for the liberation of the Mountaineers’ territory from the Bolsheviks and the formation of an independent Mountaineers’ republic, have united and created a common bureau within the Caucasian Confederation.
This bureau has set as its immediate goal the closest contact with all anti-Bolshevik organizations and elements in Azerbaijan. Work has already been done in this direction, which has yielded positive results. An Azerbaijan organization has already emerged in the city of Tiflis, which sets as its goal the liberation of Azerbaijan from the Bolsheviks. This organization will be united in the person of its representatives with the bureau of the Mountaineers’ parties. The bureau is in friendly communication with the Ankara Government and is trying to influence its eastern policy in the spirit of a break with Moscow and support for the policy directed toward the creation of the Caucasian Confederation. The Bureau has reason to expect that this policy will be successful.
The bureau has already entered into contact with all the rebel groups in Dagestan and the coming weeks the leadership of the movement at the local level will pass into its hands. In particular, the Bureau intends to establish close relations with Said Bey Shamil, who operates in central Dagestan.
New information received from Dagestan indicates the desire of Said Bey Shamil and the other leaders of the Dagestan uprising to establish the closest possible ties with the Bureau.
The Bureau has established relations with the Georgian government, which gives it every reason to expect full support for its activities within Georgia and ensures continuous communication with Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus.
The Bureau sets as its task the establishment of ties with those political groups among the Kuban Cossacks who either advocate the complete independence of Kuban or consider the Kuban question to be part of the Ukrainian question. The Bureau attaches particular importance to relations with the Kuban because the territory, which is disputed between the Mountaineers and the Kuban Cossacks, contains entrances to the Black Sea, without the acquisition of which the Mountaineers’ statehood could hardly exist.
In the memoir presented by the mountain delegation of the Paris conference, the northern border of the Mountaineers’ Republic was indicated by the Kuban and Kuma rivers, thus the ports of Novorossiysk and Tuapse were considered on Mountaineers’ territory. Leaving the question of Novorossiysk for subsequent agreements with the Kuban people, the Mountaineers cannot help but emphasize that possession of the port of Tuapse and the Armavir-Tuapse railway is a necessary condition for the cultural and economic development and real political independence of the Mountaineers from the Northern formations.
The Bureau is given a scheme of extensive tasks and, currently in conditions that give reason to expect the possibility of successfully resolving these tasks, subject to the availability of the necessary material and military resources, has almost no means.
To effectively manage the political life of the North Caucasus and Azerbaijan, even before the onset of spring, the Bureau must concentrate in its hands large funds, significant quantities of weapons, technical equipment, and uniforms. Poland, which is not only linked by a tradition of friendship with the peoples of the North Caucasus but is also interested in creating a strong state formation on the Caucasian dilemma that can serve as a barrier to Russian power to the East, in our opinion, could play a major role at present in the matter of organizing and fighting the peoples of the Caucasus against Russian Bolshevism.
The peoples of the North Caucasus can easily field two hundred thousand fighters (including 60,000 cavalry). Azerbaijan can also provide such a number. The territory of Dagestan, which has already been liberated from the Bolsheviks, can serve as a basis for organizing military forces, and every day lost in this regard threatens major complications.
In Dagestan and the North Caucasus, there is a fairly significant number of Russian three-line rifles, there are no machine guns, mountain guns, and especially no cartridges. The rebels are trying only with the cartridges that they take from the Bolsheviks in battle. It is clear that under such conditions it is not possible to dream of a more or less (developed) broad development of military operations.
The population, almost from the first days of the October Revolution, was in continuous war, now with the Bolsheviks, with the Volunteer Army of Denikin, was completely shabby. There is an acute need for shoes and ammunition.
Pointing to the details of the material of its nature, the Bureau considers it its duty to emphasize that, in its deep conviction, the struggle against Russian imperialism, now blessed in the red mantle, is a common matter for all state formations that have arisen or are arising on the ruins of the former Russian Empire, and only with unity of political and military plan will these new states be able to preserve their national independence. Poland, by its geographical position, population, historical past, and cultural development, being the largest organized state unit among the peoples separated from Russia, in our opinion, is called upon to support and coordinate the efforts of smaller state formations aimed at final emancipation from Russia.
Therefore, the Bureau also counts on diplomatic assistance from Poland, and on its pressure on friendly Western powers in the matter of recognizing and supporting the independent republics of the North Caucasus and Azerbaijan.
The Office, which was initially established only as a workgroup, turned into a resistance committee when the Bolshevik threat came to the gates of Tbilisi. On 17 February, the news of the establishment of the Azerbaijan-Mountaineers’ Committee, which was also headed by Haydar Bammat and which mobilized volunteers from Azerbaijani and Daghli refugees in the territory of the Democratic Republic of Georgia for the defense of Tbilisi, was announced to the administrations of Ankara, Paris, London, Rome, Berlin, Warsaw, Helsinki, Riga and Reval (Tallinn) by radio as follows.:
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On February 17, 1921, the Azerbaijan-North Caucasian Committee was formed in Tiflis, with the goal of liberating the North Caucasus and Azerbaijan from the Bolshevik Russian occupation, restoring the democratic republics of the North Caucasus and Azerbaijan, and forming the Caucasian Confederation.
Recognized by the Government of Georgia as the sole representative of the will of the peoples of the republics of the North Caucasus and Azerbaijan, the Committee began active work.
The Committee included:
1) Chairman, Haydar Bammat, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the North Caucasus.
2) Deputy Chairman, Mustafa Vekilov, former Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
3) Alikhan Kantemir, former diplomatic representative of the Republic of the North Caucasus in Azerbaijan and former chairman of the Defense Council of the North Caucasus.
4) Akhmed Tsalikov, former chairman of the Union Majlis of the North Caucasus and Dagestan.
5) Baghir Rizayev, former member of the Parliament of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
6) Fethi-bey.
The political physiognomy of the above-mentioned persons is as follows:
Haydar Bammat - independent socialist,
Mustafa Vekilov - left Musavatist,
Alikhan Kantemir - independent socialist,
Akhmed Tsalikov - social democrat,
Baghir Rizayev - social democrat,
Fethi-Bey - non-partisan,
Baghir Rizayev, as a representative of Azerbaijan, entered temporarily.
However, none of these efforts brought the desired result. Although the resistance of Dagestan temporarily prevented the 10th Red Army from entering Georgia, the 11th Red Army entered Georgia from the south, followed by the 9th Red Army through Abkhazia. On the eve of the fall of Tbilisi, the following notice was published in the newspaper Nezavisimiy Kavkaz (Independent Caucasus):
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Volunteers of Azerbaijan - Mountaineers, along with the valiant warriors of Georgia, are shedding blood on the battlefields, defending the cause of freedom for all the peoples of the Caucasus, over whom the bloody hand of the Great Russian Bolshevik autocracy hangs.
Everyone remaining in the rear must come to the aid of the front in any way they can.
Equipped for several days, our military units need underwear, footwear, and warm clothing.
The Azerbaijani - Mountaineers’ rear must respond immediately.
Our warriors must feel the prodding, caring hand of their brothers.
It is a crime to be locked in a shell of personal animal egoism in this difficult moment.
Azerbaijanis and mountaineers, donate everything you can for the Azerbaijani - Mountaineers warriors!
Donations are accepted in the premises of the Azerbaijani - Mountaineers’ Committee on Ganovskaya Street, No. 7, formerly the Azerbaijani Mission, 24 hours a day.
To collect donations, a department for assistance to Azerbaijani - Mountaineers’ warriors was created under the Azerbaijani-Mountain Committee.
When the capital of Georgia, was occupied by the Bolshevik Russian forces on 25 February, the detachments of the Azerbaijan-Mounatineers’ Committee, which retreated in the direction of Batumi and protected the members of the government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, resisted the Bolshevik invaders until the end of March. When members of the Georgian government were evacuated from Batumi on Allied warships on 18 March, the detachments of the Azerbaijan-Mounatineers’ Committee were liquidated, and Haydar Bammat and a small number of his fellow resistance fighters defected to Turkey on 25 March.
Cem Kumuk
Istanbul, 1 December 2024