IN HINDSIGHT: I have reproduced excerpts from Dr. Antranig Chalabian’s booklet “Emperors, Tsars, and Commissars”. Second Edition, Michigan, 1988.
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| Soviet Socialist Republics in U.S.S.R. |
1988
Then came Russia’s commissars, following the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, and a portion of the short-lived independent Armenian state in Transcaucasi came under Soviet rule, in November 1920.
Has the attitude of the Soviets towards Armenia and the Armenians changed during the past sixty-eight years? Do they see a role for a greater and stronger Armenia in an area which is inhabited by fanatically religious and basically anti-atheist Muslims? I am not so sure. The Soviets do not seem to be moving -or inclined to move – in that direction and are obviously heading towards the same pitfalls as their predecessors. They have kept Armenia small and weak, thus strengthening their potential enemies in the south. Even the Armenian district of Mountainous Karabagh, once inhabited 93 percent by Armenians, is under Azerbaijan’s rule.
The Gamk (Will) Armenian daily in Paris, France, published an article (see Hairenik daily, Boston, July 25, 1985, p. 7) entitled “The Concerns of the Soviet Union – The Increase of the Moslem population poses a threat”, by Garo Ulupeyan. The writer considers the Moslem “a very serious danger” for the Soviet Union, because they constitute 18 percent of the country’s population and their relations with the authorities are far from being smooth or satisfactory. Ulupeyan estimates that the Moslems of the U.S.S.R. (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) may be between 66 to 75 million by the year 2000, when the Russians, compared to the Moslems, a minority. This significant disparity may pose a threat to the Russian authorities, because the religious oriented Moslems cannot be trusted entirely, and they will provide 25 percent of the manpower for the Red Army.
The Moslem peoples of the U.S.S.R. are geographically located at enormous distances from the Soviet administrative centers. The cultural amalgamation of white-Russian mentality and European way of life is virtually nonexistent in those areas. As to the ideological indoctrination of Marxist atheism, is had produced only superficial results on the traditional Moslem lifestyles o these peoples.
As a student of history it is my deep conviction that the creation of a greater and stronger Armenia by the Soviet Union (other world powers have no access in its borders), with the acquisition of at least some of our lands, will serve the best interests of that country for the following reasons:
1. As long as Turks are Turks and they are living in Turkey, Armenians inhabiting the southern boarders of the Soviet Union have no choice but to seek Russian protection, irrespective of the kind of government which rules that country. This is a political affinity and has nothing to do with ideologies. Only deranged Armenian politicos and pollical adventurers can think otherwise.
2. In case of a world conflict, short of thermonuclear holocaust, the Soviet union is not vulnerable from the north (it is protected by natural barriers of the Arctic ocean). It is not vulnerable from the west because it is protected by Russia’s “General Winter”, (Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler can attest to this) It is not vulnerable from the east because it is protected by the “Field Marshal” of Siberia. Russia will not be intimadted by technologically superior or weapons, because military superiority is not “Factor No. 1” in a war (the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and ….Little Lebanon have proven this.) Microscopic Malta in the Mediterranean Sea was bombarded by the German Luftwaffe all through the duration of the Second World War, but the proud Maltese did not capitulate.
The Soviet Union, however, is vulnerable on two other fronts: from within and from the south. The Soviet Union is vulnerable from within because of its leaders have thus far overlooked one seemingly insignificant aspect of human nature, that man is greedy, he wants more , and more.
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| Antranig Chalabian |
Russia is vulnerable from the south, not because of the climate is warmer there and the enemy can cross its southern borders more easily, but because in the south it is bordered by numerous Muslim peoples (Turks, Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Persians, Afghans, Turkmens, Uzbecks, Tajiks, Pakistanis, etc…) And the roots of Islam run much deeper in the hearts and minds of those peoples, than do the roots of Leninism. The adversaries of communism in the west know this, of course, and sooner or later will exploit the religious sentiments of those peoples, as they are now doing in Afghanistan. Soviet soldiers of Moslem origin who were dispatched there to fight the rebels, actually defected to the rebel side, including a Soviet Moslem General. Those Red Army units of Moslem origin were replaced by non-Moslem Soviet soldiers. In conclusion, the south is the Soviet Union’s Achilles’ Heel.
If the Soviet Union cannot trust the Red Army units coming from Azerbaijan, Afhanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbeckistan, and Tajikistan for the defense of its most strategic and vulnerable southern borders, then God help Russia. The Crimean Tatars, already proved their unfaithfulness to the Soviet Union during World War II. They were deported to Siberia.
A golden rule of ruling subjected peoples is dividing them and not strengthening or uniting them. If Armenia stays small and weak and Turkey one day joins hands with its brothers and cousins in the east, then Russia will be in great trouble. Armies cannot fight ideas or religious sentiments. Once the masses go crazy, nothing helps. Lenin tried to win over the friendship of Kemal Ataturk by ceding to Turkey the Armenian border provinces of Kars, Ardahan, Artvin, only to find out, a few years later, that he was fooled by the crafty Turk !
In March 1921, a treaty was signed in Moscow between Nationalist Turkey headed by Mustafa Kamal, and the Soviet Union. The treaty set the postwar boundaries between the two countries. In November of the same year, a treaty was signed in Kars, between the Transcaucasian republics (Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan) and Turkey. During both of these conferences, Stalin, then Commissar of the Nationalities of the Soviet Union, favored Tatar interests and subjected the Armenian province s of Mountainous Karabagh and Nakhichevan to Azerbaijani rule, thus further weakening Armenia.
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| Cartoonist Dikran Ajemian in Beirut, Lebanon |
The Byzantine emperors made mistakes and they paid dearly for them. Russia’s tsars, in their turn, were incapable of seeing their southern borders were inhabited not by White Russians but by potentially dangerous Turkis peoples. In the face of of that danger, instead of creating a great and autonomous Armenian state to divide and weaken those peoples, they aspired for an Armenia without Armenians, thus strengthening and uniting their own enemies ! It is not unconceivable that world leaders often lack foresight and political farsightedness, as well as the ability to comprehend the facts or anticipate the future.
Will the present-day Soviet rulers of glasnost and perestroika (openness and restructuring) be able to see the important role a greater and stronger Armenia can play in the political network of religious minded peoples on the southern borders of their empire? It remains to be seen. Their predecessors failed to do that and that is why the 3,000 years old Armenian nation, Russia’s natural and dependable ally in the south, was reduced to a mere one million people by 1922, by our and their natural enemies.
Links
Links for the previous sections
The booklet: (No.1/4)
https://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2021/09/in-hindsight-emperors-tzars-and.html
The Emperors: (No. 2/4)
http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2021/09/in-hindsight-emperors-no-2.html
The Tars: (No. 3/4)
http://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2022/01/emperors-tsars-and-commissars-tsars-no3.html
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