Azerbaijan: Another bastion of Stalinism begins to fall

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Oppositionists to Stalinist government demonstrate in Tadzhikistan.

"Massive resistance developed mmediatelv against Mutalibor's strongarm move. Some 50,000 people gathered outside the headquarters of 14 SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 1992 The breakdown of Stalinist rule in the former Soviet Union is now clearly spreading to the republics of Islamic tradition, where the Communist Party, in nationalist disguise, has remained firmly in control. Challenges to the ruling bureaucracy by organized oppositions in Azerbaijan and Tadzhikistan have already led to confrontations bordering on civil These developments represent the opening of an important new stage in the collapse of the bureaucratic system, whose contradictions are particularly explosive in the Caucasus and Central Asia. In these areas, the standard of living has been about half that of the European parts of the former USSR. Unemployment is estimated at over 20 percent. Skilled jobs have gone largely to Russian newcomers.

In the March 5 session of the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan, the People's Front and the Democratic Bloc demanded the resignation of the president of the republic, Ayaz Mutalibov. They accused him of taking Azerbaijan into the Commonwealth of Independent States illegally and of refusing to form an independent national army.

The continued presence of Soviet army units was supposed to have been responsible for the scope of the slaughter in Khodzhali, an Azeri town in Nagorno-Karabakh captured by local Armenian forces. In fact, it was the defeat of Azeri forces in Nagorno-Karabakh that gave the opposition an occasion to mount a challenge to Mutalibov.

Under the pressure of mass demonstrations, the neo-Stalinist president was forced to resign and a caretaker government was put in place.

In the wake of the failed Soviet neo-Stalinist coup in August, the Azeri party boss had managed to get himself elected overwhelmingly as president of "independent Azerbaijan." The main oppositionist organization, the Popular Front, was still in tatters after the defeat it suffered in January 1990, when the Soviet army crushed an Azeri national uprising in Baku and some other towns and areas.

Defeat and repression

In the whole process of the rise of the national democratic movements in the exUSSR, only in Azerbaijan did such a movement suffer a grave and lasting defeat. It became isolated from other democratic movements because it allowed itself to be drawn into a competition in chauvinist drum beating with the Azerbaijan Communist Party.

Following its defeat, the Front suffered both from splits and repression. It was marginalized for an entire period, in which the Communist Party and government resumed the leadership of the anti-Armenian campaign. It was in this situation, after the failed neo-Stalinist coup in Moscow, that Mutalibov was able to outflank the Azeri national democratic movement for a period, declaring Azerbaijan independent and sweeping the presidential elections.

In fact, the Azeri Communist Party tried to ride the wave of anti-USSR feeling, while maintaining its essential connections with the Great Russian Stalinist bureaucracy. The neo-Stalinist wing of the all-Union CP, led by Yegor Ligachev, demonstratively supported Azeri chauvinism. To this day, the principal publication of neo-Stalinism, the battered but unreconstructed Pravda, outspokenly aligns itself with Azeri chauvinism.

In Azerbaijan, unlike the other non-Russian republics, the local Communist authorities and their all-Union big brothers, actually promoted Azeri nationalism, or chauvinist distortions of it. This reflected their aim of combating the Armenian national democratic movement, which was the first to touch off a mass struggle, as well as a long-term policy by Moscow of fostering Azeri chauvinism.

Despite the complicity, and even leadership of the Azeri People's Front in the anti-Armenian campaign, the Armenian national democratic leadership defended it against Soviet repression. The Baltic People's Fronts were able to arrange direct negotiations between the Armenian and Azer national movements, although they quickly broke down.

Nonetheless, the Azeri People's Front was a popular movement, which had to struggle against the Communist Party authorities to gain political rights. It also immediately against reflected the genuine grievances of a nationally oppressed people (oppressed by Moscow, not by Armenia). Furthermore, other opposition groups have developed, such as the Democratic Bloc.

The recent events make it clear that the Communist Party leadership, even decked out in nationalist clothing, was unable to convince the Azeri people that it was devoted to achieving their national liberation.

While the defeats suffered by Azeri forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh offered the Front an opportunity for attacking the CP government, they were undoubtedly not the only issue for the Azeri people. In fact, the Armenian enclave is not an obstacle to the national liberation of the Azeris.

Thus, the CP could not save itself by adopting a nationalist disguise. Its change of coloration only reflected its weakness, and it was only a matter of time until the national democratic forces resumed their offensive from more favorable positions.

Like their big brothers in Moscow, the neo-Stalinists in Baku tried to recoup their positions by a coup, and its failure decisively weakened them. On May 14, a special session of the Azerbaijan Supreme Soviet was to hear a report on the Khodzhali massacre. In connection with this, Mutalibov was invited to attend.

The report absolved him of any responsibility for the disaster. Then it was proposed that he be reinstated as president. The bulk of the deputies, unreconstructed CP apparatchiks elected in rigged elections, voted overwhelmingly (with only two against and six abstentions) to restore the deposed party boss to his position.

Immediately, Mutalibov announced that he had been watching the Armenians take control of all of Nagorno-Karabakh, and he was determined to take the strongest measures, up to establishing a dictatorship, in order to stop the advance of the Armenians.

He also announced he would put an end to the conflicts among Azeri political parties and movements that had supposedly prevented the Azeri people from uniting against their primordial enemy-that is, the Armenians.

That evening, the first decrees of the Leonld Ogarek ELSEVIER the People's Front."

restored neo-Stalinist government were read over TV. Mutalibov named a new minister of the interior. A curfew was established for Baku for two months. The activity of all political parties and groups was suspended. Special permission was necessary for entering or leaving Baku. Martial law was established in the city. Military censorship was imposed on the press.

Thousands mobilize to resist Massive resistance developed immediately against Mutalibov's strongarm move. Some 50,000 people gathered outside the headquarters of the People's Front. In protest against the removal of the old minister of the interior, the police joined the demonstrators. People's Front self-defense units were already in place to protect the demonstration.

On the following day, May 15, half a million demonstrators marched on the government buildings. They were joined on the way by peasants coming from the countryside. The marchers came under heavy fire from buildings on the route, but managed to occupy the Supreme Soviet building as well as the radio and television center.

At 7:40 p.m., the minister of defense, R. Gazieev, a member of the People's Front, announced that the Front had taken firm control of the Supreme Soviet building, that only the presidential palace remained in the hands of the Mutalibov government and was being protected by Commonwealth of Independent States military forces.

Gazieev said the avoid bloodshed, but was prepared to storm the building. That evening, Front forces were able to occupy the palace without fighting. Mutalibov had fled.

The National Council rescinded the party bosses' decrees. An agreement was reached May 18 for a coalition government, including both the Front and the less hated old CP notables. On the same day, the Supreme Soviet met, with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered outside. It unanimously voted for ousting Mutalibov.

At 2:00 a.m., May 19, the Supreme Soviet voted to dissolve itself. Until the new presidential elections occur, full poweIS devolved on the National Council, renamed the "National Majlis."

On May 19, the Front candidate for president, Abdulfaz El'chibey, went on TV to promise, "there can be no question of a dictatorial regime. The National Front is determined to continue along the road of the democratic rebirth of the republic."

The Front seems to be in command. However, it is not a homogenous body. Furthermore, it is ruling in coalition with other forces, including sections of the old CP bureaucracy. Nonetheless, it is clear that the stability of the Stalinist bureaucracy has been shattered. Azerbaijan has been plunged into a seething political cauldron.

Now, as in the past, the greatest danger is that the mass movement will be diverted into a war with the Armenians, from which it can gain nothing, regardless of who wins militarily. The Front itself has armed units involved in the fight in Nagorno-Karabakh.

On May 19, "a delegation of entrepreneurs" offered the Front money to finance military operations. These "entrepreneurs" are most likely elements of the old bureaucracy trying to reconvert themselves into "patriotic" capitalists. The Turkish government itself threatened to intervene militarily on the Azeri side, but retreated quickly after a warning from the Russian military.

The Azeris suffered another major military defeat on May 19, when Armenian forces captured the village of Lachin between Nagorno-Karabah and Armenia. In so doing, they opened the road across the narrow strip of Azerbaijan separating the enclave from Armenia and ended the blockade that the Azeris mounted äround Nagorno-Karabakh.

Moreover, this seems to represent not merely a military victory. The area separating the enclave from Armenia is inhabited by Kurdish people, who have begun demanding their national rights and seem to have allied themselves with the Armenians.

Situation of other nationalities The Azerbaijan republic is much larger than its estranged neighbor. But unlike nationally homogeneous Armenia, Azerbaijan is a multinational republic. And not only Armenians have been subjected to national oppression in Azerbaijan, but Kurds and other nationalities of Muslim tradition.

One such nationality is the Lezgians, numbering about a million, according to its leaders. This nationality is divided between Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation.

On September 29,1991, an assembly of representatives of the Lezgian people called for restoration of their statehood. The May 15, 1992, issue of Russkaya Mysl republished an article from the Russian independent publication Express-Khronika by Usman Kanberov, the editor of the Lezgian Lezgistadin Khabarar.

Kanberov wrote: "The misdeeds of the Azerbaijani Communists toward the Lezgians are well known. Almost half of the 670 thousand Lezgian minority in Azerbaijan are registered as Azeris. In the schools of the Lezgian regions, the Lezgian language is not taught, there are no radio programs in the language, and our people are not mentioned in Azerbaijan's schoolbooks."

The Lezgian movement, Sadval (Unity), seeks unification of the Lezgian people in an autonomous republic in the Russian Federation, and therefore the secession of (continued on next page)

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German strike wave union, I.G. Metall, supported the struggle with warning strikes and demonstrations, in which half a million workers participated.