By Ivan Gharibyan

Since the remains of the 26 Baku commissars were re-interred in January 2009, Azerbaijan has been devising a new “effective” method of turning everything upside-down and distorting the events of 1918. No wonder! How can the “ancient” Azerbaijani people, which has for many years been fed anti-Armenian propaganda, put up with the fact that an Armenian was leader of the Baku Commune?!

During the Soviet era the state propaganda of Azerbaijan, at the command of the former First Secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev — and later his son Ilham — invented a cock-and-bull story about an “Azerbaijani Genocide” committed by the Baku Commune (in fact, that was the quelling of a musavat rebellion, which was accompanied by Armenian pogroms). The Azeri authorities’ overwhelming desire to “pick up genocide” for their “titular ethnic group” gave rise to a tale about “the Dashnak-Bolshevik” warships that shelled “peaceful” Baku. Not bad! It is only modern-day Azerbaijani ideologists that can “yoke together” such political antagonists as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun (ARF) and Bolsheviks.

The desecration of the common grave of the 26 Baku commissars in one of the central districts in Baku and the re-interment of their remains in the city outskirts proved an opportunity for Azeri propagandists to distort the facts about the events of 1918.

As expected, the Azerbaijani authorities assigned a key role in organizing and running the smear campaign to the Institute of History, National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, headed by Yaqub Mahmudov. A “happier” candidate can hardly be found. Mahmudov, who has for 15 years been at the service of the Aliyev clan, calling himself “a scholar”, has published a great many volumes “proving” Yerevan was an Azerbaijani city, Armenians committed several “genocides” of Azerbaijanis, and, it turns out, Azerbaijan played a great role in the intrigue involving the Caesar and Cleopatra. Of course, the “think tank” led by Mr. Mahmudov is ready to perform the “sacred duty” with credit and make up some tales about the Baku Commune!

The first “discovery” was a statement about the remains of 23, rather than 26, commissars. The Baku-based historians managed to “prove” that the remains of Shahumyan, Amiryan and Avagyan were “lacking.” At his press conference Mr. Mahmudov admitted that no DNA analysis had been made, as it is an expensive treat. For Azeri journalists, however, this fact is a mere trifle. What is of importance for them is to present the “leading historian’s” absurd statements as an exposure of Armenians’ intrigues.

However, the Azeri propaganda machine was not contented with the tales about remains of 23 persons. A “document” cropped up which “disproved” the shooting of Stepan Shahumyan together with the other commissars. “This telegram is about Stepan Shahumyan’s execution. The 26 commissars were executed by shooting on September 20, 1918. The telegram reads, however, that Stepan Shahumyan and Anastas Mikoyan received dry rations in Krasnovodsk during ten days after that date. How could Stepan Shahumyan be shot?” Mahmudov asked in a fit of hysteria. But all the people with an even average IQ can easily guess: even if daily rations were officially provided in Krasnovodsk, Turkmenistan, ten days after the 26 commissars were executed, does it have anything in common with the date of Shahumyan’s execution?

What is more, Mr. Mahmudov “discovered” some other letters “proving” that Stepan Shahumyan, “the Lenin of the Caucasus” and Vladimir Ulyanov’s faithful companion, was a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun (ARFD), a sworn enemy of not only Bolsheviks, but also Communists nowadays. No evidence was, of course, presented. It was a real tragicomedy: the leader of the Great October Socialist Revolution sent his faithful companion, “a Dashnak,” to Baku to organize Azerbaijani genocide. Indeed, it is only Azerbaijani historians that can turn Lenin into a champion of nationalist policy, and Stepan Shahumyan, a Bolshevik to the marrow of his bones, into an ARF member.

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T.P.