ARMENIA: A STATE of LEGITIMATE NAZISM - CHAPTER ONE
Region Plus begins publication of articles by the Russian
historian and lawyer Oleg Kuznetsov. His materials are based entirely on the
declassified documents of the Soviet security authorities
Author: Oleg KUZNETSOV, Moscow
Winston S. Churchill is credited with the following
brilliant phrase: "The only thing we learn from history is that we learn
nothing from history." We recall it every time there is a chance to study
the documents of the Soviet security authorities concerning their activities
against Armenian nationalism, extremism, and terrorism. Unfortunately, the
political class of modern Russia (and other countries with deep anti-fascist
traditions) either forgot or is reluctant to remember and learn from the past,
which is the main reason why the civilisation has completely lost influence on
the establishment of the state ideology of modern Armenia.
Region Plus begins publication of articles by the
Russian historian and lawyer Oleg Kuznetsov. His materials are based entirely
on the declassified documents of the Soviet special services, which always had
a clear understanding about the true and permanent enemy of the Russian
statehood in history no matter who ruled the state – the emperor, the
Bolsheviks, or the Soviets. And as soon as the Kremlin had a different (not
that of the NKVD) view of the situation behind the Great Caucasian Range, it
would immediately lose its geopolitical positions in the region one after
another.
In the second half of 2016 and throughout 2017, the
Russian-speaking media in various countries of the world was actively
discussing the installation of a monument to the main ideologist of Armenian
nationalism Garegin Nzhdeh (Ter-Harutyunian). The debates eventually split the
information space into two antagonistic camps. Armenian press called Nzhdeh a
national hero of the Armenian people and the founder of Armenia's state
ideology, while the mass media of Russia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and some other
post-Soviet countries called him a fascist and protested against the
glorification of a Hitlerite henchman in Armenia. Meanwhile, official Moscow,
as well as other capitals of Europe and America decided to consider these
actions as an "internal affair of Armenia." The situation was most
evident in Russia though, when Russian political class, which had always been
known for its raving condemnation of the glorification of any manifestation of
Nazism and fascism in the Baltic countries and Ukraine, flatly refused to do so
with regard to Armenia as it did not want to "offend" its only ally
in the South Caucasus. Thus, seeing Russia's reluctant stance, the rest of the
countries of the former anti-Hitler coalition, who lost 50 million of souls in
the struggle against German Nazism and Italian fascism, did not bother either.
Garegin Nzhdeh, whose monument is flaunting in front
of the Armenian government headquarters, left an infamous mark on history by
committing the massacre of the Muslim population of Thrace as a member of the
Bulgarian army during the 1st and 2nd Balkan wars (1912-1913), as well as the
subjects of the Ottoman Empire as a member of the Russian Caucasian Army during
the First World War (1914-1918), civilians in Azerbaijan and Northern Iran as a
serviceman in the army of the Dashnak Republic of Armenia (1918-1920), as well
as the founder of the Tseghakron Theory (Tseghakronism), which actually spurred
the heated discussions around his monument in Yerevan as an act of hailing (or
condemning) the fascism in Armenia. In fact, the motive for debates has
developed since 2004, when the Republican Party, ruling in Armenia until
recently, published a brochure entitled Garegin Nzhdeh and his teaching, which
explained the essence of Nzhdeh's theory and declared it as an official state
ideology of the country. In other words, for Armenian political establishment,
the monument of Nzhdeh was a logical conclusion of a fifteen-year process of
implanting the Tseghakronism into the mass consciousness of Armenians and a
triumphant evidence of this ideology.
According to Wikipedia, Tseghakronism in essence is a
"nationalist ideology, which claims that the highest value for an
individual is his nation beyond which he cannot fully exist. The objective of
Tseghakronism is the unification of all Armenians on the territory of their
historical homeland under a unified Armenian state." Tseghakronism has not
been finalised as a valid theory based on a philosophical treatise or an
independent conceptual publication; rather it was developed through a series of
articles. According to the anonymous author of the above-mentioned brochure,
Garegin Nzhdeh and his teaching, Tseghakronism should not be confused with
Italian fascism, German Nazism and Jewish Zionism, as it is an independent
intellectual phenomenon specially developed for the Armenian people. Yet
another article in Wikipedia ("Armenoid race") confirms that this
ideology still officially exists in Armenia. According to the article,
Armenians are no longer representatives of one of the peoples under the Semitic
group, but an independent race of people rooted thousand years deep in the
past. Incidentally, it was the French anthropologist G. Monthodont who
originally claimed the existence of "Armenoids" in 1933 – precisely
at the time when Nzhdeh began formulating his theory of Tseghakronism.
However, this view, which was readily accepted by the
Russian authorities and the media under their control, followed by institutions
of other countries, did not exist always. In the 1930s, when this ideology was
only formulated, the attitude towards it in the USSR was completely negative.
While studying a set of selected documents of the
State Security Directorate (SSD) of the People's Commissariat for Internal
Affairs (NKVD) of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic
(ZSFSR) for Azerbaijan SSR, a formerly-classified "top secret" SSD
directive no. 138 to its territorial divisions (city departments and local
branches), dated April 7, 1935 drew my attention. It was surprising that I
found it on the first pages of a large archive file. The document mostly
included local reports about the implementation of instruction, hence providing
full and detailed evidence on one of the large-scale operations carried out by
the Transcaucasian officers of the NKVD. The directive began with a detailed
analysis of the problem and demanded fully concentration of forces from all
regional units of the Soviet state security authorities to solve the problem
(the original text was adjusted to be in line with the grammar of the modern
Russian language):
"It is clearly visible that the Dashnaks became
active after the 12th Congress of the [Dashnaksutyun] party both abroad and in
the country and this activity is gradually develops into fascism.
Having remained as an uncompromising opponent of the
Bolshevism, the Dashnaktsutyun has affirmed this struggle in the form of
fascisation as the only way to strengthen its authority and militant spirit. To
ensure a "consistent" transition to fascism, the Dashnak ideologists
put forward the notorious theory of Aryanism for the Armenian nation.
These issues were most clearly formulated by the key
figures of the Dashnaktsutyun in Europe. For example, Nzhdeh writes the
following in his article "My word for the younger generation of
Armenians":
"... Religion is a new
wave raising the Armenian life and opposing our spiritual organism to the
threatening death in an alien environment..."
"... Keep the Armenian
spirit inaccessible to suicidal offensives of the Leninists..."
"... Bolshevism preaches
that a nation must die to give life to the class; ...Fascism preaches that a
class must die to give life to the nation..."
Strengthening of fascist tendencies is also observed
among the Dashnak assets developed underground and is expressed as follows:
"If, after seizing the
power, the Dashnaktsutyun's domination is based on its vague program of
socialism, then we all will leave this party. We must finally learn action from
Hitler".
At that time, Nzhdeh's call to "the younger
generation of Armenians to learn action from Hitler" sounded quite
symptomatic. That was way before the infamous Kristallnacht, an organised mass
pogrom of Jews in Germany in 1938; the hellish gas chambers and crematoriums of
the "death factory" in Auschwitz-Birkenau, although the theory of the
"final solution of the Jewish question" had already been formulated
and proclaimed; SS Untersturmführer Leopold Itz, Edler von Mildenstein had
already established his Jews department under the auspices of the SD Central
Board, and Otto Adolf Eichmann had already written a review of The Jewish State
by Theodor Herzl, in which he recommended mass extermination of Jews as
"enemies of the Reich". In other words, Nzhdeh urged his followers to
learn doing the same with the Turkic and generally Muslim peoples as the Nazis
will with the Jews in the near future – first in Germany, then in the
territories of all the occupied countries of Europe. It was not something new
for him anyway, as he had successfully practiced this in four preceding wars.
As can be seen from the above quotes found in the
directive no. 138, for the security authorities of the Soviet Transcaucasia,
the Armenian nationalism, as formulated by Garegin Nzhdeh, was nothing but
fascism. Alas, the same cannot be said of modern Russia and other countries of
the world, which still consider the case an "internal affair of
Armenia", hence supporting and encouraging organised adherents and bearers
of this ideology. And when the people of Armenia, who did not want to live
according to the rules of Tseghakronism, which was considered a fascist theory
in the USSR, hit the streets of Yerevan in April 2018 to fight for its freedom,
dignity and democracy and to throw off the shackles of nationalism and fascism,
politicians and public figures in Moscow expressed their resentment considering
the events as a threat to Russia's national interests. Then what kind of
Armenia does the political class of Russia need as its main ally in the
Caucasus – openly Nazi or democratic?
Further down the text of the directive, we could see a
list of achievements and drawbacks of the state security authorities of the
Soviet Azerbaijan In fact, the list contains more drawbacks than achievements.
The analysis of the real state of affairs concluded with a shocking statement:
"It is particularly noteworthy that many peripheral authorities are
completely inattentive and sometimes criminally negligent to reports about the
presence of an important and worthy [Dashnak] object in their area". Specifically,
the criticism concerned the Ganja city department, local branches in Shamkhor
(Shamkir), Tauz (Tovuz), Aghdam and other areas. Towards the end of the
document, we can see a set of guiding instructions or orders such as
"Review all agents and get rid of the ballast of agents with low
potential", "Improve educational work with agents",
"Enhance vigilance against the Dashnak personnel who are still intact,
returned from exile and moved to the region from Armenia or other areas, "Take
the registration process seriously and under the guidance of our instructions,
since there is no sound registration of Dashnaks in any of the regions..."
(This is followed by the details of orders issued previously).
In other words, while the ideologists of Armenian nationalism
and the Dashnaktsutyun Party did not publicly declare their adherence to
fascism, the Soviet security authorities were completely loyal and even
condescending to them. But when they started talking about the "Aryan
roots of the Armenian nation" chiming in with German national-socialist
ideology, preparations for mass repression of their party members began
immediately. Until the 12th Congress of their party in the USSR, the Dashnaks
and their ideology were not noticeable, but as soon as they openly and
consciously switched to Nazi Aryan positions, they immediately became an object
of interest and vocal opponents of the state security authorities.
State security agencies of the Transcaucasian Soviet
republics registered the Dashnaks in three categories: 1) party members; 2)
"participants of the Dashnak adventure in 1921", an anti-Soviet armed
mutiny of Armenians in spring 1921 led by the last Prime Minister of the
Dashnak Republic of Armenia, Simon Vratsian, who first handed over Armenia to
the Ottoman troops and then the Bolsheviks. The rebels could seize a vast
territory until Ganja and including Ninotsminde; 3) sympathizers. Two years
later, in 1937, Dashnaks from the first two categories were executed
systematically and methodically. Members of the last category were sent to the
NKVD labour camps for "re-education". Security authorities of the
Soviet Transcaucasia repressed the Dashnaks not because they were Armenians,
nationalists, ideological opponents of Bolshevism or anti-Soviet, but because
their leaders declared their support to Hitler and his misanthropic ideology.
Garegin Nzhdeh and his theory of Tseghakronism (nothing else!) were the main
reason why the Transcaucasian security authorities launched a bloody political
repression against a significant portion of ethnic Armenians residing in the
USSR.
Now Nzhdeh has a monument in Yerevan. Isn't it a
glorification of Nazism in Armenia? Any form of friendship with fascists is
immoral and no political reasons can justify this. Otherwise, the old Russian
saying "Tell me who are your friends and I'll tell you who you are"
becomes relevant.
P.S. On December 18, 2013, the 67th session of the UN General Assembly
adopted a resolution "Combating glorification of Nazism and other
practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial
discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance" (A/RES/68/150). In
compliance with §23 of this resolution, the erection of a monument to the
founder of the openly Nazi ideology of Tseghakronism, Garegin Nzhdeh, is one of
the modern forms of propaganda "based on ideas or theories of superiority
of one race or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin" and is a
direct violation of Article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Also, in §12 of the same document the UN
General Assembly "expresses concern at the human rights and democratic
challenges posed by all extremist political parties, movements and
groups." In addition, §19 emphasises "the importance of history
classes in teaching the dramatic events and human suffering which arose out of
the adoption of ideologies such as Nazism and Fascism."
Tseghakronism is Nazism, and its first victim during
the second half of the 1930s was the Armenian people caught by Stalin's
political repressions due to Nzhdeh's unwise public bravado in the world media.
That is why his monument must be demolished and his name forgotten.
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