Contenu du sommaire : Le Caucase

Michel Lesure, France and the Caucasus at the time of Shamil, in the light of the telegrams of French consuls. From 1830 to 1860, ruthless battles opposed the Russian army to Caucasian tribes. These were inspired by a fierce will of independence and by religious fanaticism sustained by Muridism, preached by a Muslim mystical sect of which Shamil was the most illustrious chief. This obscure war, consisting of deathly ambushes, unpopular in Russia, was little known in the West because of military censorship. This explains the interest attached to reports, neglected till now by historians, those of the French consuls in Tiflis, Odessa, Trabzond and Erzerum. Their correspondence contains first hand information, confidences of Headquarters officers and appreciations — often pertinent — of the local administration. Whilst selecting out some of these dispatches for publication, the author studies here the personality of different consuls, the part played by them and their methods of information. In France, the poorly informed public opinion was slow to be touched by the events in the Caucasus. But a vigorous propaganda originating in England, some resounding articles of the French press, the stories of travellers awoke first the curiosity and then the sympathy of the public towards the resistance of the mountaineers. On the eve of the War of Crimea, the French leaders deceived by too simple a vision of the situation in the Caucasus, launch the idea of a second front and an alliance with Shamil, raised to the rank of a legendary hero. Arms which he never received, are being sent to him; officers, diplomats, an unexperienced consul are sent in disorderly missions to try — in vain — to establish contacts with the chiefs of the mountaineers. These poorly prepared initiatives, based on misunderstanding of the real nature of the resistance and of the Turkish alliance, will result in further driving the Caucasus into itself.

Anaïde Ter Minassian, Specifists at the dawn of Armenian marxism. The creation in Baku of the Armenian Workers' Social-Democrat Organization, members of which were called "specifists", originates in the crisis of the Armenian society in Transcaucasia in the fall of 1903 and the divisions that appeared within the RSDWP at the Congress of London. The Specifists were marxists who agreed to the program of the RSDWP but refused its organization system, claiming for themselves alone the right to organize and to direct Armenian workers. Their theoretical position, very near to that of the Bund and of the Austro-marxism, expresses a great sensitivity as regards the national problem — particularly complex in the Armenian context — and the relation of this problem to the workers' movement. Even at its peak, during the 1905 Revolution, Specifism remains a minority movement which practically disappears on the eve of the First World War. However, whilst Specifists do not succeed in gaining among Armenian workers, they nevertheless achieve, thanks to their press and literature, a remarkable work of translation and diffusion of the Marxist thought within Armenian society. After the 1917 Revolution, the Specifists rallied to the Soviet regime and constituted during the twenties the first cadres of Soviet Armenia.

Tadeusz Swietochowski, The Himmät party. Socialism and the national question in Russian Azerbaijan 1904-1920. In 1904, a handful of young Azerbaijanis, mainly from among the intelligentsia, initiated propaganda activity directed at their countrymen. The group assumed the name Himmät after the title of the clandestine publication it issued in the Azerbaijani language. The target of its attack was not so much the system of capitalism as the Tsarist bureaucracy and the Moslem clergy. Under the Stolypin reaction, the Himmät came to face the harsh policy of repressions. In 1917 the reborn party, by far more Marxist than ten years ago, failed to recapture its following. It broke up in a manner mirroring the alignment within the Russian Social-Democracy in Transcaucasia. The Baku Himmâtists led by Nanmanov turned pro-Bolshevik, whereas in the provinces the general tendency was to follow the Mensheviks, dominant throughout the rest of the region and notably in Georgia. In 1919, the men linked in the past to the "Tiflis Centre" now labeled as the "Right", kept the name of the Azerbaijani Social-Democratic Party — Himmät. The "Left", which after the split began to call itself the Azerbaijani Communist Party — Himmät, accepted as its goal "power to the Soviets in Azerbaijan".

Paul Dumont, The impossible revolution. The oppositional trends in Anatolia 1920-1921. Immediately after the Moudros armistice which delivered Turkey, bound head and foot at the mercy of the Allied, the ideas of the October revolution began to be accepted with real sympathy by certain sectors of the Turkish public opinion. The press and reports of diplomatic agents of this period advise of the existence of numerous smallish groups of communist inspiration in Anatolia. Through lack of sufficient data, only some of these organizations emerge up to a point from obscurity. Created in May 1920, the Green Army (Yeşil Ordu) was at its beginning a small secret association whose object was to fight the anti-nationalist propaganda organized by the Istanbul Government. Very rapidly it turned towards a kind of pan-touranian communism, taking up the position against the moderate policy of Mustafa Kemal. It was forced to suspend its activities on demand of the kemalist Government towards the middle of July, but its activity was taken up within the Great National Assembly by a parliamentary opposition group, the Halk zümresi (popular group). Later on, two other organizations will appear: the Turkish communist party (Türkiye komünist firkasi), official formation created in October 1920 by the political personalities of Mustafa Kemal's set, and the people's communist party (Turkiye halk iştirakiyyûm firkasi) . This last party will be the only one to be endorsed by the IIIrd International, whilst the candidacy of the governmental party will be rejected.