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          Baku 1920: Oppressed people embrace socialism

                           By Ali Azad

More than 72 years ago--in September 1920--the Bolshevik Party 
organized the Baku Congress, also known as the Congress of the 
Peoples of the East. Baku is the capital of the Republic of 
Azerbaijan.

The congress was convened by the Second Congress of the Communist
International under Lenin's leadership. Its goal was to forge 
unity among the oppressed peoples of the former Czarist empire on
the basis of anti-imperialist and working-class solidarity.

The Congress took place under the most difficult circumstances. 
Britain, Germany, France, the U.S. and other capitalist powers 
had engulfed the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia in 
war. Their goal in the Middle East to divide the region among 
themselves. They also sought to destroy the new Soviet Union.

Under these circumstances the revolutionary delegates met in 
Baku.

Britain held the Republic of Azerbaijan under siege. The British 
Royal Air Force bombed the ship that carried the Iranian 
delegates on the Caspian Sea. Two delegates were killed and 
several injured. The British Navy harrased the delegates coming 
from Turkey.

Yet close to 2,000 people participated in the Baku 
convention--1,200 openly calling themselves communists.

They represented oppressed peoples from every corner of the 
former Czar's empire. Delegates also came from India, China, 
Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and many other countries.

Among the nationalities present were Persians, Armenians, 
Russians, Georgians, Chechens, Tadjiks, Kirghizians, Ossetinas, 
Uzbeks, Indians, Turks, Jamshidis, Hazaras, Kurds and Arabs.

WHY BAKU?

Under Czarist Russia, colonized people were pitted against each 
other, while all were oppressed. National strife had long run 
rampant in the Caucasus. But something new was happening in Baku.

Baku produced close to half the world's oil at that time. It had 
become a proletarian center with an international work force. Its
history was one of severe working conditions, dictated by the big
imperialist oil monopolies.

But Baku had also become a Bolshevik center. Thousands of 
communists, working class activists and trade unionists of 30 
nationalities organized in the area. Their influence was felt all
over the Middle East and Asia.

The Bolsheviks came to Baku to combat Russian chauvinism and show
solidarity with the peoples of the East. The oppressed came 
because they had been inspired by the 1917 Revolution, which 
overthrew an oppressor government and replaced it with one that 
called for solidarity with all the exploited.

REVOLUTION MADE IT POSSIBLE

The enthusiasm generated by the Bolshevik Revolution was evident 
in a talk given by a woman delegate--a revolutionary concept in 
itself. Her name was Bibinur. She was a Turk from the city of 
Auli-Ata.

She told the delegates: "You represent the very best forces of 
the toiling and oppressed masses. All the oppressed nationalities
of the East who have been ruthlessly exploited by czarism and 
imperialism for hundreds of years look to you, their deputies, 
with hope.

"We, the women of the East, are exploited 10 times worse than the
men. ... Now, dear comrades, a bright sun has reached us, warming
and comforting. ...  It is the power of the Soviet of workers, 
peasants and [deputies]. ... We women have awakened from our 
nightmare of oppression, and every day are strengthening your 
ranks with our best forces."

A delegate from India exclaimed: "The Indian people who are 
languishing under the yoke of British capitalism look for help 
from Soviet Russia, which carries forward the revolutionary 
banner of the world proletariat. ... We have long looked forward 
to the day when all the peoples of the East would unite and free 
ourselves from world imperialism."

K. Radek explained the position of the Bolshevik leadership: "A 
permanent peace between the country of the workers and the 
exploiting countries is impossible. The eastern policy of the 
Soviet government is thus no diplomatic maneuver, no pushing 
forward of the peoples of the East into the firing line, in 
order, by betraying them, to win advantages for the Soviet 
Republic. ... We are bound to you by a common destiny: either we 
unite with the peoples of the East ... or we shall perish."

The solidarity the Bolsheviks extended, along with their 
unrelenting support for the right of oppressed nations to 
self-determination, gained them overwhelming support from the 
oppressed at Baku--and was crucial to uniting the 100 
nationalities of the former czarist republic into the Soviet 
Union.

Today, 72 years after the Baku Congress, the imperialist media 
either claim to be perplexed or blame socialism for the 
re-emergence of national strife in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
But the actual cause of the fighting is the abandonment of 
socialist solidarity and self-determination, and the 
re-introduction of capitalist measures with all the old 
exploitation and inequality.

                               -30-

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted 
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; "workers" on PeaceNet; on Internet: 
"workers@mcimail.com".)

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