Armenian Revolutionary Federation - Early History

Early History

In the late 19th century, Eastern Europe and Russia became the hub of small groups advocating reform in Armenian-populated areas in the Ottoman Empire. In 1890, recognizing the need to unify these groups in order to be more efficient, Christapor Mikaelian, Simon Zavarian and Stepan Zorian created a new political party called the "Federation of Armenian Revolutionaries" (Հայ Յեղափոխականների Դաշնակցութիւն, Hay Heghapokhakanneri Dashnaktsutyun), which would eventually be called the "Armenian Revolutionary Federation" or "Dashnaktsutiun" in 1890.

The Social Democrat Hunchakian Party at one point had agreed to join as well, seeing that the ARF's political ideology was socialism. However, the Hunchakians claimed the new party was not Marxist enough and withdrew from the union. The original aim of the ARF was to gain autonomy for the Armenian-populated areas in the Ottoman Empire. The party began to organize itself in the Ottoman Empire in the early 1890s and held its first major meeting in Tiflis, Russian Empire, in 1892. At that meeting, the party adopted a decentralized modus operandi according to which the chapters in different countries were allowed to plan and implement policies in tune with their local political atmosphere. The party set its goal of a society based on the democratic principles of freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and agrarian reform.