March Days - Events of March 30 - April 2, 1918

April 2, 1918

When the staff of the disbanded Savage Division arrived in Baku on March 9, 1918, the Soviet immediately arrested its commander, General Talyshinski. The move sparked protests from Azerbaijani population, with occasional calls to offer armed resistance to the Soviet. According to Firuz Kazemzadeh, Shahumyan could have prevented bloodshed, had he been less impulsive and stubborn. Only a few days earlier, Shahumyan received a telegram from Lenin, in which he was advised "to learn diplomacy", but this advice was ignored.

The March 1918 confrontation was triggered by an incident with the steamship "Evelina". On March 27, 1918, fifty former Savage Division servicemen arrived in Baku on board of this steamship, to attend the funeral of their colleague Mamed Tagiyev, son of a famous Azerbaijani oil magnate and philanthropist Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev. M. Tagiyev was killed in a skirmish with the Russian-Armenian forces in Lenkoran. Some sources state that when soldiers got back on the "Evelina" to sail out of Baku on March 30, 1918, the Soviet received information that the Muslim crew of the ship was armed and waiting for a signal to revolt against the Soviet. While the report lacked foundation, the Soviet acted on it, disarming the crew which tried to resist. Other sources claim that Azerbaijanis were alarmed by the growing military strength of the Armenians in Baku, and called for help of the Savage division units in Lenkoran. Their arrival caused great concerns among both Bolsheviks and Armenians, and when officials were sent down to the dockside to try to discover what their intentions were, they were driven back by gunfire, a number of them being killed. Eventually, however, these Savage Division soldiers were disarmed by a stronger Bolshevik force.

By 6 p.m. on March 30, 1918, Baku was filled with fighting. Trenches were being dug, barricades erected, and preparations made for warfare. The Soviet side, led by Shahumyan, realized that full civil war was starting and its own forces were insufficient against Azerbaijani masses led by Musavat. Allies were found among the Mensheviks, SRs, and the Kadets (right-wing liberals), which promised support the Bolsheviks as the champions of the "Russian Cause." In response to these, Musavat's Achiq Söz newspaper noted that while Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were fighting all year, both were uniting against Musavat even with the Kadets and the Dashnaks. The paper attributed such alliance to national factors, and concluded that the Soviet's attempt to provoke "one nationality against another, instead of fighting a class war, was a tragic capitulation of democracy".

In the morning of March 31, Azerbaijanis opposed to the Bolshevik disarming of Savage Division held protests in Baku, demanding to arm the Muslims. The Azerbaijani Bolshevik organization Hümmet attempted to mediate the dispute by proposing that the arms taken from the Savage Division are transferred to the custody of the Hümmet. Shahumyan agreed to this proposal. But on the afternoon of March 31, when Muslim representatives appeared before the Baku Soviet leadership to take the arms, shots were already heard in the city and the Soviet commissar Prokofy Dzhaparidze refused to provide arms and informed the Hümmet leadership that "Musavat had launched a political war". The talks broke off abruptly after the Soviet's soldiers were fired upon. Bolsheviks accused the Muslims in the incident, stopped negotiations, and opened hostilities. Later Shahumyan admitted that the Bolsheviks deliberately used a pretext to attack their political opponents:

We needed to give a rebuff, and we exploited the opportunity of the first attempt at an armed assault on our cavalry unit and began an attack on the whole front. Due to the efforts of both the local Soviet and the Military-revolutionary committee of the Caucasus Army, which moved here (from Tiflis and Sarikamish) we already had armed forces - about 6,000 strong. Dashnaktsutiun also had 3,000 - 4,000 strong national forces, which were at our disposal. The participation of the latter lent the civil war, to some extent, the character of an ethnic massacre, however, it was impossible to avoid it. We were going for it deliberately. The Muslim poor suffered severely, however they are now rallying around the Bolsheviks and the Soviet.

Armenians initially remained neutral as the Muslim rebellion against the Soviet began. The Musavat Party proposed an alliance with the Dashnaks, but was given a rebuff. The Armenian leadership withdrew its forces to the Armenian areas of Baku and limited its action to self-defense. On the evening of March 31, machine-gun and rifle fire in Baku intensified into a full-fledged battle. On the morning of April 1, 1918, the Committee of Revolutionary Defense of Baku's Soviet issued a leaflet which said:

In view of the fact that the counterrevolutionary Musavat party declared war on the Soviet of Workers', Soldiers', and Sailors' Deputies in the city of Baku and thus threatened the existence of the government of the revolutionary democracy, Baku is declared to be in a state of siege

Forced to seek support from either Muslim Musavat or Armenian Dashnaktsutyun, Shahumyan, himself an Armenian, chose the latter. Following initial skirmishes in the streets, the Dashnaks proceeded to initiate a massacre, wildly killing Musavat military elements and Muslim civilians alike without mercy or discrimination in both Baku and the surrounding countryside.

No quarter was given by either side: neither age nor sex was respected. Enormous crowds roamed the streets, burning houses, killing every passer-by who was identified as an enemy, many innocent persons suffering death at the hands of both the Armenians and Azerbaijanis. The struggle which had begun as a political contest between the Musavat and the Soviet turned into a gigantic race riot. There were descriptions of Dashnak forces taking to looting, burning and killing in the Muslim sections of the city. According to Peter Hopkirk, "Armenians, seeing that at last they had their ancient foes on the run, were now out for vengeance". In Balakhany and Ramany districts of Baku, the majority of Muslim workers stayed at their places and avoided the battles, while the peasants were not moved to join the anti-Soviet rebels. The Persian workers remained passive during all of the fighting, refusing to take sides. Left-wing Muslim leaders, including those of SRs and Hümmet Party, such as Narimanov, Azizbekov, Bunyat Sardarov and Kazi-Magomed Aghasiyev, supported the Soviet forces During the battles, Bolsheviks decided to use artillery against the Azerbaijani residential quarters in the city.

On the afternoon on April 1, a Muslim delegation arrived at the Hotel Astoria. The Committee of Revolutionary Defense presented them with an ultimatum and demanded that representatives of all Muslim parties sign the document before the shelling stopped. Early in the evening, the agreements were signed and the bombardment stopped. The fighting did not subside, however, till the night of April 2, 1918, when thousands of Muslims started leaving the city in a mass exodus. By the fifth day, although much of the city was still ablaze, all resistance had ceased, leaving the streets strewn with dead and wounded, nearly all of them Muslims. So the armed conflict between the Musavat and the joint Soviet-ARF forces ended on March 3, 1918 with the victory of the latter.

• City of Baku

• Ruins of the editorial office of the Kaspi newspaper on Nikolayevskaya Street (present-day Istiglaliyyat Street)

• Gubernskaya Street (present-day Nizami Street)

• Bazarnaya Street (present-day Azerbaijan Avenue)

• Pochtovaya Street (present-day Taghizadeh Street)