Sumgait Pogrom - Government Intervention

Government Intervention

The Soviet government's reaction to the protests was initially slow. The contemplation of sending military units to impose martial law into the town was a nearly unprecedented act in the Soviet Union's history. Most Soviets could at most recount to the days of Second World War where such measures were taken by the government. The spirit of Glasnost had seen the Soviet Union more tolerant in responding to politically charged issues. However, Soviet officials in Azerbaijan, some of whom were witnessing the attacks, appealed to Kremlin leaders to dispatch Soviet troops to Sumgait.

In a Soviet Politburo session on the third day of the rioting (February 29), Gorbachev and his senior cabinet, conferred on several subjects before even discussing the events of Sumgait. When the issue was finally raised, Gorbachev voiced his opposition to the proposal of sending in troops but his cabinet members including the State's Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, fearing an escalation between Armenians and Azeris, eventually persuaded him to do so.

Meanwhile, on the previous day, two battalions of MVD troops from the interior, largely equipped with truncheons and riot gear (those troops who were armed with firearms were armed with blanks and not given the permission to open fire), arrived in Sumgait in buses and armored personnel carriers. As they moved in to secure the town, the soldiers themselves became the targets of the mob. In what became a startling sight for people living in the city, the soldiers were attacked and maimed with the improvised steel objects. Their armored vehicles were flipped over and in some cases destroyed with molotov cocktails as the troops found themselves in complete disarray. One eyewitness described how:

At noon they, the soldiers, attacked them, and then the tables were turned. The mob went after the soldiers....The guys were tired, exhausted, some had their clubs taken away, others, their shields, they had been beaten, they were covered in blood....They beat the soldiers with their own clubs and shields. And those guys stood there and couldn't defend themselves, they couldn't open fire. They couldn't defend themselves, let alone us. It's comical....How could something like that happen during our Soviet period? It's painfully embarrassing! And they burned the armored personnel carriers, too....The soldiers lost their senses. And when they drove the personnel carrier and the bus at the mob of rage and fury, they drove right up on the sidewalk....The bus ran over three, one of the carriers ran over two, and the second, two more....they ran over seven before our eyes.

By February 29, the situation had worsened to the point where the Soviet government was forced to call in more professional, heavily armed troops, giving them right to use deadly force. A contingent made up of elements of the Felix Dzerzhinsky Division of the Internal Troops; a company of Marines from the Caspian Sea Naval Flotilla; troops from Dagestan; an assault landing brigade; military police; and the 137th Parachute Regiment of the Airborne Forces from Ryazan – a military force of nearly 10,000 men – made its way to Sumgait under the overall command of Lieutenant General Krayev. Tanks were brought in and ordered to cordon off the city. Andrei Shilkov, a Russian journalist for Glasnost, counted at least 47 tanks and also troops wearing bulletproof vests patrolling the town, an implication that firearms were present and used during the rioting.

A curfew was imposed from 8 PM to 7 AM as skirmishes between troops and rioters continued. Krayev ordered troops to rescue Armenians left in their apartments. By the evening of the 29th, martial law was imposed and troops in buses and personnel carriers were patrolling the streets of Sumgait. Under heavily armed guard, civilian buses and APCs transported Armenian residents to the Samed Vurgun Cultural Facility (known as the SK) at the city's main square. The building that was designed to accommodate several hundred people, though as many as several thousand found shelter there.