Baku in 1917: Impacts of the Ethnic Factor on Political Processes

Abstract

Transcaucasia’s political parties and political forces were shaped on the ethnic principle rather than on that of social clusters, the political process in the region was distinguished by the vast influence of ethno-religious essentials. Goals. The paper attempts a correlation between the ethno-political population structure and 1917 political processes in Baku, the latter to include the course and results of city elections. Materials and methods. Traditional methods of historical research coupled with approaches of ethnopolitical science (and strengthened by adapting the definition of ‘political process’) make it possible to characterize the work as interdisciplinary. The article focuses on a variety of statistical digests and periodicals. Results. Our understanding of the 1917 events rests on a preliminary analysis of the ethno-religious evolution observed within Baku’s population in the pre-revolutionary period. So, the city’s economic development was paralleled by a diversification of its population. The fall of the Russian monarchy was followed by the emergence of local political life in Baku, and those were councils of workers’ deputies that sought to become major authorities. The October 1917 elections to councils of workers and soldiers’ deputies witnessed a dramatic struggle between the Dashnaktsutyun, Musavat, Socialist Revolutionaries, Bolsheviks, Muslim Bloc and Mensheviks. The political democratization did influence the October 1917 elections to the City Duma, and the latter’s composition proved most heterogeneous from both social and ethnic perspectives. Furthermore, 76.2% of votes at the elections to the Constituent Assembly in Baku distributed as follows: Dashnaktsutyun — 19.9%, Muslim National Committee and Turkic Federalist Party (Musavat) — 15.8%, Social Democrats (Mensheviks) — 14.9%, Socialist Revolutionaries — 13.6%, People’s Freedom (Narodnaya Svoboda) — 12%. The industrial district was dominated by the Bolsheviks and Musavat. Conclusions. The work resumes ethnic and religious factors had utmost impacts on political processes in the specified circumstances.