155
Committee in light of the existing situation. Then, in order to revitalize the
independent Caucasian Confederation, he asked the Conference, to set up a new
and more influential Caucasian organization in compliance with the spirit of the 14
July Pact.
397
The representatives of the three nations participating in Conference decided
to form the Caucasian Confederation Council (Kafkasya Konfederasyon Şurası).
This Council was set up on the basis of equal representation of the national centers
of Azerbaijan, Georgia and the North Caucasus.
398
The duties of the new body
were also determined during this Conference.
“ 1) To overthrow the Russian invasion government in the Caucasus, to
make the Caucasian nations ready for the revival of the Caucasian republics
and organize the unification of these republics in the form of Confederation.
2) To establish political and organizational connections with the
organizations of the other captive nations of the Soviet Union.
3) The Caucasian Confederation Council is ready to establish contacts with
revolutionary forces of the Russian nation who are unconditionally accepted
the right to independence of Russian captive nations, and in favour of
solving all kinds of international problems through peaceful means and
arbitration.
4) The Caucasian Confederation Council, during it’s struggle to accomplish
its objectives, depends only on its own power, which comes from
discontented nations, relies on the benevolence and the support of the
Caucasian friends and refrains from taking any kind of steps that would be
put them in threat. The Council, taking its member nationalities’ interests
into account would stay, only, as the builder and the owner of the Caucasian
politics.”
399
395
D. Vaçnadze, ‘Hariçte Kafkasya birliği hareketi tarihi II,’ Birleşik Kafkasya (Vereinigtes
Kaukasien), (Munich), 6(23): 8. Hereafter “Birlik Tarihi II.”
396
Vesikalar, 21.
397
Vesikalar, 22.
398
M. Resulzade, “Kafkasya Meseleleri V,” 7.
399
Vesikalar, 25-26.
156
Following the elections of the members of the Council and talks, the
Conference issued a declaration and began to function.
400
6- Caucasian Confederation Pact and the Opposition:
The first, if negligible, opposition to the Caucasian Mountaineers People
Party came from its predecessor, the Union of Caucasian Mountaineers. Despite the
fact that new Party was established by most of its members, the Union did not
cease exists. Presided over by Murat Hatağogu who was not allowed to participate
to the new party, some opponent continued to work.
401
Moreover, another
opposition organization, the Union of Caucasian Nations (Kafkasya Milletler
Birliği or Soyuz Naroda Kavkaza) was established by some North Caucasian
emigres led by M. Abatsiyev and H. Hatayev. The Caucasian Mountaineers People
Party refused these organisations vehemently. Of the opposition movements,
‘Kavkaz’ set up by Haydar Bammat, the former Foreign Minister of the North
Caucasian Republic of 1918 was the most organized and long-lasting one.
402
The basic social and political policies of the Kavkaz group
403
could easily
be followed from its periodical Kavkaz. The first issue of the Kavkaz was published
in October 1934 in Paris. The members of the group were very knowledgeable
400
For the text of Declaration see Vesikalar, 57-60. And for the reactions of several numbers of
media see Vesikalar, 29-44.
401
Aydın Turan, April 1997. “Kafkasya Dağlıları Birliği (Soyuz Gortsev Kavkaza),” Toplumsal
Tarih, 7(40): 49.
402
For the analysis of a split among the North Caucasians see F. Daryal (Fuat Emircan), “Ön Söz,”
and “Kafkas İşleri,” 1938. Kafkasya: Kafkasya Hakında Yazılar Dergisi II, F. Daryal, eds., İstanbul:
Matbaai Ebuzziya, 3-4 and 65-68. Hereafter Yazılar Dergisi II.
403
Attributed to the periodical Kavkaz that had been started to publish in October 1934 by Bammat
in Paris, this group was labelled as ‘Kavkaz group’.
157
native Caucasians who had often participated in the work of their respective
national movements and short-lived governments. While the Azeri and Georgians
of greatest international prominence were connected to the Promethean front, this
was not the case with the North Caucasians, who were instead bound up with
Kavkaz. As a reflection of the ideology of the group the periodical had been
publishing with the help of Japanese embassy in Paris and was partly printed in
Berlin, Charlottenburg.
404
In fact, the ultimate goal of the group was not so different to the other group
the realization of “the independence of the harmed fatherland”
405
Their strategy,
tactics, and world outlook nevertheless differentiated sharply.
The Kavkaz group sought to establish the Caucasus as a ‘Switzerland of the
East’ by adopting a decentralized canton system used in that country. It worked to
stimulate Armenian interest, to promote a careful and tolerant religious policy,
which would help in building up a genuine Caucasian nationality that would
occupy a buffer state, a Caucasian Confederation, between Russia and the Middle
East along borders already, established with Turkey and Iran.
According to Bammat, distress and the economic crises after the Great
World War caused the emergence of three different ideologies totally opposed to
the basic principles of the pro-war period’s mentality. Among them, Marxism
transformed into an ‘oligarchy of party bosses’ in the hands of the Bolsheviks in
the Soviet Union. Contrary to that, fascism and national socialism, in Italy and
404
Patrik von zur Muhlen, Gamalıhaç ile Kızılyıldız Arasında, 34-35.
405
“We learned at the expense of blood and the lost independece that we have no alternative of
improvement but only the establishment of a Caucasian state that made up of all the nations of the
Caucasus.” Haydar Bammat, “Hedefimiz,” 1936. Kafkas Almanağı, F. Daryal, eds., İstanbul, 6.
Hereafter Almanak.
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