Microsoft Word mitatcelikpaladokto doc

 
 
 
158 
 
Germany, and Kemalizm in Turkey is still functioning with great support in all 
fields of social and political life. The achievements they realized forced other world 
governments to revise and modify their own policies. Thus, in the light of these 
developments, the peoples of the Caucasus were also to revise their own situation 
and arrange themselves.
406
 
In this framework, Haydar Bammat and his Kavkaz group openly 
repudiated the essential principles of international democracy and sympathized 
with national socialism and fascism. They defined themselves as nationalist and 
anti-Marxist and, openly preferred to act in line with Germany, Italy, and, Japan. 
Therefore, from the beginning, Bammat started to criticise the ‘Brussels 
Pact’ in the pages of Kavkaz. According to Bammat, the Brussels Pact was an 
arrangement of Georgian Mensheviks who controlled the Prométhée and it was just 
a Marxist set up
407
. Therefore, the Kavkaz group targeted Georgian socialists at 
first. Then, because of their close connections, they opposed Resulzade and his 
‘Musavat Party’ and, Said Shamil and his North Caucasian group. At last, although 
they were not active in Prométhée, their ideological proximity made the Armenian 
Dashnaks their rivals.
408
 
With the help of these groups or so-called parties, which were converted 
into a kind of ‘benefit fund’ and willing to make every kind of compromise for its 
survival, the peoples of the Caucasus could not achieve anything. They could not 
vote for the feelings of the younger generations, and their opportunity had passed 
                                                 
406
 “Yeni Yollar,” Almanak, 8-10. 
407
 Haydar Bammat, “Lehistan ve Kafkasya II,” (translated from the Kavkaz, No.8), Almanak, 26-
32. 

---

 
 
 
159 
 
them by. The Caucasians were in need of new direction.
409
 “The overwhelming 
majority of our emigres who were doomed to survive under extremely severe 
conditions, lost their confidence and faith.” These emigres, because of a lack of 
genuine leadership and ideal, began to refuse to join any kind of political activity. 
They are aware that the existing so-called leaders were in pursuit of their ‘comfort’ 
and ‘unimportant party works’.
 410
 
But on the other hand those ‘loyal and idealist’ Caucasian emigres 
vehemently requesting the establishment of a new organisation. Accordingly, the 
aim of the Kavkaz, was to assist Caucasian emigres to set up a genuine united 
political organisation. This organisation, he pointed out, had to have a program 
based on the historical realities of the Caucasus and which avoided imitating 
implicitly alien examples. He admitted that the only way to accomplish this aim 
was to establish a comprehensive union or confederation of the Caucasus. Logic, he 
pointed out, necessitates that. On each and every occasion from 1917, he stressed 
that sincere nationalist leaders of the North Caucasian Republic proposed it to the 
leaders of the Transcaucasian republics, but they never took these proposals 
seriously. Therefore, the idea of Confederation that was proposed by the Pact 
signed in Brussels was not a new phenomenon, but just a product of opportunist 
minds.
411
 
According to Bammat these groups were not trustworthy. They were mainly 
directed by the internationalist minds of the 1917 revolution and had no patriotic 
                                                                                                                                        
408
 Muhlen, Gamalıhaç ile Kızılyıldız Arasında, 23. Muhlen quoting from Kantemir’s hand-written 
note titled “Caucasian Problem” in Federal Archive in Koblenz. (Die Kaukasische Frage, (BA), R. 
6/65). 
409
 “Yeni Yollar,” Almanak, 10. 
410
 Haydar Bammat, ‘Lehistan ve Kafkasya II,’ Almanak, p 31. 

---

 
 
 
160 
 
feelings at all. However, the basic needs of the Caucasians were nationalism and 
patriotism. Thus the Kavkaz group did not respect the proposals of Brussels 
Pact.
412
 
 
7- The Turn of Events: 
1934 was in fact a turning point for the Caucasians. For the last time they 
tried to establish a Confederation, at least on a paper. The contracting committee, 
however, was dissolved in 1935 and a Caucasian Confederation Council replaced it 
with no concrete contribution. Beyond that, the Armenians and Georgians 
separated themselves and began to work together, excluding the North Caucasians 
and Azerbaijanis. 
The first substantial initiative was the Armenian-Georgian League of 24 
May 1936. The foundation of the League was announced following the religious 
ceremony to sanctify the souls of the martyrs of the independence war in Armenian 
Church at Paris. The leading names who prepared the document were Arshak 
Jamalyan, the ex-foreign minister of Armenian Republic and Georgian Prince 
Vachnadze. The Declaration was signed by the representatives of Armenian 
Dashnaks and Georgian Mensheviks and published in the Armenian periodical 
Usaber.
413
 
The League was religious in content and aimed to establish a union on the 
basis of religion, excluding Muslims of the region. Nevertheless, it only served to 
                                                                                                                                        
411
 Haydar Bammat, ‘Lehistan ve Kafkasya II,’ Almanak, p 31. 
412
 It is clear from the position taken by Bammat’s group that they were very anti-socialist, seeing 
the Second International in the work of the Ukrainian and Georgian socialists in the Promethean 
front. That they were inclined towards the fascist powers of the day as an antidote to communism. 

---