The Road to Karabakh Is Paved with Good Intentions: to What Extent Did Soviet Ethnofederalism Cause the Armenian- Azerbaijani Conflict Between 1988-1991?

The road to Karabakh is paved with good intentions: to what extent did Soviet ethnofederalism cause the Armenian- Azerbaijani conflict between 1988-1991?

UU History: Bachelor’s thesis

MAY 3, 2020 GEORGE L.A. VAN EESTEREN 6222196

George van Eesteren 6222196

Abstract

Most Nagorno-Karabakh War literature emphasises the role of underlying nationalism and ineffective central government intervention within Soviet Armenia and Azerbaijan as the primary causes of ethnic conflict over the disputed territory following 1988; becoming a full interstate conflict as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The suddenness with which nationalist surges in both Soviet republics mobilised both countries populations - then citizens of the same country - to kill each other has caused the prevalence of “Pandora’s Box” explanations. Whereby, violent nationalist radicalisation had emerged through a “double vacuum” of state power and ideology during Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms. Although the determinism behind such reasoning - problematic in what is still an under-documented conflict –ensures questions remain surrounding how 70 years of ethnic coexistence rapidly transformed into ethnic conflict.

Rather than compartmentalising the war as the result of failed leadership or ethnic hatreds, this study proposes an understanding of the conflict within its Soviet social context. The USSR’s ethnofederal institutional structure had produced conditions in soviet Transcaucasia that proved crucial enablers of Armenia and Azerbaijan’s contemporary enmity. Adopting a sociological lens, this study identifies vital areas of contention within political and social life in both Soviet Republics that played a direct role in causing ethnic violence following 1988. This implicates the very structure of the Soviet system as the chief cause of war while also explaining why Soviet collapse in the region was exceptionally violent compared to elsewhere. Utilising recently available primary evidence, it then demonstrates the applicability of this perspective through analysing Gorbachev’s failure to halt escalation despite the state still being strong in until late 1989. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was not pre-determined, but the very systemic inertia and contradictions Gorbachev’s leadership had sought to reform created a situation whereby Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict was almost impossible to avoid, and likely to turn violent.

Table of Contents

Introduction...... 3 1. The Soviet origins and historiography of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict ...... 6 Background: ethnofederalism & ethnic conflict ...... 6 2. Soviet ethnofederalism & Transcaucasia ...... 16 Ethnofederalism & the conditions for conflict ...... 16 Ethnofederalism & Nationalist Mobilisation ...... 20 Balkanised historiography; Soviet Transcaucasia and Yugoslavia ...... 23 3. Ethnofederalism from a sociological perspective: sowing the seeds for destruction ...... 25 Soviet developmentalism & the roots of late-20th century violence in Transcaucasia ...... 25 Nagorno-Karabakh & competitive social struggle ...... 29 4. Addressing the Soviet leadership’s failure to prevent Armenian-Azerbaijani ethnic conflict ...... 35 General Secretary perplexed ...... 36 “A crisis of methods” ...... 39 Decision points: Timing and structure ...... 43 Conclusion & Implications ...... 46 Bibliography ...... 48

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Cover image: On January 19th, 1990, in the Azerbaijani region of Khandlar, nationalist activists block a column of Soviet BTR 80 armoured personnel carriers, part of a force sent to quell ethnic rioting - Reuters/Bettmann.

For the sake of overall formatting, captions for further images appearing between chapters are located in at the final page of the bibliography (pp. 51).

List of acronyms and terms:

 USSR: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics  SSR: Soviet Socialist Republic  AmSSR: Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic  AzSSR: Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic  NKAO: Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast  CPSU: Communist Party of the Soviet Union  APF: Azerbaijani Popular Front  ANM: Armenian National movement  KGB: Soviet Committee for State Security (“Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti,” Комитет Государственнои Безопасности, КГБ)  MVD: Soviet Interior Ministry (“Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del,” Министерство внутренних дел, МВД)  Kavburo: Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee tasked with national delimitation in Transcaucasia. (“Kavkazskoye Byuro Tsentral'nogo Komiteta,” Кавказское Бюро Центрального Комитета)

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Introduction

Between 1988-1991, a dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan - then members of the Soviet Union - over possession of the Nagorno-Karabakh region became the first instance of ethnic conflict to emerge during the USSR’s final years, becoming a full interstate war following its collapse. By the 1994 ceasefire, 25,000 had been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.1 Although regular armed clashes along the border and an ongoing war of words between Yerevan and Baku still threaten to reignite the “frozen conflict” with devastating consequences for the South Caucasus region (Transcaucasia). With a final settlement remaining elusive after nearly three decades of unsuccessful international mediation, and Azerbaijan reserving the right to retake the now Armenian-controlled territory by force, an enhanced understanding of the origins of the conflict remains vital.

What is remarkable is that the emergence of armed conflict between Soviet Armenia and Azerbaijan took most observers, the Soviet government, and even both peoples, completely by surprise. Unlike the Yugoslav Wars, conflict began as the state was still strong with both populations remaining loyal Soviet citizens. Though Moscow only appeared ever more powerless to stop conflict from escalating to the point where both countries rejected Soviet rule entirely. All despite 70 years of peaceful coexistence as citizens of the same country. Historians have since struggled to come to a firm conclusion over how war started. The most recent study of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict notes:

'Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict in [1988-1991] is both over-determined and under-documented. One complication is that the dispute is both inseparable from the wider unravelling of the Soviet Union... yet exceptional as an example where conflict became violent.'2

These complications mean even the most widely agreed upon informed conclusions attract significant scholarly critique, alongside the indignant dismissals of Armenian and Azerbaijani nationalists. Representing the mainstream view of the conflict in both countries, they reject any notion of shared guilt. However, the predominant academic view of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict sees both sides’ embrace violent nationalism as co-dependent, enabled by the vacuum of power and ideology during the Gorbachev’s perestroika. The central issue that this study identifies with this standpoint is that is too

1 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 285. 2 Broers, Laurence. “A Violent Unravelling” in Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry. Edinburgh University Press, 2019, pp. 17. 3

George van Eesteren 6222196 deterministic, relying heavily on the notion that ethnic conflict would break up in the sudden absence of central authority.

This study argues though that the that above shared responsibility, both Armenia and Azerbaijan’s embrace of ethnic conflict was the pre-structured result of their shared experience under Soviet rule. Instead of compartmentalising the Nagorno-Karabakh War as a purely separate case, it explores the broader Soviet context it emerged from. While being equal “union republics” of the same ethnofederal structure, the long-term effect of Soviet ethnofederalism in Transcaucasia was the creation of the very conditions for ethnic conflict. Ironically, Soviet communism ultimately reinforced national differences between Armenia and Azerbaijan. A direct link between ethnofederal institutions is established through analysis of the Soviet social structure, which allows for an understanding of how certain areas of the USSR saw violent conflict while most did not.

In establishing a hypothesis emphasising a cause of conflict different to most previous studies, this study shall address the current historiography of the conflict before substantiating the effects of “Soviet ethnofederalism” on Armenian-Azerbaijani relations.3 In proving that ethnofederalism was a decisive factor behind the conflict, it also seeks to answer the following sub-questions. First, how viable is the use of sociological analysis in explaining the emergence of Armenian-Azerbaijani ethnic conflict? This study will apply Georgi Derluguian’s micro-theory developed in his social biography of the contemporary Caucasus, arguing regional ethnic conflict was the by-product of a competitive struggle within the Soviet social structure as the state disintegrated. In comparing it with available secondary literature it will find that there is basis for applying his social theory specifically to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

Second, how culpable was Gorbachev’s leadership for escalation? In an examination of the interplay between structure and agency, a further theory of Derluguian shall be tested to ascertain the viability of his model: that Gorbachev’s actions were limited by the very system he controlled. Despite receiving much blame in the conflict’s literature for inept crisis management, this study finds that the odds were structurally stacked against him from the start, meaning that successful resolution of the crisis was highly unlikely. This conclusion is established through examination of primary evidence, include the recently translated diaries of Anatoly Chernyaev, one of Gorbachev’s most trusted and capable advisors. Alongside these are recently declassified CIA intelligence briefings from during the crisis. Beyond

3 The term “Soviet ethnofederalism” as an analytical term of the USSR’s territorial-administrative heirachy and Soviet nationalities policy is adopted from Mark Beissinger: Beissinger, Mark R. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge University Press, 2002. 4

George van Eesteren 6222196 providing an insight into how Washington viewed ethnic troubles within its greatest geopolitical rival, these documents provide sober assessments of how limited the effective options the government had were.

Finally, what are the implications of this study’s approach on our understanding of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict? Given that conflict was a product of shared circumstances, the emphasis on guilt of either or each party requires re-examination. Moreover, could conflict have been avoided? To which it argues while conflict was not pre-destined, avoidance would have proven a challenge for even the most foresighted leaders.

Concerning secondary literature, two books featuring heavily in this study are worth additional comment. An outsider to the inner workings of the Caucasus, upon preparing to work in the region this year I asked for as much information as I could find from local peers. Georgi Derluguian’s social biography Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus was recommended by a Tbilisi-based journalist, forcefully arguing Derluguian’s book was the first I had to read to understand Transcaucasia’s peculiarities; it did not disappoint. Thomas De Waal’s Black Garden was also recommended as the most complete account of the course of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to date.4

4 Black Garden is widely cited in most studies of the Nagorno Karabakh War. Writing in 2016, veteran diplomat and international mediator for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict Philip Remler argues de Waal’s work ‘will serve as the seminal reference on the conflict for years to come.’ Remler, Philip. "Chained to the Caucasus: Peacemaking in Karabakh, 1987–2012." International Peace Institute, 2016, pp. 127. 5

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1. The Soviet origins and historiography of the Nagorno- Karabakh conflict

Background: ethnofederalism & ethnic conflict Officially a federal union, the USSR in reality was a heavily centralised quasi-federal authoritarian structure. Based on Lenin’s korenizatsiya (“indigenisation”) policy, Soviet territory was delimited by “titular nationality,” giving the structure its ethnic character. By 1988, this consisted of Russia and fifteen “union republics” - including the Armenian and Azerbaijani Socialist Soviet Republics (AmSSR and AzSSR). Officially sovereign states, their governance by republican branches of the Communist Party in practice meant limited autonomy.5 Significant ethnic minority populations within republics were also granted territorial autonomy; either as autonomous republics (ASSRs) or Oblasts (“regions”). The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) held a majority Armenian population within Azerbaijani territory.

On February 20th 1988, the NKAO’s Soviet (“council”) in Stepanakert voted to secede from AzSSR territory after a week of public demonstrations in the Armenian-majority calling for unification with Armenia. Seeing their chance in perestroika, this followed months of organised civic agitation by prominent Karabakhi-Armenians throughout the USSR.6 The AzSSR Supreme Soviet immediately declared the NKAO’s resolution illegal, and intercommunal ethnic scuffles began happening inside Karabakh. Though the civic nature of the Karabakhi-Armenian campaign meant wholesale ethnic conflict did not appear inevitable. With glasnost and perestroika permitting public examination of past errors,7 Karabakh’s delimitation inside Azerbaijani territory was perceived as another injustice by Stalin, causing Baku’s systemic discrimination against the majority-Armenian population after originally promising the territory to Armenia.8

5 Cornell, Svante E. Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus. Curzon, 2001, pp. 24-26. 6 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 15-18. 7 Given that glasnost (“openness”) was an accompanying campaign meant to lay the groundwork for perestroika (“restructuring”), this study will refer to Gorbachev’s reform process by the latter. 8 Stalin had publicly promised Karabakh to Armenia before its delimitation within the AzSSR. Stalin, J.V. “Long Live Soviet Armenia!” Works, Vol. 4, November, 1917 - 1920, 1953. Marxists.org, www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1920/12/04.htm.

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Confident in the justice behind their cause, both parties initially worked through the ethnofederal structure by appealing to “the Centre” for resolution, presenting Gorbachev with a dilemma. While by most accounts he was sympathetic towards the Armenian position, seeing Armenian demands as compatible with perestroika, the Soviet constitution required the consent of both republics for exchanging territory.9 His subsequent rejection of the transfer and appeals for calm had the effect of easing the situation. Although the anti-Armenian pogrom in Sumgait between February 27-29 escalated the crisis. The following years witnessed the violent ethnic cleansing of both Soviet republics, increasing armed clashes between opposing nationalist militias and government troops inside Karabakh; becoming a full-scale war between independent Armenia and Azerbaijan as the USSR collapsed in 1991.

Historians have since agonised to explain how a dispute over inter-republican borders - little more than symbolic boundaries - between loyal citizens of the same country transformed into ethnic conflict. One that began while state power was still strong and after generations of peaceful coexistence. Though the history behind Armenia and Azerbaijan' incorporation into the USSR was hardly peaceful, suddenly halting the previous Armenian-Azerbaijani war. Fighting had started over territorial disputes after both declared newly independent states following Tsarist Russia’s collapse. Karabakh was a central battleground, with numerous massacres committed by both sides. 10 During Soviet national delimitation, the infamous Kavburo July 5th 1921 decision granting Karabakh to Azerbaijan remained an Armenian grievance throughout Soviet rule.11 One perpetuated by enduring ambiguity surrounding its ethnic autonomy; despite being 89.1% Armenian in 1926 the NKAO never acquired an official titular nationality.12 Accompanied by demographic fears surrounding its growing Azerbaijani population; becoming 79% in 1979, raising fears of a secret ethnic cleansing campaign.13

9 Article 78 of the 1977 USSR Constitution, Document 31, Libaridian, Gerard J., and editors. The Karabagh File: Documents and Facts on the Region of Mountainous Karabagh, 1918-1988. 1st ed, Zoryan Institute for Contemporary Armenian Research & Documentation, 1988, pp. 57. 10 Broers, Laurence. “A Violent Unravelling” in Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry. Edinburgh University Press, 2019, pp. 22 11 The exact reasoning behind the decision has been fervently debated ever since. Broers, Laurence. “A Violent Unravelling” in Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry. Edinburgh University Press, 2019, pp. 24-25. 12Ibid, pp. 27. 13 Cornell, Svante E. “The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,” in Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus. Curzon, 2001, pp. 64. 7

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While elements of distrust remained however, overall relations between the two were largely friendly; with the Karabakh question a distant figment in public life.14 And even after total suppression of national matters ended following Stalin’s death, subsequent Armenian Karabakh appeals were ignored by his successors.15 Through korenizatsiya, the Bolsheviks established republics to channel early 20th century nationalist sentiment to advancing socialism in un-industrialised regions.16 Ethnofederalism effectively constituted ‘ethno-territorial affirmative action,’ applying Russian technical expertise to enable economically backward populations to improve their material conditions.17 Over time “socialist internationalism” would assign all interethnic rivalry to history.

Subsequent governments maintained the Bolsheviks’ conventional wisdom, investing substantially in the republics, even promoting their advancement internationally to demonstrate the developmental superiority of socialism over capitalism.18 Armenia and Azerbaijan both benefited immensely economically under Soviet rule, receiving more investment than they likely would have under free-market conditions.19 War following 1988 revealing that mutual suspicion had never been fully eradicated. Though even before the 1994 ceasefire, scholars have drawn radically different conclusions about the system’s role in causing conflict.

The rise of nationalism; mirroring modern “ancient hatreds”

The sudden and rapid explosion of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has popularised primordial interpretations of historic Armenian-Azerbaijani rivalry. Caused by the reawakening of frustrated “ancient hatreds” during perestroika. Even before the ceasefire, coexistence under Soviet ethnofederalism was written off by nationalist historians as a freeze of the 1918-1920 conflict. Violation of either side’s exclusive historic right to Karabakh is also treated as the ultimate cause of war in nationalist literature;

14 De Waal writes: ‘Most inhabitants of the Caucasus insist that right up until the late 1980s they lived in friendship with their neighbours of all nationalities and thought of themselves as loyal Soviet citizens.’ De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 125. 15 Examples of several ignored petitions are available in Libaridian, Gerard J., and editors. The Karabagh File: Documents and Facts on the Region of Mountainous Karabagh, 1918-1988. 1st ed, Zoryan Institute for Contemporary Armenian Research & Documentation, 1988. 16 Beissinger, Mark R. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 49-50. 17 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 149. 18 See: Kalinovsky, Artemy M. Laboratory of Socialist Development: Cold War Politics and Decolonization in Soviet Tajikistan. Cornell University Press, 2018. 19 Schroeder, Gertrude E. “Transcaucasia since Stalin: The Economic Dimension.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change, by Ronald Grigor. Suny, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1999, pp. 477. 8

George van Eesteren 6222196 dismissing “the enemy” claims as “utterly false.’20 The overwhelming majority of scholars however dismiss any “ancient hatreds” conception of Armenian-Azerbaijani enmity over Karabakh.21 Furthermore, ideas linking ethnicity to specific exclusive territory only gained traction in the Caucasus during the late 19th century with the arrival of nationalist ideology, contributing to the 1905 Armenian-Tatar war; their first recorded conflict.22 While scholars still debate the merits of both nations’ historic claims,23 consensus designates the Nagorno-Karabakh War as a modern dispute.24

Most scholars’ explanations instead reflect Cornell's interpretation of ‘mirroring nationalisms’ substantiating past fears. Contrasting the steady radicalisation of both republics’ nationalisms and their vanguard political movements - the Armenian National Movement (ANM) and Azerbaijani Popular Front (APF) - he writes both ‘emerged as responses to one another and owe their whole existence to one another.’25 Karabakh’s mobilising power among both peoples has also been attributed to their experiences living under larger empires.26 For de Waal, Armenians’ association of Ottoman crimes with Turkic Azerbaijanis reflects their projection of Russian oppression onto the “preferred” Armenians.27 According to Kaufman, these fears caused an ethnic security dilemma:

'The conflict occurred because of a fundamental clash between an Armenian myth-symbol complex focused on fears of genocide and an Azerbaijani one emphasizing the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Azerbaijani republic. Each therefore defined dominance in Karabakh as vital to its national existence and saw the other side's aspirations as constituting a threat of group extinction.'28

20 Mutafian, Claude, et al. The Caucasian Knot: The History & Geopolitics of Nagorno-Karabagh. Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1994, pp. 127. 21 Throughout history both peoples were largely subjects of larger empires; often the same one. 22 Souleimanov, Emil. Understanding Ethnopolitical Conflict: Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia Wars Reconsidered. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 97. 23 The subject is beyond the scope of this study, in which the author assumes a neutral position. For more see: Ronald Grigor. Suny, Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996. 24 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 127. 25 Cornell, Svante E. “The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,” in Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus. Curzon, 2001, pp. 79-81. 26 Saroyan, Mark. “Beyond the Nation-State: Culture and Ethnic Politics in Soviet Transcaucasia.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change, by Ronald G. Suny, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996, pp. 410- 413. 27 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 275. 28 Kaufman, Stuart J. “Karabagh and the Fears of Minorities,” in Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Cornell University Press, 2001, pp. 49. 9

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The February 20th vote had struck a nerve among both Armenia and Azerbaijan’s populations. The sight of hundreds of thousands in Armenia openly demonstrating for “unification,”29 caused Azerbaijani fears of Armenian irredentism. The anti-Armenian pogrom in Sumgait on February 26 radicalised Armenians by awakening the historic spectre of genocide.30 This made Gorbachev’s appeals for a mutually beneficial solution unacceptable, with surging Armenian nationalism causing an Azerbaijani national awakening. Saroyan even coined the term ‘Karabakh syndrome’ to capture the territory’s mobilising potential in Azerbaijan’s rivalry with Armenia.31 Adopting his syndrome analogy, Cornell applies it towards overall Armenian-Azerbaijani relations since 1988.32

Nationalist mobilisation and the weakened Soviet state: The “double vacuum”

The dominant scholarly view of how this this led to war consists of variations of Gellner’s “double vacuum” analogy: rising nationalism depended on perestroika ensuring ‘no serious rival ideology’ and ‘no serious rival institutions.’33 Kaufman argues Moscow’s failure to counter Armenian-Azerbaijani provocations created an ethnic security dilemma, whereby both embraced violence upon believing Soviet power no longer protected them - or favoured the enemy.34 Expanding Kaufman’s mirror analogy, Cornell argues increasing radicalism in Karabakh - backed by moral and material support from neighbouring Armenia - depended on Moscow’s incompetent crisis management.35 Gorbachev’s inconsistent early resolution efforts undermined central authority among Armenians; indicating sympathy while refusing to

29 A third of Armenia’s entire population is estimated to have attended rallies in Yerevan on February 26th. 30 Souleimanov, Emil. Understanding Ethnopolitical Conflict: Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia Wars Reconsidered. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 109. 31 Saroyan, Mark. "The Karabakh Syndrome and Azerbaijani Politics." Problems of Communism, vol. 39, no. 5, September-October 1990, pp. 14-29. 32 Cornell, Svante E. “The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,” in Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus. Curzon, 2001, pp. 80. 33 ‘Ethnic nationalism . . . is naturally engendered by the conditions prevalent after seven decades of Soviet Jacobinism, and by its partial relaxation. It is favoured by a double vacuum: there is no serious rival ideology, and there are no serious rival institutions.’ Gellner, Ernest. “Nationalism in the Vacuum.” Thinking Theoretically about Soviet Nationalities: History and Comparison in the Study of the USSR, by Alexander J. Motyl, Columbia University Press, 1994, pp. 250. 34 Kaufman, Stuart J. “Karabagh and the Fears of Minorities,” in Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Cornell University Press, 2001, pp. 50. 35 Cornell, Svante E. “The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,” in Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus. Curzon, 2001, pp. 73.

George van Eesteren 6222196 alter interrepublican borders.36 With Armenian mobilisation exploited by nationalist forces, localised ethnic tensions in mixed areas escalated. News of Armenian violence sparked Azerbaijani nationalism, with the violent cycle becoming irrevocable following Sumgait.37

Despite earlier coexistence, Kaufman and Cornell emphasise the ease with which centrifugal nationalism consumed both populations to demonstrate the underlying violent potential of historic Armenian- Azerbaijani mutual suspicion, which perestroika allowed to re-emerge.38 Moscow’s failure to effectively crack down or offer a mutually attractive alternative to antagonism eradicated both populations’ fear of state coercion, fuelling a violent cycle. This conclusion has been overwhelmingly embraced in subsequent scholarship.39 Even Derluguian write’s Moscow’s limited response to Sumgait eliminated the taboo surrounding street violence and radical nationalist rhetoric.40 While linking Armenians and Azerbaijanis’ will to fight towards pre-existing ethnic consciousness, Souleimanov argues Moscow’s ineffective responses proved significant during the crucial transition from sporadic to sustained conflict inside Nagorno-Karabakh.41 Central power only began deteriorating during 1989, meaning the resources to intervene at this crucial stage existed; except neither the knowledge nor will. When force was deployed later against either side it only served to radicalise the situation further. As Gorbachev’s advisor wrote of the Soviet military’s 1990 intervention in Baku:

“...a war has started in Azerbaijan. ...people are shooting at soldiers, the soldiers started shooting back, there are hundreds of casualties… the APF has turned to the world community - to save the people from genocide by the Russians, etc. M.S. is in endless meetings, yesterday made a solemn speech on TV. But Baku is raging... despite the curfew and tanks… the main motto is—leave the USSR.”42

36 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 25. 37 Ibid, pp. 67. 38 Ibid, pp. 70. 39 De Waal argues this on the significance of 'the ease with which hatred of the other side could be disseminated among [either's] population.’ De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 142-143. 40 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 197. 41 Souleimanov, Emil. Understanding Ethnopolitical Conflict: Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia Wars Reconsidered. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 30, 115. 42 ‘M.S.’ refers to Mikhail Sergeyevich, Gorbachev’s first and patronymic names. Chernyaev, Anatoly S. The Diary of Anatoly S. Chernyaev, 1990, January 21, pp. 7. 11

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Finally resolving in 1991 to restore full AzSSR control over Karabakh through Operation Ring, aside causing a surge in insurgent recruits from Armenia it ultimately resulted in their heavy weaponry ending up in militia hands as the Soviet military disintegrated following the August coup.43

By double vacuum understandings, ethnofederalism created the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict because its cohesion depended ultimately on ruthless centralised authoritarianism. As de Waal remarks: ‘In 1988, the centre, without fully realizing it, began to give up its imperial mandate.’44 While reframing from primordialism however, establishing causation between a power vacuum and ethnic conflict over past contention still relies on determinism in a nearly identical manner. It is also inadequate at explaining the earliest instances of violence - especially considering their under-documentation - causing Broers to argue the Armenian-Azerbaijani security dilemma was as much a product than a cause of centrifugal nationalist violence.45 Nor does it explain instances when inter-communal violence did not happen, such as instances of peaceful village exchanges.46And concerning legacies of past conflict, as Derluguian writes: ‘retribution is not the only possible form of catharsis.’47 Considering other republics’ anti-Soviet mobilisations remained non-violent despite past ethnic injustices, a double vacuum does not adequately explain how Armenian-Azerbaijani contention over Nagorno-Karabakh produced war.48

Leadership in mass-led violence

Despite fresh scrutiny of the double vacuum, “elite-led” interpretations emphasising deliberate incitement for political gain are considered insufficient. Arguing the conflict was ‘mass-led,’ Kaufman argues violence spread despite determined government resistance, and before organised nationalist movements

43 Croissant, Michael P. The Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict: Causes and Implications. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 1998, pp. 42, 44.

44‘ De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 143. 45 Broers, Laurence. “A Violent Unravelling” in Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry. Edinburgh University Press, 2019, pp. 32-33. 46 Huseynova, Sevil, et al. Beyond the Karabakh Conflict: The Story of Village Exchange. "Heinrich Boll Foundation South Caucasus Regional Office", 2012 47 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 188. 48 ‘If historical legacies of violent conflict, transborder irredentism, the presence of unwanted settlers, long-standing religious controversies, racial prejudices, and the popular spread of nationalism were all good predictors of ethnic violence, then the western Ukraine and the Baltic region should have been a congregation of demons.’ Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus Georgi Derluguian. Verso, 2004, pp. 171-173. 12

George van Eesteren 6222196 became established in each country.49 Even the Karabakh campaign’s leaders were surprised by the level of popular enthusiasm in Armenia during February 1988.50 Even in Azerbaijan no organised counter- mobilisation occurred until July 1988. No proof of prior planning of the Sumgait pogrom exists, with the pogrom initially shocking Azerbaijan’s public and Party leadership.51 Both republics’ Party leaders largely embraced nationalism simply to maintain authority, pressured by opposing demands from their populations and “the Centre.” Forbidding repression while encouraging them to engage their publics, Moscow inadvertently handed nationalists the initiative, undermining its own mediation.52 Commenting on public reactions towards the politburo’s November 1989 compromise granting enhanced autonomy to Karabakh the CIA wrote: 'The virulently hostile reaction of nonofficial Azeris and of the Armenians to the decision is further evidence of the intractability of the situation.’53

Despite wholesale dismissal of elite manipulation, many scholars entertain the potential role of inter-elite rivalry in enabling conflict. Karabakhi-Armenian agitation following 1987 and ethnic violence within Azerbaijan have both been attributed to an internal AzSSR government power struggle following Heydar Aliev’s dismissal from the politburo. Previously Azerbaijan’s first secretary and KGB chief, Aliev had developed an immense patronage network. One AzSSR second secretary Viktor Polyanichko was appointed to purge in 1988.54 Both men have come under scrutiny following circumstantial evidence they manipulated the ensuing conflict to pursue ulterior political goals.55 Aliev later became post-Soviet Azerbaijan’s president,56 and Polyanichko was believed to be following a “divide and rule” strategy to

49 Kaufman, Stuart J. “Karabagh and the Fears of Minorities,” in Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Cornell University Press, 2001, pp. 82. 50 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 24. 51 Cornell, Svante E. “The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,” in Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus. Curzon, 2001, pp. 69. 52 Beissinger, Mark R. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 291. 53 Detailing these responses further, the briefing notes the decision was met by a 200,000 strong rally in Baku, and thousands of demonstrators in Yerevan calling on the AmSSR government to arm them so they could fight in Karabakh. United States Central Intelligence Agency. “National Intelligence Daily.” Director of Central Intelligence, 1 Dec. 1989. Washington D.C.: Wilson Centre Cold War International History Project, 2013, pp. 4. CIA 01-12-1989 54 Remler, Philip. "Chained to the Caucasus: Peacemaking in Karabakh, 1987–2012." International Peace Institute, 2016, pp. 32. 55 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 88, 91, 94. 56 Altstadt, Audrey L. “Azerbaijan and Aliyev: A Long History and an Uncertain Future”, Problems of Post- Communism, 50:5, 2003, pp. 3-13. DOI: 10.1080/10758216.2003.11656050 13

George van Eesteren 6222196 strengthen Soviet rule.57 However, no direct evidence exists proving their actions significantly altered the conflict.

Beyond reaffirming the notion of mass-led conflict, the total inability of leadership at all levels to influence the Nagorno-Conflict conflict either way proves elite rivalry mattered little.58 While Melander argues its importance by citing the June 1991 assassination of a leading NKAO bureaucrat organising a compromise by Armenian radicals,59 de Waal argues this shows the movement was no monolith.60 Widespread radicalisation prevailed, although Melander’s 1991 compromise case - occurring just before full-scale war and in response to Operation Ring - does undermine the causation between a security dilemma and exponential violent escalation to war.61

Socioeconomic grievances?

When ethnic violence arises, an instinctive response has been to see whether pre-existing ethnic divisions had existed on socioeconomic lines. This appears validated by Sumgait; occurring in a deprived ethnically mixed industrial city outside Baku with exceptionally high pollution, unemployment, and crime. The sudden influx of brutalised Karabakh-Azerbaijani refugees - many bringing graphic stories of Armenian violence - placed great strain on an already tense social climate. The ethnic riot that followed could therefore be interpreted as the eruption of accumulated socioeconomic pressures expressed along ethnic lines. Indeed, Azerbaijani Anti-Arminianism since Tsarism reflected perceived socioeconomic discrimination, enduring under Soviet rule given the prominence of Baku’s Armenian population, and throughout the USSR overall.62

57 Polyanichko had before 1988 been Moscow’s chief advisor to the government in Afghanistan, observers have compared his Azerbaijan strategy with the one he applied there. De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 88, 124. 58 Kaufman, Stuart J. “Karabagh and the Fears of Minorities,” in Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Cornell University Press, 2001, pp. 57. 59Melander, Erik. “The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Revisited: Was the War Inevitable?” Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, May 2001, pp. 70. 60 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 120-121. 61‘Although a hardened and more militant Armenian leadership eventually gained prominence in Stepanakert, the short-term effect of Operation Ring was to bring about concessions.’ Melander, Erik. “The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Revisited: Was the War Inevitable?” Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, May 2001, pp. 69. 62 See: Altstadt, Audrey L. The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity Under Russian Rule. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 1992. 14

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Though attributing ethnic war to socioeconomic inequality also has limitations, with scholars who do so claiming it mattered only at the start of the conflict.63 Many similarly deprived multi-ethnic cities across the Soviet Union saw no ethnic violence like Sumgait.64 In Karabakh itself, the failure of Moscow’s socioeconomic conflict resolution effort following July 1988 demonstrates this. Tasked with regional development and ad-hoc conflict mediation (mostly the latter in practice), the Volsky Commission was scrapped in November 1989, having exceeded its original timeline and budget by double while failing to end local conflict.65

Moreover, despite Volsky reporting the ‘extremely neglected state’ of Nagorno-Karabakh,66 de Waal’s research of NKAO locals reveals a remarkable trend. Conceding their living conditions were ‘not catastrophic,’ both the pre-1988 Armenian and Azerbaijani populations widely believed they had endured cultural discrimination from the other. Karabakhi-Armenians claiming Baku sought to bury their attachment to the region through encouraging Azerbaijani migration while deliberately neglecting the preservation of historic monasteries. Simultaneously Azerbaijanis resented minority treatment by Armenian dominated regional organisations inside territory officially theirs. 67 Given Karabakh’s central position in the conflict, these facts undermine analysis undervaluing the role of historic cultural disputes beneath socioeconomic factors. According to de Waal:

‘In 1988, both sides began by flouting their own economic interests. They went out on strike, disrupted transport, severed ties with the other community, all in the name of political goals. … Later on, certainly, weapons traders, profiteers, and warlords began to enrich themselves from the conflict, but they cannot be said to have started it— and socioeconomic palliatives will not be enough to end it.’

Seventeen years later these words are damning. Followed by:

‘the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict makes sense only if we acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of Armenians and Azerbaijanis were driven to act by passionately held ideas about history, identity, and

63 Yamskov, A. N. ‘Ethnic Conflict in the Transcaucasus: The Case of Nagorno-Karabakh’. Theory and Society, vol. 20, no. 5, Oct. 1991, pp. 639-640. 64 Kaufman, Stuart J. “Karabagh and the Fears of Minorities,” in Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Cornell University Press, 2001, pp. 81-82. 65 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 67-70. 66 Suny, Ronald G. Looking Toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History. Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. 209. 67 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 140-141. 15

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rights… expanded inside the ideological vacuum created by the end of the Soviet Union and were given fresh oxygen by warfare.’68

However, his claim that both populations in Nagorno-Karabakh felt discriminated against hints at an underlying structural cause of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Rather than inequality, the Soviet roots of war lay instead in how ethnofederalism formalised ethnic equality.

2. Soviet ethnofederalism & Transcaucasia

Ethnofederalism & the conditions for conflict

Besides assuming an overly determinist outlook, de Waal and other scholars fail to adequately address one significant feature of pre-1988 Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. One they acknowledge yet subsequently minimise in their conclusions: 'Although there was coexistence… there was also astonishingly little dialogue.'69 Despite its internationalist rhetoric, Soviet ethnofederalism ironically segregated most Armenians and Azerbaijanis through causing what Suny terms the ‘ethnic consolidation’ of all three Transcaucasian titular republics; making it a significant cause of the 1988-1994 war.70 This was defined by three social processes that made future conflict more likely: 1.) population redistribution; 2.) clientelist politics; and 3.) national cultural production.

Soviet ethnofederalism in Transcaucasia inadvertently. Soviet census statistics between 1959-89 reveal a long-term demographic shift favouring titular nationalities within Transcaucasia’s republics, eroding the region’s ethnic heterogeneity.71 This redistribution was due to outward ethnic-Russian migration from the region, high birth rates among titular nationalities inside their republics, and Armenian-Azerbaijani cross- migration into their republics.72 The last two trends severely reduced Armenian-Azerbaijani regional

68 Ibid, pp. 272-273. 69 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 125. 70 'Whatever the aims of Soviet nationality policy... the dominant process in Transcaucasia was the ethnic consolidation and growing cohesion of the of the major nationalities.' Suny, Ronald G. “On the Road to Independence: Cultural Cohesion and Ethnic Revival in a Multinational Society.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change, by Ronald Grigor. Suny, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996, pp. 385. 71 Anderson, Barbara A., and Brian D. Silver. “Population Redistribution and the Ethnic Balance in Transcaucasia.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change, edited by Ronald G. Suny, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996. 72 Ibid, pp. 483. 16

George van Eesteren 6222196 intermingling;73 many never even having a chance to meet.74 Historically ‘two ethnic groups inhabiting one expanse of land,’ Remler argues this process significantly advanced the practicality of future nationalist ambitions.75 Azerbaijan’s titular demography surged from 67 to 78 percent between 1959- 1979, while Armenia became the USSR’s most homogenous republic.76 Partly driven by labour market variations favouring titular nationalities, interethnic antagonism also appears to have incentivised cross- migration.77

This can be partially explained by the exclusionary nature of republican institutions, reflecting the clientelist politics of ethnofederalism.78 Normalised under Stalin, Fairbanks even applies the term “fiefdom” to describe Transcaucasian republics’ patron-client relationship with Moscow and their internal governance.79 Following Stalin’s death, political power gradually shifted towards the republics.80 By the 1970’s, provided Moscow’s quotas were met republican leaderships could govern as they wished.81 Though they remained financially dependent on Moscow, incentivising rivalry between their first secretaries over Brezhnev’s affection.82 Lacking professionalised civil services, republican political institutions also remained politically-driven patron-client networks, enabling corruption as central control diminished.83 Crucially, ethnofederal affirmative action also ensured titular nationality domination of

73 Ibid, pp. 493. 74 Derluguian remarks that most Armenians he met in Yerevan in 1990 had never spoken to an Azerbaijani since the opportunity to do so had never arisen. Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 193. 75 Remler, Philip. "Chained to the Caucasus: Peacemaking in Karabakh, 1987–2012." International Peace Institute, 2016, pp. 10. 76 Anderson, Barbara A., and Brian D. Silver. “Population Redistribution and the Ethnic Balance in Transcaucasia.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change, edited by Ronald G. Suny, Revised Edition ed., The University of Michigan Press, 1996, pp. 494. 77 Ibid, pp. 484. 78 ‘…the Soviet Union is one of the most important cases of clientelist politics in the modern world.’ Fairbanks, Charles H. “Clientelism and the Roots of Post-Soviet Disorder.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change, by Ronald G. Suny, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996, pp. 347. 79 ‘Patron-client relationships, most often called khvosty (“tails”), were a prominent feature of political life in Stalin’s Russia.’ Ibid, pp. 344. 80 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 132. 81 Suny, Ronald G. “On the Road to Independence: Cultural Cohesion and Ethnic Revival in a Multinational Society.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change, by Ronald Grigor. Suny, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996, pp. 382. 82 Brezhnev-era First Secretaries Demirchian and Aliev were reportedly fierce rivals: ‘In the 1970s and 1980s, Aliev and Demirchian feuded over the allocation of central resources. Their most celebrated spat concerned plans for a road link across Armenia to the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan… yet Demirchian aggressively opposed it and eventually managed to have the plan blocked. He evidently believed that what was good for Soviet Azerbaijan was bad for Soviet Armenia.’ De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 135. 83 Fairbanks, Charles H. “Clientelism and the Roots of Post-Soviet Disorder.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change, by Ronald G. Suny, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996, pp. 374. 17

George van Eesteren 6222196 republican institutions, allowing local party elites to extend favouritism towards their ethnic majority at the expense of minority populations.84

Simultaneously, intensified cultural production in both republics’ korenizatsiya-established academic institutions legitimised these developments. Each produced separate national historiographies produced backward from national delimitation, making the histories of each republic and its titular nationality became virtually interchangeable.85 These ignored the historic presence of minority populations,86 let alone any shared history between nationalities. Repeated attempts to write a unified regional history failed during the 1950’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s due to incompatible historical narratives.87 Karabakh was no exception, with Armenian and Azerbaijani historians publishing only their exclusive national claims.88 Censorship had also failed to prevent chauvinist scholars publishing “hate narratives” long before 1988.89

In both republics ethnic dominance of both cultural and administrative spheres was a direct consequence of ethnofederal affirmative action deliberately favouring members of the titular nationalities.90 Therefore, the overall result of these three effects was the perpetuation and reinforcement of nascent early-20th century national divisions. While Soviet internal borders in practice meant little,91 growing differences steadily gave greater meaning to the nationality field stated in all Soviet internal passports.92 These trends

84 Suny, Ronald G. “On the Road to Independence: Cultural Cohesion and Ethnic Revival in a Multinational Society.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change, by Ronald Grigor. Suny, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996, pp. 378, 385. 85 Saroyan, Mark. “Beyond the Nation-State: Culture and Ethnic Politics in Soviet Transcaucasia.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change: Essays in the History of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, by Ronald G. Suny, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996, pp. 406. 86 Ibid, pp. 407. 87 Broers, Laurence. “A Violent Unravelling” in Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry. Edinburgh University Press, 2019, pp. 41. 88 Saroyan, Mark. "The Karabakh Syndrome and Azerbaijani Politics." Problems of Communism, vol. 39, no. 5, September-October 1990, pp. 15. 89 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 142-143. 90 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 149. 91 Cornell, Svante E. “The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,” in Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus. Curzon, 2001, pp. 63. 92 ‘It is also worth mentioning that unlike in Yugoslavia where citizens could choose to formally identify as ‘Yugoslavs,’ no supranational Soviet nationality was ever established.’ Broers, Laurence. “A Violent Unravelling” in Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry. Edinburgh University Press, 2019, pp. 19. 18

George van Eesteren 6222196 also occurred despite Moscow’s deliberate integration of regional economic enterprises.93 And the mild impact of Russian language programmes ensured russification ‘simply not evident’ in Transcaucasia.94

This is crucial for understanding the origins of conflict inside Karabakh. Despite Armenian fears of a secret Baku-led ethnic cleansing campaign, Karabakh’s shifting demographics instead reflected overall regional trends. Higher birth rates among titular nationalities - in this case Azerbaijanis; and non-titular nationality emigration for enhanced social prospects, education, and employment; which Karabakhi- Armenians typically pursued in Yerevan or Moscow. Lacking both sovereignty from Baku and an official titular nationality, Azerbaijani high birth-rates and urbanisation patterns in Karabakh reflected republic- wide trends. Karabakh’s regional institutions’ subordination to Azerbaijani political network have also been attributed to blocking Armenian social advancement.95

A picture hereby emerges of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as an extension of Soviet ethnofederalism’s inner contradictions. Its centralised structure had made only the vertical relationship with Moscow matter, thus no official channel’s for interrepublican communication should be drawn upon for de-escalation.96 Ethnic cleansing effectively marked what Remler terms ‘continuations by other means’ of decades-long Soviet social trends.97 Saroyan argues it even reflected the logic of the exclusive nation-state imposed through cultural production.98 The ineffectiveness of Moscow’s socioeconomic resolution efforts reflected the system’s ultimate failure to harmonise interethnic relations through combined material development.99 Administrative borders drawn to facilitate this development assumed a meaning the original Bolsheviks failed to anticipate.

However, while acknowledging its influences, most scholars refrain from designating the Soviet system as the primary cause of the Nagorno-Karabakh War; instead favouring double vacuum explanations. For

93 Schroeder, Gertrude E. “Transcaucasia since Stalin: The Economic Dimension.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change, by Ronald G. Suny, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1999, pp. 469, 475-477. 94 Suny, Ronald G. “On the Road to Independence: Cultural Cohesion and Ethnic Revival in a Multinational Society.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change, by Ronald Grigor. Suny, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996, pp. 399. 95 95 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 139. 96 Ibid, pp. 21. 97 Remler, Philip. "Chained to the Caucasus: Peacemaking in Karabakh, 1987–2012." International Peace Institute, 2016, pp. 13. 98 Saroyan, Mark. “Beyond the Nation-State: Culture and Ethnic Politics in Soviet Transcaucasia.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change, by Ronald G. Suny, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996, pp. 425. 99 Dismissing the view of Soviet “divide and rule,” de Waal writes “combine and rule” in a more accurate designation. De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 131. 19

George van Eesteren 6222196 instance, while Remler argues ethnofederalism exasperated ethnic tensions conflict ultimately depended on ‘the retreat of central Soviet power.’100 And while Zurcher argues conflict resulted from inherent Soviet state weaknesses, he still argues the chief factor was the power behind specific nationalist grievances; regardless of the perpetuating role Soviet institutions had on them.101 Kaufman further argues that not all instances of institutionally exasperated ethnic tensions throughout the USSR caused conflict during perestroika.102 Armenian-Azerbaijani contention caused conflict precisely because their nationalisms’ myth-symbol complexes had incorporated fears of extermination.103 Broers also cautions against ‘mechanical’ analysis of Soviet institutions alone, arguing ‘territorial autonomies in the region were as much [Bolshevik] responses to pre-existing fractures as potential incubators of future conflict.' Attributing systemic faults within Soviet ethnofederalism to conflict therefore loses plausibility outside Transcaucasia.104

Ethnofederalism & Nationalist Mobilisation

A solution to this mechanical shortfall comes through Beissinger’s exhaustive study of the overall Soviet collapse. Through comparing all perestroika-era nationalist mobilisations between 1987-1991, he determines no single mobilisation alone could collapse the system without the ‘tidal influences of one on another,’ having impacted the outcome of contentious events in each.105 Dismissing the double vacuum as a false “Pandora’s box,” he argues:

‘...the collapse of the Soviet state materialized out of a four-year period of “thickened” history in which events acquired a sense of momentum, transformed the nature of political institutions, and assumed the characteristics of their own causal structure.’106

100 Remler, Philip. "Chained to the Caucasus: Peacemaking in Karabakh, 1987–2012." International Peace Institute, 2016, pp. 6. 101 Zurcher, Christoph. “The War over Karabakh,” The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus. NYU Press, 2007, pp. 181. 102 Kaufman, Stuart J. “Karabagh and the Fears of Minorities,” in Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Cornell University Press, 2001, pp. 81-82. 103 Comparing late-Soviet Armenian-Azerbaijani and Russo-Kazakh ethnic tensions, Kaufman argues the latter avoided conflict despite significant past grievances because neither’s national consciousness incorporated a historic fear of extinction. Ibid pp. 78-80. 104 Broers, Laurence. “A Violent Unravelling” in Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry. Edinburgh University Press, 2019, pp. 19. 105 Beissinger, Mark R. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 7-9. 106 Ibid, pp. 36. 20

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Although Soviet ethnofederalism was inherently vulnerable to tidal mobilisations, its collapse between 1989-1991 was event generated; not predetermined.107 Armenian and Azerbaijani mobilisations did not develop uniformly, they were heavily intertwined with developments elsewhere; even the distant nonviolent Baltics. Both evolved from civic movements into rejecting Soviet rule as secessionist movements elsewhere gained enough force. This union-wide interplay is demonstrated by Levon Ter-Petrosian view following the war:

“I was a sceptic while all this was happening in the Baltic republics, in Armenia, in Ukraine, Moldova; I said that we could not yet think about independence. Until the same thing began in Russia… That was something mighty. After that I said, “That’s it, we have to fight for independence.” Because it would have been very dangerous if the Soviet Union had collapsed and we had not been ready.”108

Comparable to security dilemma arguments, Beissinger’s accounts for the broader structural context behind local radicalisation. With the Soviet decline appearing evident following the fall of the Berlin Wall, conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh steadily assumed its own causal structure. Had the Soviet Union not been in general crisis, its mediation attempts may have been better received given evidence disproving exponential radicalisation. The CIA even noted diminished Armenian independence demands following the 1990 military intervention in Baku.109

Significantly, each mobilisation was part of a common cycle because they were enabled by common institutional dysfunction.110 For example, Azerbaijani police complicity during anti-Armenian pogroms reflected a union-wide trend of open sympathy among local law enforcement towards their republic’s titular nationality .111 Attempting to halt the late-1988 deportations, the MVD received no cooperation

107 Ibid, pp. 450. 108 Quoted from De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 72. 109 ‘Moscow's military intervention into Baku has undermined the previously strong independence drive in Armenia; Armenians have resumed calls for increased autonomy and claim their first priority is to strengthen their economy.' United States Central Intelligence Agency. “National Intelligence Daily.” Director of Central Intelligence, 29 Jan. 1990. Washington D.C.: Wilson Centre Cold War International History Project, 2013, pp. 1. 110 '…successful mobilization of identity always involves some mix of pre-existing structural facilitation, emboldening of supporters in the face of institutional constraints, and event-generated influences over the less committed.’ Beissinger, Mark R. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp.198. 111 ‘Specialists from the MVD charged with investigating crimes committed during waves of mass unrest in Karabakh, Fergana, Osh, Baku, and Andizhan recall that very often “it was impossible to establish normal relations with employees of the local police, and even more to receive real help from them.”’ Beissinger, Mark R. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 304. 21

George van Eesteren 6222196 from both republics’ authorities.112 Even if authorities sought to intervene their mere involvement could also be interpreted as endorsement during the heat of a situation. Beissinger claims this occurred before Sumgait, with demonstrators expecting the local Party secretary to shut them down let alone personally appeal to them to allow Armenians to “leave Azerbaijani soil freely.”113 His divided loyalty between Party and titular nationality is evident, reflecting inner contradictions of ethnofederalism that he unveiled during the course of thickened events.

While Beissinger still argues the link between ethnofederalism and ethnic violence is deeply circumstantial, its long-term effects in Transcaucasia nonetheless played a key role shaping the boundaries of nationalist contention. Armenian-Azerbaijani contention became increasingly violent as the target - NKAO borders - proved impervious to nonviolent politics given their opposition. Spurred by widespread sympathy from republican authorities, this granted violent actors the initiative, altering social reality:

‘within the context of “thickened” history social norms proscribing nonstate violence or violence between segments of a single state were set aside, and violent action came to be considered permissible and even moral by large numbers of people …[Violent] acts of seeming madness seek to reaffirm the boundaries of a contested social reality, and in the process blur the line that runs between sanity and insanity.’114

Contextualising Armenia and Azerbaijans’ opposing nationalist mobilisations within a broader tidal cycle, Beissinger provides a stronger basis for the causational role of ethnofederal institutions on shaping the nature of nationalist contention. Yet the broadness of his union-wide perspective leaves it open to critique. In focusing on the impact of events on pre-existing structures it barely addresses agency behind key actors’ decisions during the conflict.115 Though his thickened history perspective can be built upon through addressing what it emphasises less in its understanding of Soviet ethnofederalism; the social relations of those living under it. An understanding of the motivations and experiences of Soviet citizens top to bottom can provide further answers towards the role of institutions on ethnic conflict. To evaluate the viability of this approach it is first worth looking into whether a synthesis of social and institutional analysis of ethnic conflict has been applied for similar conflicts. And whether methodological elements of such a study can inform our approach moving forward.

112 Unable to stop them, the MVD minister even remarked “You can’t sack everybody.” De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 63. 113Beissinger, Mark R. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 299-300. 114 Ibid, pp. 317-318. 115 Broers, Laurence. “A Violent Unravelling” in Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry. Edinburgh University Press, 2019, pp. 18. 22

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Balkanised historiography; Soviet Transcaucasia and Yugoslavia

As stated above, early historiography of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was never characterised by the prevalence of an “ancient hatreds” hypothesis.116 Explaining the intensity of late-Soviet rise of Armenian-Azerbaijani enmity, Ignatieff’s analysis of Serb-Croat enmity applying Freud’s “narcissism of minor difference” is a directly applicable rationalisation of how ethnic hatred can emerge from cultural similarities and shared history.117 Similar grievances also motivated Kosovo’s positioning within Serbian national consciousness to Karabakh’s place in Azerbaijani national consciousness.118 Although Serbia’s pre-war injustice associated with Kosovo’s federal status is more comparable to Armenian grievances.119

Establishing that reasonable similarities exist, further comparison between both historiographies is worth exploring. Concerning Balkan conflict historiography, beyond dismissing ancient hatreds, downplaying elite manipulation, the notion of ethnic conflict naturally filling the vacuum of state collapse has also since been challenged. An authoritative example is Ramet’s emphasis on systemic illegitimacy underpinning 20th century Yugoslavian state-building. Qualifying legitimacy through moral, political, and economic indicators, Ramet produces a thematic history of the three Yugoslav states.120 Their inherent illegitimacy ensured an unstable social equilibrium, vulnerable to crisis in ways that enabled interethnic antagonism to supplant multi-ethnic state allegiance.121 Arguments claiming endemic regional interethnic rivalry without centralised authority are dismissed as ‘delusions.’122 Rather, like Beissinger she argues nationalism was able to alter the state’s pre-existing structure following the exposure of its inner vulnerabilities, while simultaneously promising a new social order.123

116 No single study within Nagorno-Karabakh conflict historiography triggered a level of debate on par with, for example, Kaplan, Robert D. Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History. 1. ed., St. Martin's Press, 1993. 117 Ignatieff, Michael. “The Narcissism of Minor Difference,” in The Warrior's Honour: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience. Vintage, 1999, pp. 51. 118 See: Crnobrnja, Mihailo. “The New Wave of Serbian Nationalism,” in The Yugoslav Drama. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996. 119 Armenian grievances surrounding Karabakh’s constitutional anomalies were similar Serbian grievances about Kosovo. No formal recognition of the oblast’s Armenian majority despite Azerbaijani control of the Nakhichevan exclave - an ASSR that had greater administrative autonomy than Karabakh – is similar to the imbalance caused Kosovo’s equal federal status to Belgrade despite being a Serbian autonomous region. Ibid, pp. 94. 120 Ramet, Sabrina P. The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918-2005. Woodrow Wilson Centre Press, 2006, pp. 22. 121 Ibid, pp. 325. 122 Ibid, pp. 10. 123 Ibid, pp. 372. 23

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Crisis in 1989 proved the turning point, the state’s final collapse in legitimacy unleashing ‘a wildfire of nationalism.’124 Rather than exploiting a power vacuum, Milosovic and others exploited dynamics set in place over generations of systemic faults. Assessing socialist Yugoslavia, Ramet distinguishes three systemic faults; 1.) the absence of moral universalism in state ideology, instead an unsustainable Titoist ‘secular theocracy;’ 2.) no genuine political pluralism, with Yugoslav federalism instead empowering unaccountable regional communist elites; and 3.) reinforced regional disparity due to economic mismanagement.125 Though an inherently vulnerable state, this alone did not cause war:

'... while [socialist Yugoslavia] was doomed, by its illegitimacy, to fail as a political experiment, the country was not preordained to fall apart or go to war. It took the combination of system illegitimacy, dysfunctional federalism, economic deterioration, and the mobilisation of Serbian nationalism by Milosovic... to take the country down the road to war.'126

The Yugoslavian structural context that Ramet lays out is strikingly similar to the inherent vulnerability of Soviet ethnofederalism in Transcaucasia laid out in the previous section. Therefore, analysing the roots of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in the inherent instability of ethnofederalism appears validated.

124 Ibid, pp. 363, 367-69. 125 Ibid, pp. 378-379. 126 Ibid, pp. 379. 24

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3. Ethnofederalism from a sociological perspective: sowing the seeds for destruction

Remaining unconvinced by double vacuum explanations of the earliest instances of intercommunal violence, Broers note the lack of a micro-theory of what made ordinary Armenians and Azerbaijanis suddenly participate in or condone killing each other in Nagorno Karabakh War literature. In order to understand this ‘Armenian-Azerbaijani peculiarity,’ such a model already applied to Transcaucasia is actually available127. Emphasising institutional illegitimacy like Ramet, while adopting a union-wide event generated perspective like Beissinger, Derluguian combines social theory and individual biography to explore the interwoven relationship between structure and agency in shaping individuals within broader social change. Doing so through a social biography of Musa Shanib, a Soviet dissident intellectual turned Circassian nationalist warlord following Soviet collapse.128 Seeing in his story ‘the trajectory of a whole generation of Soviet citizens,’ Derluguian utilises Shanib’s peculiar violent transformation to explore the violent transformation of his native Caucasus; itself peculiar given the largely peaceful Soviet collapse.129 Determining the composition of its republics’ societies ‘made a crucial difference’ in ensuring ethnofederalism’s violent collapse.130 His methodology applies theoretical concepts from Tilly (“state- building,” “contention”), Wallerstein (“world systems analysis”), and Bourdieu (“field,” “social capital,” “trajectory” and “habitus”),131 producing a social analysis of Soviet class relations during momentous union-wide social transitions.

Soviet developmentalism & the roots of late-20th century violence in Transcaucasia Given that USSR’s vastness, social hierarchy matters to Derluguian because it allows for variations in social trajectory throughout the historic course of “Soviet developmentalism.” Fundamentally, Derluguian argues the USSR was a developmentalist state, established to rapidly transform society through rapid

127 Broers, Laurence. “A Violent Unravelling” in Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry. Edinburgh University Press, 2019, pp. 47. 128 Having spent the late-Soviet period as a prominent academic in the Kabardino-Balkarian ASSR, Derluguian only found this out after a chance meeting with Shanib (formerly Yuri Shanibov) during fieldwork in Chechnya 1997. Shanib, having gained notoriety through leading fighters in Chechnya and Abkhazia, stunned Derluguian upon revealing they were both sociologists; inspiring the book’s title. Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 62. 129 Ibid, pp. 2. 130 Ibid, pp. 217. 131 See Chapter 2, “Complex Triangulations,” Ibid, pp. 66.

George van Eesteren 6222196 industrialisation, revolutionary state coercion, and subordinating all commerce within a command economy.132 Upheaval surrounding this process under Stalin caused intense ‘proletarianization’ of the social hierarchy into ‘nomenklatura,’ ‘proletarians,’ and ‘sub-proletarians.’133 Defined by their relationship to the command economy, each had a distinct “class habitus” with evolving aspirations and dispositions.134 Within the top ten percent of the population, nomenklatura were ‘centrally appointed bureaucratic executives,’ managing CPSU institutions.” Membership carried immense authority and social privilege; their ranks included industrial managers, generals, university rectors and deans.135 Beneath, 'proletarianized (wage-dependent) workers, specialists, and intellectuals,' comprising 50-60 percent of the population.136 Specialists and intellectuals fell into the proletariat because they were state employees, although the aspirations associated with their careers ensured separate interests from workers, making them more inclined towards social activism. Within the nomenklatura an equally consequential reformer-conservative rift also existed; creating ‘factional contradictions.’137

Of particular interest though are sub-proletariat, consisting of those depending on informal livelihoods outside the command economy; such as seasonal manual labour (“shabashka”), subsistence agriculture, even smuggling or criminal activity.138 Partially urbanised, sub-proletariat were the marginalised by- products of ‘de-ruralisation – the loss of village life but without a transition to an established urban lifestyle.’ Their unofficial position as an ‘awkward non-class’ outside Soviet ideology makes determining its historic share of the population difficult, although Derluguian speculates in less-industrialised areas of 1980’s Transcaucasia they could form up to 50 percent of the population.139 Specific elements of sub- proletarian class habitus would make them a key constituency during renewed nationalist tensions. Lacking wage security, sub-proletarian social capital emphasised personal resilience and traditional ethnic kinship. Reliance on black markets and minimal dependence on the state engendered suspicion or even hostility towards central authority. Importantly, prolonged marginalisation resulted in a “rowdy habitus;” causing sub-proletarians to ‘on occasion rise in rowdy protests that usually take inspiration

132 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 76-78. 133 Ibid, pp. 119. 134 ‘…we observe the workings of the social mechanism that Bourdieu called “habitus”: a set of durable dispositions normally shared within particular social classes and groups. As the proverb goes, once a priest always a priest. Habitus pre-rationally structures our attitudes and behaviour: you need not think twice, the reaction emerges naturally.’ Ibid, pp. 52. 135 Ibid, pp. 137-141. 136 Ibid, pp. 141-150. 137 Ibid, pp. 106. 138 ‘In the Soviet command economy, transporting a basket of strawberries from the southern climes of the Caucasus and selling it for a hefty profit in a big industrial town in central Russia already amounted to smuggling.’ Ibid, pp. 150-154. 139 Ibid, pp. 325. 26

George van Eesteren 6222196 from a populist myth of secular or religious variety.’140 With Beissinger noting participants in perestroika-era political violence were ‘disproportionately from the lower-middle stratum of society,' Derluguian’s terminology has value.141

Table 1: ‘Homological correspondences between the class fractions of late Soviet society.’ (Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 326).

The class dynamics of Soviet developmentalism ultimately determined the collapse of ethnofederalism. Not only through reinforcing its structural vulnerabilities, but also by informing and constraining the agency of members in each class. Beginning with Stalinist ‘coercive developmentalism’ (1929-1953) created an illegitimate institutional structure through unparalleled turmoil but had also economically transformed the country and won WWII; vindicating the system. Under Khrushchev, ‘normalisation’ (1953-1968) built on this legacy through high economic and social mobility while relaxing political repression. Transcaucasian national revival was in fact part of a union-wide cultural renaissance; social

140 Ibid pp. 153, 217, 225. 141 Beissinger, Mark R. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 292.

George van Eesteren 6222196 optimism soaring, along with loyalty to the state over nation.142 Though de-Stalinisation already began creating the conditions for social contention and decline despite advancement. With more educated proletarians entering the workforce than ever, calls for further institutional reform expanded. This pre- empted a nomenklatura backlash, culminating in Khrushchev’s removal and the 1968 Czechoslovakia invasion, justifying a full crackdown on domestic social reform movements for “socialism with a human face.”143

Under Brezhnev-era ‘conservative paternalism’ (1969-1982) the nomenklatura closed into a privileged caste; effectively halting social mobility. Unwilling to inspire labour through Stalinist terror, it resorted to toleration of corruption and inefficiency and generous subsidisation in exchange for loyalty. This created widespread disillusionment among subordinate classes, normalised institutional inertia, while ultimately contributing to economic stagnation and a thriving shadow economy. In Transcaucasia, greater autonomy from Moscow was an extension of a union-wide fracturing into bureaucratic turfs. By-products of republican nomenklatura entrenchment were the preservation of their national revivals to legitimise their rule. Clientelism reinforced pre-Soviet neopatrimonialism and strengthened the shadow economy, 144 with Transcaucasia by most accounts being a hub of Soviet black-market activity.145 This alongside slowed industrial growth sustained the sub-proletariat.

‘Rationalisation’ (1982-1989), marked the realisation of leadership nomenklatura of the system’s dire need for reform. Enabling Gorbachev’s leadership, this in turn marked the ascendancy of a reform nomenklatura faction that had come of age during the Khrushchev thaw; in power they only became more convinced of the need for reform.146 During which In Transcaucasia, the combined effect of ethnofederalism and conservative paternalism enabled nationalism to become a unifier of all social causes during perestroika. In Armenia’s case, ‘pent-up frustrations’ over environmental neglect and local Party corruption - its leadership remaining unchanged since 1974 - emerged during perestroika alongside the Karabakh question as part of a broader national justice platform.147 Derluguian also notes Transcaucasian republics each had long-established ‘cohesive nuclei of national intellectuals,’ well placed to transform

142 See: Spufford, Francis. Red Plenty. Faber and Faber, 2010. 143 While certain that the USSR would have experienced a revolution like Prague Spring if there had been no crackdown prior, he argues it almost certainly would have failed. Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 105-109. 144 He adopts the term ‘neopatrimonialism’ from Weber. Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 200-201, 224. 145 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 139. 146 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 125. 147 Suny, Ronald G. Looking Toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History. Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. 195- 196. 28

George van Eesteren 6222196 themselves into leaders of emerging civil societies and challenge their nomenklatura.148 Having derived all coercive power from Moscow, Party bureaucrats proved powerless to resist once Gorbachev sanctioned open criticism and even democratic challenge. This context had established intellectuals as a mobilising force before February 1988.149 And many proletarian intellectuals seized the moment to advance frustrated aspirations for greater social standing following years of stagnation. Thus, perestroika alone cannot explain Armenian-Azerbaijani ethnic conflict, because ethnofederalism had long established an ethnic habitus within both republics’ societies, thus legitimising an popularised ethnic rights social agenda.150

Though while proletarian intellectuals proved key mobilisers, sub-proletarian activism was the crucial factor for conflict during Soviet collapse. Derluguian demonstrates this by contrasting Transcaucasia with the Baltics, both having strong national intelligentsias that predated Soviet rule. During Perestroika they formed the vanguard of eithers’ civic national revival. Though despite having large ethnic Russian communities and histories of anti-Soviet armed resistance, the wealthier Baltics had no substantial sub- proletariat, allowing reformist intellectuals to maintain control of their movements; therefore remaining peaceful.151 What is also interesting to note is how much early Caucasian and Baltic national movements influenced each other through Soviet academic networks. The APF’s founders - “the club of scholars” - were greatly influenced by the Estonian Popular Front, borrowing extensively from its platform. Originally called the “The Popular Front of Azerbaijan in Support of Perestroika,” its reformist faction would lose control to ethno-nationalists with overwhelming grass-roots support.152

Nagorno-Karabakh & competitive social struggle Contextualising the rise of violence during Soviet collapse in Transcaucasia for his social biography, Derluguian briefly addresses Armenian-Azerbaijani contention. He argues Karabakh turned violent first for three mutually reinforcing reasons: 1.) the historical emotional power of the Karabakh in both countries; 2.) competitive struggle within their social structures; and 3.) Gorbachev regarding his own

148 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 163-165. 149 Saparov, Arsène; Mammadova, Shalala; Cheterian, Vicken; et al. “Karabakh Conflict” in Caucasus Analytical Digest (CAD), no. 84, ETH Zurich, June 2016, pp. 7. 150 Saroyan, Mark. “Beyond the Nation-State: Culture and Ethnic Politics in Soviet Transcaucasia.” Transcaucasia, Nationalism and Social Change: Essays in the History of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, by Ronald G. Suny, Revised Edition ed., Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996, pp. 405, 416. 151 The proximity of the Baltic states to Western Europe compared to Transcaucasia is also given as a partial reason. Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 217. 152 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 82.

George van Eesteren 6222196 security forces as a greater threat than peripheral nationalism.153 In explaining the first as ‘a mirroring effect,’ Derluguian conforms with the majority of scholars on explaining Karabakh’s mobilising potential, while leaning on the following two to explain the emergence of violence.154 Through evaluating the second reason through available evidence within secondary literature Soviet ethnofederalism is directly implicated, having established the very conditions for the perestroika-era competitive struggle within Soviet Armenia and Azerbaijan to ultimately assume a chauvinist character. Conflict itself was a result of the interplay between opposing social class habitus within the USSR’s developmentalist social structure, and an ethnic habitus steadily reinforced over decades of ethnic consolidation following national delimitation: ‘Thus the strategy of ethno-territorial affirmative action – once a major strength of the Soviet state – would shape how it collapsed.'155

Even before 1988, heated debates between Armenian and Azerbaijani scholars over Karabakh had been raging throughout the 1980’s, building a rivalry informing their conflict stances.156 Interestingly enough, in pre-war Karabakh de Waal contrasts interethnic friendship between workers and farmers with openly ethicised rivalry within the educated middle class, demonstrating the intelligentsia’s counterintuitively central role pre-conflict.157 In both Armenia and Azerbaijan, proletarian intellectuals were the founding members of both the ANM and APF, their respective leaders Ter-Petrosian and Abulfaz Elchibey both being scholars.158 Through rallying their populations these movements seized popular legitimacy,159 effectively becoming parallel governments pressuring both republics’ embattled nomenklatura into embracing nationalism. In June 1988 for instance, Armenia’s Supreme Soviet voted to accept Nagorno- Karabakh despite Moscow reshuffling its leadership in May, sparking the so-called “war of laws” between the AmSSR and AzSSR legislatures.160 During November 1989 , the Azerbaijani Supreme Soviet even took the radical step of declaring AzSSR law sovereign over USSR law to end the APF’s railway blockade of Armenia.161

153 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, p. 302. 154 Ibid, pp. 302. 155 Ibid, pp. 149. 156 Souleimanov, Emil. Understanding Ethnopolitical Conflict: Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia Wars Reconsidered. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 107. 157 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 140. 158 Ibid pp. 57, 83. 159 Yamskov, A. N. ‘Ethnic Conflict in the Transcaucasus: The Case of Nagorno-Karabakh’. Theory and Society, vol. 20, no. 5, Oct. 1991, pp. 655. 160 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 60-61. 161 Altstadt, Audrey L. The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity Under Russian Rule. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 1992, pp. 206. 30

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Beyond influencing republican leadership, competition among intellectuals over leadership within their nations’ mobilisations was a significant factor for radicalisation. As witnessed with the January 1990 APF leadership split, its moderate faction formed a smaller party renouncing violence.162 Before the Karabakh Committee formed the ANM its original founders Igor Muradian and Zori Balayan, who refused to challenge Moscow’s authority, were edged aside.163 Sensationalist media coverage also featured in this competition, with aspiring Baku and Yerevan journalists embracing chauvinist narratives.164 Speaking in December 1988, Moscow’s chief mediator even denounced:

“...the openly irresponsible behaviour of the mass news media—in both Azerbaijan and Armenia. For example, Armenian television offered the following assessment of events in Baku. I quote: “These rallies show... the whole psychology of the Azerbaijanis. There is nothing in their hearts but atrocities and killing.” … The activity of Baku television also… has taken the same path. A steady stream of threats and insults addressed to the Armenians pours from the screen.”165

Though political radicalisation was also driven out of appeal to “the crowd,” marking the entry of sub- proletarians into the competitive struggle; discovering the very features of their class’s marginalisation made effective nationalist assets. Their mass-involvement consequently ‘directed contention towards violent radicalism and anarchic anti-statism.’166 Through numerical and physical force they rapidly escalated sporadic localised violence into sustained ethnic conflict, thereby outflanking and undermining the authority of moderating voices; suddenly appearing irrelevant or even unpatriotic.167 Assessing sub- proletarian impact on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Derluguian writes:

‘Certainly not all violence can be blamed on the sub-proletarian habitus... Nonetheless it is indisputable that the sub-proletarians, especially the young males, were increasingly found in the forefront of street violence during the nationalist mobilisations in Armenia, and perhaps more so in Azerbaijan.’168

162 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 89. 163 Ibid, pp. 56. 164 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 190. 165 Arkady Volsky to Presidium of USSR Supreme Soviet, quoted in Suny, Ronald Grigor. Looking Toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History. Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. 209. 166 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 217. 167 Ibid, pp. 207. 168 Ibid, pp. 194. 31

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Based on reports on the 84 convicted perpetrators of Sumgait, Derluguian argues they fit descriptions of sub-proletariat.169 As does, for example, de Waal’s profile of a pogromshchik: ‘a thuggish young man, of indeterminate nationality with a criminal past, seeking violence for its own sake.’170

The injection of sub-proletarian violent activism left intellectuals who renounced violence with diminished influence; many even joining future fighting.171 In cosmopolitan Baku the intelligentsia was ethnically mixed and deeply Russified, favouring sub-proletarian nationalist activism. As Suny writes:

'In general the Azerbaijani movement was led by workers, rather than intellectuals, and expressions of hostility toward the privileged could be heard… In Azerbaijan as in Armenia, Karabagh was the initial point around which other social and cultural issues swirled... The targets of these resentments were the relatively privileged Armenians.'172

Sub-proletarian influences within the APF can be further demonstrated by the disparity of methods in and outside Baku during 1989, with branches in less-industrialised areas displaying anti-state and anti- Armenian violence before Baku’s did in January 1990.173 During that pogrom there were even recorded instances of moderate APF members sheltering ethnic-Armenians.174 Armenia’s ethnic Azerbaijani population was predominantly agrarian, with news from Sumgait and Karabakh feeding into popularised notion of ethnic victimhood making Armenian sub-proletariat willing participants during 1988’s ethnic cleansings; and later fighting inside Karabakh.

In Karabakh itself, lacking a substantial intelligentsia, the same competitive social struggle consisted of a mixture of the few proletarian intellectuals in Karabakh and mid-ranking nomenklatura, who had secretly organised Stepanakert’s first public rallies to support Karabakh Committee lobbying efforts in Moscow.175 Derluguian even claims Robert Kocharian - then a mid-level bureaucrat and future president of Armenia - admitted the original secession movement began as a carefully planned bureaucratic

169 ‘This grim event was seen at the time as the consequence of a devious conspiracy – masterminded by the KGB… by mythical pan-Turkic and pan-Islamist secret cells, mafia, or some other nefarious organization. Yet the evidence that I have seen and gathered conforms to the analysis of Edward Judge, who studied in detail the late nineteenth- century Jewish pogroms and concluded that a pogrom need not be organized.’ Ibid, pp. 196. 170 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 43. 171 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 304. 172 Suny, Ronald G. Looking Toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History. Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. 208. 173 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 89. 174 Ibid, pp. 91. 175 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 192. 32

George van Eesteren 6222196 insurgency. 176 In 1987 Kocharian and other NKAO nomenklatura saw in Aliev’s purge the chance to break away from his corrupt patronage network, which had disadvantaged their upward mobility; further demonstrating the role of the corrupt Soviet political structure.177 Radicalisation within this local group alongside open support from Armenia has been highlighted as a key condition for escalation.178 By most accounts the region also had a substantial sub-proletariat - mostly young and male - population receptive to their radicalisation. This and the mountainous terrain has led Zurcher to argue the growth of the Karabakhi-Armenian insurgency ‘was not limited by the size of the recruiting pool but, rather, by the limited supply of weapons available.’179 Aside from contributing to the growth of inter-communal and anti-state violence, this also caused the assassination of moderating local national figures, let alone their political marginalisation.180

Preliminary evidence hereby supports Derluguian’s notion of competitive social struggle influencing the escalation towards all out conflict, and the interplay between proletarian intellectuals and sub-proletariat. The militarised nature of Soviet society - universal conscription and army training in schools - also popularised the idea of conflict, though for a different motherland. One direct example of this interplay he cites is ‘a typical volunteer detachment’ leaving for Karabakh in 1990:

‘...they sang battle songs of the nineteenth-century anti-Ottoman insurgents. Most of these young fighters had until recently been…considered hoodlums and street trash. But now they stood symbolically next to the legendary heroes of the nation’s tragic history... The detachment’s commanders were two young intellectuals, a physicist and a historian, both exuding solemn romanticism. The physicist was the first to die, in leading an assault on Azeri positions...’181

176 He claims to have found this out after an ‘unusually candid conversation’ he had with Kocharian in Karabakh in July 1994. Ibid, pp. 191. 177 ‘Kocharyan’s biography provides a good illustration of the dilemmas faced by the Armenian nomenklatura in Karabakh… A smart and energetic careerist, Kocharyan managed to advance…to the rank of First Secretary of Karabakh’s Komsomol (Young Communist League). When he turned thirty-six, it was time to leave the youth organization, but no openings were available for further promotion within the nomenklatura.’ Ibid, pp. 191. 178 Cornell, Svante E. “The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,” in Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus. Curzon, 2001, p. 74, 79. & Kaufman, Stuart J. “Karabagh and the Fears of Minorities,” in Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Cornell University Press, 2001, pp. 60. 179 Zurcher, Christoph. “The War over Karabakh,” The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus. NYU Press, 2007, pp. 172. 180 Melander, Erik. “The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Revisited: Was the War Inevitable?” Journal of Cold War Studies, vol. 3, no. 2, May 2001, pp. 48–75. 181 He establishes the regularity of such instances through comparison with footage of numerous similar initiations across Armenia collected by filmmaker Vardan Hovhannisyan. Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 195-196. 33

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Derluguian though still argues the final factor for ethnic conflict in Karabakh was crucial was Moscow’s failure to intervene. The importance of which is demonstrated in an interview he held with a prominent Karabakhi-Armenian nomenklatura who dismissed Azerbaijani government involvement in Sumgait:

“Public opinion has certainly been prepared by the violent talk in the newspapers. There could have been some sort of gang-like organizing among the street rabble, but at Azerbaijan’s Central Committee? Nonsense! I was there. [First Secretary] Bagirov came to my office begging me, as an ethnic Armenian, to help him to apologise before the Armenian people and to restore inter-ethnic peace... His face was dirty- green from fear... In previous times, Moscow would not have forgiven even a much smaller failure in the area of nationality policies. Bagirov was hoping that they would just expel him from the Party, because he really feared that they would sentence him to death.”182

Bagirov was later sacked by Gorbachev, and the leading rioters were put on trial. No widespread crackdown characteristic of past Soviet governments followed. Writing Moscow’s slow response to the violence in Sumgait expanded by default the structure of political opportunity,’ Derluguian alongside most scholars has argued that Gorbachev’s failure to respond firmly was vital for Armenian-Azerbaijani nationalist contention to become ethnic conflict; ‘Street violence and radical nationalist rhetoric were no longer taboo.’183 Although as the following chapter will address, they implicate Gorbachev for different reasons.

182 Derluguian, Georgi. “Interview of Musheg Ogandjanyan, former Chairman of Karabakh’s Executive Committee and member of AzSSR Central Committee, 1994.” Ibid, pp. 197. 183 Ibid, pp. 197. 34

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4. Addressing the Soviet leadership’s failure to prevent Armenian-Azerbaijani ethnic conflict

Derluguian’s micro-theory hereby provides an understanding of social contention during the final years of Soviet rule in Armenia and Azerbaijan created war over Nagorno-Karabakh. As addressed in the previous chapter, there is a great deal of evidence within existing literature supporting the validity of his notion of a competitive social struggle contributing to war. Noting however that his model is incomplete, establishing the validity of his model would require fresh empirical study designed around his hypothesis; firmly beyond the scope of this study.184 What is within this study’s scope - given the ready availability of (English language) primary sources - is the assessing role of Gorbachev’s leadership; Derluguian’s third reason for the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

Derluguian comes to a different conclusion on the USSR’s last leader than most studies: ‘Gorbachev has often been called naïve, misguided, or duplicitous; but if an admittedly shrewd bureaucratic manipulator appears not to know what he is doing, the problem must lie not merely in his personal faults but in the [USSR’s] structural condition.’ Rather than acting above a structure firmly under his command, Derluguian argues that Gorbachev was firmly a product of the same social processes determining the overall trajectory of Soviet developmentalism. Coming of age during de-Stalinisation, Gorbachev hailed from a generation of reformist nomenklatura privately opposed to the ending of Khrushchev's reforms.185 The positionality of his class during 1968, his subsequent rise through the Soviet bureaucratic structure, and the very reasons for his appointment to General Secretary would impact his approach to the Nagorno- Karabakh conflict.

Focusing on his social-biography, Derluguian does not devote much analysis to Gorbachev. Although primary evidence enables a test of his structural assessment, through which an overall evaluation of his analysis of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict can be made. Such sources include Gorbachev’s own memoir On My Country and the World, providing his testimony. Vital independent testimony is also on hand from Anatoly Chernyaev, Gorbachev’s most influential advisor. His unique perspective on Gorbachev is also

184 Especially considering the numerous challenges for designing practical research methods around a class model emphasising the role of sub-proletariat; whose very “rowdy habitus” and suspicion of academia could compound challenges regarding access or produce academic controversy. 185 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 125-126. 35

George van Eesteren 6222196 reinforced by views expressed in his full diary.186 In My Six Years with Gorbachev he also produces an invaluable analysis of Gorbachev’s leadership utilising numerous politburo documents. In order to the Soviet leadership perspective, the perspective of “the other side” will be utilised in the form of recently declassified CIA briefings. While non-Soviet documents these are extremely reliable sources, drafted with classified information to purposely inform US foreign policy decisions regarding its prime Cold War adversary.187 Crucially though, their assessments reinforce the picture that emerges through critical reading of both Gorbachev and Chernyaev. Establishing a picture of significant structural constraints dooming Gorbachev’s response towards the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis to ineffectiveness. A picture that both he and the conflict fit well into Derluguian’s description:

‘Long before the spectacular confrontations that ended the Soviet Union erupted, the stage had been set and the actors had assumed their roles. The script, however, remained a contested matter that would later in the drama create many unpleasant surprises and difficult choices for both actors and audience.’188

General Secretary perplexed Scholars subscribing to double vacuum interpretations of Soviet collapse largely blame the Karabakh conflict’s emergence and escalation on glasnost and perestroika; creating a political opening for nationalism in the first place. Indeed, persistence on conflict resolution reflecting his broader reform goals ensured Gorbachev’s responses remained reactive and unable to keep up with escalation on the ground. It has even been argued that Gorbachev’s responses demonstrated his ignorance of interethnic affairs, and the history behind Armenian-Azerbaijani antagonism.189 Some scholars such as Nolyain even argued that Gorbachev worked deliberately to inflame ethnic tensions, although this has since been widely refuted.190

186 Chernyaev, Anatoly. “Anatoly Chernyaev Diary.” National Security Archive, George Washington University , 2008, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/anatoly-chernyaev-diary . 187 On the National Intelligence Daily (NID): 'The Daily focuses finished, all-source, national intelligence on U.S. foreign policy issues for a select readership - the officials who have to contend with policy problems. Whenever possible, the Daily must do more than tell the policy maker what happened yesterday; it must tell him what is likely to happen tomorrow, and why.' (https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent- csi/vol20no1/html/v20i1a03p_0011.htm). 188Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 104. 189Kaufman, Stuart J. “Karabagh and the Fears of Minorities,” in Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Cornell University Press, 2001, pp. 76. 190 Nolyain, Igor. ‘Moscow’s Secret Initiation of the Azeri‐ Armenian Conflict (A Study of Divide‐ and‐ Rule Policy in Modern History)’. The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, vol. 12, no. 3, Sept. 1999, pp. 38–100. 36

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Politburo transcripts and Chernyaev’s diary entries from 1988 however reveal a different story. During its first meeting following Sumgait on March 3rd, Gorbachev hardly downplays the severity of the unfolding crisis: “What we are facing, comrades, is one of the most complex problems in the entire life and fate of our country.” In saying this he refers to the prospect of a domino effect of other national conflicts over interrepublican borders, informing his earlier dismissal of the February 20th NKAO resolution.191 In the wake of a full pogrom such fears would have become greater – considering the CIA’s death toll was in the hundreds compared to the official count of 32.192 He follows by stressing the imperative of a balanced legal response blaming no single nationality. Justifying caution not through idealism, but recognition of the complex historic legacies:

“It's easy to be satisfied with simple explanations, such as “the Armenians got out of hand and the Azerbaijanis lost control.” But the real roots of this conflict lie back in history. Think of how much the Transcaucasian peoples had to suffer and go through... Everything is extremely intertwined there, it’s something we can’t forget.”193

Continuing, Gorbachev then demonstrates firm awareness of each side’s historic and contemporary grievances surrounding Karabakh. Noting Armenian demographic worries inside Karabakh as well as Azerbaijani territorial anxieties. Lamenting Sumgait, he acknowledges the Party’s past nationality policy failures:

“How could we have sunk so low? Especially when we are talking about a territory where, for centuries, people lived together and were baptized, where everything is intertwined and where, under Soviet conditions, the emphasis was on consolidation, cooperation, and friendship. But instead the opposite was done.”194

Being a native of the Russian North Caucasus, Gorbachev was not oblivious to the region’s ethnic sensitivities. In this case he demonstrated clear awareness of the extent of the challenge faced, even accepting his Politburo’s own failure to entertain previous Armenian lobbying efforts for Nagorno-

191 Beissinger, Mark R. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 68-69. 192 United States Central Intelligence Agency. “Unrest in the Caucasus and the Challenge of Nationalism.” Office of Soviet Analysis, 1 August. 1988. Washington D.C.: Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room, 2016, pp. 8. 193 Translated original meeting transcript quoted from Chernyaev, Anatoly S, Jack F. Matlock, Robert English, and Elizabeth Tucker. My Six Years with Gorbachev. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, pp. 182. 194 Ibid, p.183. 37

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Karabakh’s transfer.195 Though through blaming conflict on ‘the actions of [nationalist] intellectuals’ and identifying ‘the main culprits’ as Armenia and Azerbaijan’s' Party leaderships, an aspect of his future failure is revealed.196 While not unfounded, as demonstrated above republican elites played a minor role in inciting their populations.

Rather than an ignorant decision informed by idealism, this appears more to be a misdiagnosis of the cause of a complex problem. Neither can he be blamed for coming to this conclusion. Owing his very career to bureaucratic bargaining and manoeuvring between powerful patronage networks characteristic to Soviet governance would be conducive to such conspiratorial threat perception. Even an August CIA report noted ‘the continued alignment of Armenian and Azerbaijan Party organisations with their populations even after even after the change [of First Secretaries Demirchian and Bagirov].’197 Gorbachev’s own information channels would have likely given him the same view, and his fixation on conspiracy within the Party continues. Chernyaev writes on October 8th of Gorbachev’s fixation on manipulation of “the corrupted public” by remnants of networks loyal to Demirchian and Aliev.198 In blaming such actors, Gorbachev ultimately reveals how events had already gotten out of control:

“They are egging on the public. The intellectuals have gone bankrupt; they cannot offer anything that would lead to a solution. But I do not know a solution either. If I knew what the solution is, nothing could stop me, I would break all the conventions to get it done. But I don't know it!”199

Despites exasperation, Gorbachev still maintained the belief that reform was the ultimate solution. Hereby attaching the Karabakh crisis to efforts to reform nepotism within the Party and the overall nationalities crisis that the USSR was beginning to face; now including the Baltic states. This created a contradictory approach thereafter. Opposing large-scale repression while detaching himself from the immediate crisis following Sumgait to focus on reforming overall Soviet nationalities policy,200 Gorbachev delegated responsibility to republican CPSU branches; replacing their leaders multiple times as the crisis escalated. Believing they were better placed to calm unrest and enact political compromise, this approach neglected

195 ‘But let us admit our own fault. Over three years the Central Committee received over 500 letters about Nagorno- Karabakh alone. Then the delegations came to Moscow. But our reaction was standard: “Those Armenians just can’t share,” etc. This was a routinised, unacceptable approach to such a sensitive problem.’ Gorbachev in Ibid. 196Ibid. 197 United States Central Intelligence Agency. “Unrest in the Caucasus and the Challenge of Nationalism.” Office of Soviet Analysis, 1 August. 1988. Washington D.C.: Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room, 2016, pp. 17. 198 Bagirov was a patron of Aliev. 199 Chernyaev, Anatoly S. The Diary of Anatoly S. Chernyaev, 1988, 9 October, pp. 49-50. 200 Chernyaev, Anatoly S, Jack F. Matlock, Robert English, and Elizabeth Tucker. My Six Years with Gorbachev. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, pp. 187-190. 38

George van Eesteren 6222196 the susceptibility of even loyal leaders to local popular nationalist pressure.201 Even as the situation deteriorated, he remained stubbornly committed to a reformist political solution, the extent of which is noted by Chernyaev on November 27th 1988 following a heated politburo session:

‘This [meeting] was scheduled to discuss Estonia, amendments to the Constitution, the events in Azerbaijan... Three Russian soldiers were killed there. In Baku people are… calling for an all-round repetition of Sumgait for Armenians.

So in this heated atmosphere Ligachev once again pushed his line: I said back in February that we should use force, restore order, show all of them! How long are we going to stand this? We've let it all go, everything is coming loose, the country is falling apart, etc.

At first, M.S. listened to him ironically, egging him on. But then he blew up: why are you always trying to scare me, Yegor?! Why do you always thrust it under my nose—“see what your perestroika is leading to! Where are we going! What is happening!” Well, I was and I will be for perestroika. I am not afraid of the things that are unfolding. If you (he addresses the members of the politburo) think that we cannot go on like this, that I am doing something wrong, then please let's go…I will submit my resignation. On the spot, without a word of grievance or protest. Elect whomever you like and let him conduct affairs as he can. But while I am in this seat, I am conducting my line and I won't back down!’202

Gorbachev’s furious response to Ligachev, CPSU deputy secretary, reveals the conservative-reformer leadership rift. Reflective of the Soviet nomenklatura’s factional contradiction; its leaders in command of an all-powerful centralised structure yet inherently vulnerable. Crucially, this itself hindered Gorbachev’s attempts at conflict resolution.

“A crisis of methods”

Commenting on repeated calls for force within the politburo, Gorbachev writes in his memoir: ‘Old ways of approaching things, attitudes that had been entrenched for decades, continued to make themselves felt.’203 Through their continued presence, he knew that forcefully cracking down on Karabakh unrest

201 CIA briefings on this approach capture its juxtaposition: 'Party officials in both republics, fearful of sacrificing their limited popularity, are moving cautiously to temper only the most extreme demands from nationalists. Moscow would prefer to continue its current policy of detachment and allow local officials to resolve the situation.' United States Central Intelligence Agency. “National Intelligence Daily.” Director of Central Intelligence, 12 Dec. 1989. Washington D.C.: Wilson Centre Cold War International History Project, 2013, pp. 2. 202 Chernyaev, Anatoly S. The Diary of Anatoly S. Chernyaev. 1988, 22 November, pp. 60. 203 Gorbachev writes this after noting the earliest prominent proposal for a forceful response to nationalist demonstrations by Crimean Tatars: ‘On July 1987, Andrei Gromyko said: “Let the army appear in the streets, and 39

George van Eesteren 6222196 threatened perestroika, and by extension his leadership. Attributing this dilemma as the third reason for war, Derluguian speculates that ‘ordering a massive repression would have reactivated precisely those parts of the KGB and party apparatus that Gorbachev did not trust, remembering as he did the fate of Khrushchev.'204 Following the August 1991 coup, Chernyaev indeed notes a conversation where Gorbachev says he “was cognizant of the lessons of history, of Khrushchev’s fight… and later ouster by Brezhnev’s group.”205

The history of internal power struggles within the Soviet system hereby caused Gorbachev to perceive the “keepers” of the intelligence and defence establishments as greater threats to perestroika than peripheral nationalism.206 As late as October 1988 Gorbachev even refers to intensifying nationalist demonstrations in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and across the USSR, as “natural in the atmosphere of glasnost and democracy.”207 This prioritisation proved fatal, destructively hindering his responses to the Karabakh conflict, causing an inconsistent and awkward balance between compromise and coercion. The disastrous outcome at Sumgait also set the stage for a broader “crisis of methods” that only became more pronounced as the nationalities crisis deepened.208 Gorbachev’s political allies and adversaries drew separate conclusions, influencing their future stances. Gorbachev saw the prevention of further ethnic escalation following Sumgait as a vindication of his restrained approach of limited military intervention. The security establishment on the other hand believed that the pogrom could have been completely stopped with decisive action, with soldiers arriving days after the violence had begun.209 Gorbachev’s situational awareness was further compounded by the suspicion he had of internal Party information reports.210

This came to a head during April 1989 following violent military crackdowns on nationalist demonstrations in Tbilisi, and the following year during Black January. Reflecting on both together in his immediately there will be order.” We did not agree with this point of view. But it re-emerged from time to time.’ Gorbachev, Mikhail S. On My Country and the World. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, pp. 92. 204 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, p. 192. 205 “I allowed that such an attempt might be made on me too.” Chernyaev, Anatoly S, Jack F. Matlock, Robert English, and Elizabeth Tucker. My Six Years with Gorbachev. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, pp. 385. 206 On how Gorbachev viewed the military-industrial complex, Chernyaev writes of ‘the “keepers” of the unshakable military bastion of totalitarianism.’ Ibid, pp. 192. 207 Ibid, pp. 186. 208 Ibid, pp. 219. 209 Beissinger, Mark R. Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State. Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 299, 342, 349. 210 Chernyaev, Anatoly S, Jack F. Matlock, Robert English, and Elizabeth Tucker. My Six Years with Gorbachev. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, pp. 187, & De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 58. 40

George van Eesteren 6222196 memoir, Gorbachev argues that the negative outcome of both interventions validated a state response emphasising political solutions and using force within 'very carefully weighed limits.' Tbilisi had been ordered - according to Chernyaev and Gorbachev – without his knowledge.211 Baku though had his consent out of ‘absolute necessity.’212 Though beyond spectacularly failing at crushing the PFA or easing Armenian fears, the Baku response like Sumgait was days late. While claiming the late intervention was the result of ethnofederal constitutional constraints, the following sentence is more revealing: ‘The central government intervened directly only when it became clear [AzSSR authorities] were paralysed, and unable to act.’213 While appearing deflective through emphasising minor technicalities, this shows that again distrust defined delayed his response until everything was “clear.” Following Tbilisi he had insisted defence minister Yazov only authorise force with his direct approval.214 Gorbachev’s suspicion of Yazov’s intentions surrounding Tbilisi is documented, and considering his involvement in the 1991 coup- attempt his suspicions appear warranted.215 Although whatever Yazov’s intentions then it has been convincingly argued the Tbilisi intervention arose from hardliners urge to act more decisively after Sumgait.

Moreover, the delayed timing of the attack on Baku - occurring only after the Armenian population’s evacuation - has been argued to show that the military objective was the destruction of the PFA rather than saving the Armenian population. Considering Gorbachev’s elite-led views on the causes of nationalist conflict, the timing makes sense through this explanation. Especially considering the military’s role in escorting the Baku Armenian evacuation followed the same logic it abided throughout the conflict; non-intervention, and conflict-prevention through facilitating group separation. Ultimately, Baku was the largest single instance of this after the ethnic cleansing of late 1988, and reflected Gorbachev’s insistence on limited force, favouring a political solution. Although as Chernyaev wrote cynically three days before the crackdown: ‘M.S. does not have a political solution, except for the natural responsibility of protecting the people from pogroms, massacres, having Armenians burned in the streets, and the like.’216

211 Chernyaev, Anatoly S, Jack F. Matlock, Robert English, and Elizabeth Tucker. My Six Years with Gorbachev. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, pp. 218-220. 212 Gorbachev, Mikhail S. On My Country and the World. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, pp. 97. 213 Ibid. 214 Ibid, pp. 96. 215 Assessing evidence of Yazov having ordered the Tbilisi crackdown, he accuses his defence minister of ‘a cruel stab in the back.’ Ibid, pp. 95. 216 Chernyaev, Anatoly S. The Diary of Anatoly S. Chernyaev 1990, January 16, pp. 7. 41

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Regardless, the assault was widely condemned despite Gorbachev’s justifications of restrained action. Human Rights Watch denounced it as ‘out of proportion,’ and indiscriminate ‘collective punishment.’217 Even the limited amount of force throughout the conflict only ultimately antagonised both sides further.218 This though highlights another structural dilemma Gorbachev faced compounding his responses: the perspective disparity between centre and periphery. One unique to his position as leader of a vast multi- ethnic state undergoing rapid transition. It is clear that he was fully aware of the nature of the situation yet struggled to formulate a specific response to the vast array of changes occurring at once. By 1989 the inner cohesion of the Soviet Union was already rapidly deteriorating rapidly. This would have reinforced the notion that Gorbachev had to act to save the entire Union, rather than separate nationalist flashpoints alongside all of the other economic and strategic crises the USSR faced; therefore, requiring a Union- wide solution. That he analysed both Tbilisi and Baku together alongside Vilnius in his memoir demonstrates this Union-wide conceptualisation. His ultimate response in 1990 was the All Union Treaty, which from the union-perspective would appear a timely response to propose fundamental constitutional changes; replacing the original 1922 union treaty. Yet from the perspective of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, with fighting in Karabakh already raging and both populations already demonstrating for independence, it was too little too late.

Following 1989 the USSR’s ability to effectively intervene was severely limited, its resources already stretched thin. Following Baku, the CIA assessed that Moscow would have had to deploy 4-6 additional army divisions to Azerbaijan to fully restore order, doubting it had the resources to sustain such action. While noting that Baku had caused a reduction in Armenian pro-independence sentiment, this proved only momentary. With the USSR’s cohesion rapidly deteriorating into the 1990’s, Operation Ring the next large-scale intervention was the culmination of a trend whereby forceful intervention only escalated the situation. De Waal even argues evidence points to Gorbachev not knowing what was going on the ground, having merely signed off on Ring without being fully aware of its details. Although its planner Polyanichko supported the August coup, rather than a plot he attributes both his and Gorbachev’s connection to Ring to the overall confusion within the Soviet government at this point.219

217 Kushen, Robert. “Conflict in the Soviet Union - Black January in Azerbaidzhan.” Human Rights Watch, May 1991, pp. 4. 218 Croissant, Michael P. The Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict: Causes and Implications. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 1998, pp. 38. 219 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 122-124. 42

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Decision points: Timing and structure

Moreover, arguing that the government could have averted the Karabakh crisis situation had it acted sooner - while it still had the strength to crack down on nationalist sentiment before it became overwhelming - is also problematic. Beyond ignoring the rapidity of its escalation - already irreversible after Sumgait - it fails to account for the constraints limiting Gorbachev’s responses. Or even those who opposed him. Reflecting back on Gorbachev’s November 1988 resignation threat, Chernyaev argues the entire politburo believed perestroika had allowed the national question to emerge into an existential crisis. Yet in posing the question why its opponents they did not take their chance to end it then - as they would in August 1991 - he argues they had ‘neither the guts, nor any alternative “concept,” except for Stalinist clichés… learned in Party schools.’220 This fits Bourdieu’s analysis of the Soviet leadership. Through managing the economic, defence, and intelligence establishments, the leading conservative nomenklatura had long privately realised the Brezhnev-era status-quo had become unsustainable. The reform nomenklatura’s ascendancy under Gorbachev in 1985 was a direct result of this realisation. Opposing Gorbachev in principle, hardliners could not in substance. The August coup’s failure demonstrates this, itself being a failed response to Gorbachev's own failed responses to the crisis.221

It also addresses the view that perestroika and the insistence on seeing it through ethnic crisis were politically reckless or naive decisions. For they were dependent on Gorbachev’s reform nomenklatura habitus, itself achieving and exercising power through bureaucratic manoeuvring and bargaining inherent to Soviet governance. Gorbachev’s initial appeals to Armenia and Azerbaijan for continued “friendship and fraternity among Soviet peoples” including all his subsequent attempts to de-escalate the Karabakh crisis reflected accumulated experience in governance.222 While drafted in response to an immediate problem, they reflected the typical state attitude surrounding national issues, emphasising economic justice and enhanced autonomy within the ethnofederal system. These proved useless at solving a crisis of high passions and zero-sum rival nationalist claims, which by late 1988 had become fully incompatible

220 Chernyaev, Anatoly S, Jack F. Matlock, Robert English, and Elizabeth Tucker. My Six Years with Gorbachev. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, pp. 189. 221 Beissinger writes: ‘Most of the officers who commanded key units during the August 1991 coup… had been intimately involved in putting down nationalist unrest in various parts of the country in the past three years. One suspects that this is why Defence Minister Yazov and KGB chief Kriuchkov chose them to command critical operations during the August coup. But given the effect many of these earlier actions had on morale within the police and the military, it does not seem accidental that many of these same officers, when called on to use force against a civilian population of their own nationality on an even larger scale for the sake of preserving the USSR in August 1991, refused to carry out their superiors’ orders.’ 222 Excerpts from a message by Mikhail S. Gorbachev to the Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, 26 February 1988, Doc. 62 in Libaridian, Gerard J., and editors. The Karabagh File: Documents and Facts on the Region of Mountainous Karabagh, 1918-1988. 1st ed, Zoryan Institute for Contemporary Armenian Research & Documentation, 1988, pp. 103. 43

George van Eesteren 6222196 with mediation within existing Soviet institutional and ideological structures. Scholars faulting Gorbachev’s individual ‘colossal blunders’ generally neglect this context. Kaufman for instance singles out the sudden abolition of the Volsky Commission in November 1989 without providing Karabakhi- Armenians security assurances was ‘colossal in its stupidity,’ yet concludes ‘an alternative scheme may not have been much better’ and only had a chance before conflict started.223 Thereby ignoring the fact that few in Soviet leadership would have thought assurances besides state economic subsidies and the already rigorous public order mechanisms would have been necessary for a relatively minor nationality issue.

Ultimately, Chernyaev believes the conflict would have been manageable only if Karabakh had been transferred ‘as early as 1986.’ Before nationalist tensions thickened history, altering the local causal structure in a way Gorbachev could not answer despite ‘a policy driven by honest good intentions:’

‘So then what was the problem? Why did everything turn out precisely the opposite? For the same old reason. The objective flow of events, triggered by [perestroika], had begun rejecting the very methodology of the ruling party’s politics, even if it had become a “good” party compared to the past.’224

He notes that while Gorbachev refused to transfer Karabakh’s sovereignty he did approve elevating the NKAO into an autonomous republic, although only after Sumgait.225 Despite writing that Gorbachev had historic awareness of nationalist grievances, and understood the distant threat they posed, he concludes Gorbachev’s overall failure on nationalities policy came from an ‘understandable’ inability to comprehend ‘the irrational nature of centrifugal nationalist forces in general.’226 While saying Karabakh could have been managed if resolved in 1986, it may not have stopped one erupting ‘between independent states’ fighting over former Soviet borders. In his eyes collapse was coming regardless of Karabakh, and war could likely have happened afterwards.’227

Chernyaev’s assessment reinforces the view of the Karabakh conflict being a result of the flaws inherent to Soviet ethnofederalism. Flaws that the leadership were aware of, and subsequently identified the solution to Karabakh being the correction of those very. Institutional conflict-resolution mechanisms reaffirming “internationalism” proved ineffective, severely limiting the Soviet leadership’s options from

223 Kaufman, Stuart J. “Karabagh and the Fears of Minorities,” in Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Cornell University Press, 2001, pp. 75, 77. 224 Chernyaev, Anatoly S, Jack F. Matlock, Robert English, and Elizabeth Tucker. My Six Years with Gorbachev. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000, pp. 184-185. 225 Ibid, pp. 155 226 Ibid, pp. 383. 227 Ibid pp. 185. 44

George van Eesteren 6222196 the beginning. Assessing these options early in the conflict, the CIA accurately captured the unfolding balancing act in August 1988: ‘Gorbachev faces the classic dilemma of a centrally controlled system: to have progress he must allow freedom, but allowing more freedom threatens his power.’228 Even so, the report notes Gorbachev’s attempt ‘toward a long-term compromise that just might work.’ Yet in January 1989, five days before Moscow placed Karabakh under direct administration, the CIA predicted ‘violence will probably continue indefinitely’ despite the arrest of nationalist leaders in both republics and ‘de-facto military occupation’ since December.229 Most striking is the CIA’s assessment of Gorbachev’s most significant compromise during 1989, exchanging direct rule over Karabakh with elevated ASSR status:

'Even an enhanced troop presence is unlikely to be able to force striking laborers to work or those legislators boycotting Moscow's ruling to submit to it. The contradictory Armenian and Azeri stances clearly position the two republics to negotiate a compromise - the outcome Moscow hopes for, probably in vain - or to escalate their differences. Given the level of tension and the numbers of weapons reportedly in the region, a sharp escalation of intercommunal clashes in Nagorno Karabakh, along the Armenian border, and in Baku and Yerevan is likely.'230

This situation would be unenviable for any government, let alone one already facing numerous other difficulties. In its January 1990 special analysis on future challenges to perestroika, the CIA also predicts a grim situation regardless of decisions: ‘Centrifugal forces already unleashed are likely to intensify this year, severely straining any arrangement Gorbachev can hammer out.'231

An experienced politician familiar with managing multi-ethnic issues, his political prominence down to bureaucratic manoeuvre and personal cunning, Gorbachev would have been well able to attempt managing conflict in a different structural context. Yet the internal illegitimacy of the Soviet system that he had been appointed General Secretary to resolve proved too great, revealing too many issues at one, and breaking the existing model of ethnofederalism and developmentalism. The rigid yet vulnerable social and institutional structure not only hindered his whole response to the growing Karabakh conflict, but also left the Gorbachev politburo ill equipped to prevent NKAO sovereignty from even becoming a

228 United States Central Intelligence Agency. “Unrest in the Caucasus and the Challenge of Nationalism.” Office of Soviet Analysis, 1 August. 1988. Washington D.C.: Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room, 2016, pp. 26. 229 States Central Intelligence Agency. “National Intelligence Daily.” Director of Central Intelligence, 7 Jan. 1989. Washington D.C.: Wilson Centre Cold War International History Project, 2013, pp. 12-13. 230 States Central Intelligence Agency. “National Intelligence Daily.” Director of Central Intelligence, 12 Dec. 1989. Washington D.C.: Wilson Centre Cold War International History Project, 2013, pp. 5. 231 ‘Whatever course Moscow chooses, the crisis in the USSR is likely to be made worse by deteriorating economic and nationalities situations, by a decline in the Communist Party's authority and prestige, and by developments in Eastern Europe…’ States Central Intelligence Agency. “National Intelligence Daily.” Director of Central Intelligence, 17 Jan. 1989. Washington D.C.: Wilson Centre Cold War International History Project, 2013, pp. 14. 45

George van Eesteren 6222196 crisis. There was little else that the leadership could have done to prevent the crisis turning to war. As Derluguian concludes on Gorbachev:

'the last General Secretary remained himself thoroughly a product of nomenklatura advancement, and thus hostage to his habitus and position. Gorbachev’s tragedy was that of many old-regime reformers who have unwittingly ended up provoking revolutions.'232

Conclusion & Implications

In attempting to answer the central question of this paper a picture emerges similar to that in Clark’s “sleepwalkers” interpretation of the origins of WWI; the very conflict causing the first Armenian- Azerbaijani War. Where key actors in Moscow, Armenia, and Azerbaijan sleepwalked ‘towards danger in watchful, calculated steps.’233 Or as Ramet wrote of the Croat-Bosnian war: ‘conflict was overdetermined and...would have taken more wisdom than was available to prevent fighting from breaking out between the two sides.’234 Therefore the conditions of Soviet ethnofederalism specific to Armenia and Azerbaijan indicate the central role in the Soviet state structure in not only creating the conflict, but also hindering its resolution.

In emphasising the long-term structural effects of ethnofederalism over the double vacuum occurring from 1988 onwards this study never sought to prove these theories wrong. However, through addressing the composition and dynamics of the Soviet social structure, proving a huge difference during nationalist mobilisation, this study has endeavoured to addressing the determinism surrounding double vacuum

232 Derluguian, Georgi. Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus. Verso, 2004, pp. 302. 233 Clark, Christopher M. The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. Pbk. - ed., Penguin, 2013, pp. xxvii. 234 Ramet, Sabrina P. The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918-2005. Woodrow Wilson Centre Press, 2006, pp. 10. 46

George van Eesteren 6222196 understandings. Through Derluguian’s micro-theory there is now a way of creating a link between the study of the effects of institutions and of social structures across the span of a thickened event. Moreover, through empirical testing it may potentially provide the basis for finally understanding the actions surrounding the earliest instances of violence in 1988.

With the Karabakh question - itself a direct result of the opening act of ethnofederalism in Transcaucasia in 1921 - this crisis emerged once sentiment could be expressed. From then on overall grievances against the Soviet state were consumed and decided by nationalist aspirations and fears. Rather than simply freezing a historic antagonism in time, the “internationalist” Soviet state in fact incubated and nurtured primordialism. Held in check by strong central authority, what mattered more was the longevity of an alternative vision the state offered over ethnic allegiances. Through the work of Derluguian and Beissinger’s work it becomes clear a significant reason why the Soviet Union’s ethnofederal system failed to prevent Armenia and Azerbaijan from going to war lay in underlying structural faults. Already vulnerable to waves of tidal nationalism through being a vast multi-ethnic unitary state, these faults strengthened over time to the point where the USSR collapsed through its own social contradictions; which contributed to the war that still consumes Armenia and Azerbaijan to this day.

The conclusion drawn from this study relevant to the current conflict is that - through emphasising its common Soviet historic origins - both Armenia and Azerbaijan captives of the same historical forces. Alongside most scholarship, a common nationalist critique of de Waal’s work is that in being “objective” it creates an equivalency in Armenian-Azerbaijani antagonism; currently unacceptable to both sides.235 Writing the mass-led nature of the conflict means ‘ordinary people must take their share of responsibility for the blood-shed,’ with no resolution in sight remains an exceptionally tall order for both societies.’236 The rationalisation of the overall process behind what created today’s mutual hatred could perhaps have the opposite effect, lessening the suspicious and hostile reactions to outside academic inquiry. As Kocharian remarked to Derluguian in 1994:

“I am visited by hordes of scholars from all those Harvard-marvard Oxford-shmoksford foreign universities, who come to teach me about conflict resolution, minority rights… In very learned language

235 My Armenians placement superiors who recommended this book to me for my research mentioned their misgivings over its “fake neutrality,” which from their perspective showed no understanding for what being in a war meant for their nation. And they were not chauvinist in their views, themselves fondly recollecting past-friendships with Azerbaijanis. 236 De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New York University Press, 2003, pp. 272 47

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they tell me everything that I already know. But they don’t know themselves what I don’t know but want to know.”237

Through promoting understanding based on both Armenia and Azerbaijan being hostages to a common historical process, perhaps it can become possible to bridge the gap between combatant and observer, and the gap between both people’s perception of contemporary hatred and future reconciliation.

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21. Ramet, Sabrina P. The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918-2005. Woodrow Wilson Centre Press, 2006.

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26. Souleimanov, Emil. Understanding Ethnopolitical Conflict: Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia Wars Reconsidered. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. WorldCat Discovery Service, http://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1330917.

27. Suny, Ronald Grigor. Looking Toward Ararat: Armenia in Modern History. Indiana University Press, 1993.

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30. Zurcher, Christoph. “The War over Karabakh,” The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus. NYU Press, 2007.

Images:

 Page 24: Demonstrators in Yerevan in 1988 with a banner linking the Sumgait pogrom to the beginning of the Armenian genocide in 1915.  Page 34: A march in Yerevan in 1988 where a woman holds a portrait of Gorbachev. Two flags are held visible behind her, the Soviet flag, and the First Armenian Republic flag (banned until 1988).  Page 46: Armenian tanks in Nagorno-Karabakh today. The tanks pictures used to belong to the Soviet Army. Older soldiers gloat that most tanks in Karabakh are captured from Soviet or Azerbaijani arsenals.  Page 51. A protest march during the 1988 anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in Yerevan being cordoned off by Soviet authorities.