Hovhannes Kajaznuni was the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia (1918-1920) and prominent member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, ARFD.
This six-part article was published in the May-June 6 (1922) issues of ARFD’s Jakatamart daily based in Constantinopole (today Istanbul).
The translation was done by Leon Rafi Aslanov.
1
From the day the independence of the Armenian Republic was declared, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) became a state political party. Its revolutionary mission has expired and it has now moved on to administering the state and rehabilitating this ruined country.
These new circumstances have put the party face-to-face with new demands. It is now imperative upon the party to decide on its resolute stance vis-à-vis these demands.
In the context of this urgent, unprecedented and arduous task, the party has not had the opportunity, or even the will, to properly formulate its political message in these conditions. As a consequence of this, a sense of ideological ambiguity and mutual misunderstanding has prevailed within the ranks of the party (and also outside of the party) vis-à-vis the most significant current issues and the solutions to them.
This semi-fulfilled task must be accomplished today.
The ARF is today exiled from Armenia and the Republic’s independence is partly compromised.
However, this is only a temporary phase. History has its own trajectory and that trajectory has brought us to the doorstep of independence. We have said what we have had to say and our ideology is alive and viable. There is no reason to doubt that the Armenian world, with all its limitations, will not have its own unique political life.
The ARF of the Armenian government of tomorrow will again be called upon to action (albeit to again take on a leading role). This is a responsibility which no political party can abandon. It is for this reason that it must be aware of its future responsibilities.
If the Soviet authorities (i.e. the Bolshevik government) become established and long-standing in Armenia, two possible eventualities come to mind:
- The Bolsheviks – as can be seen in both Russia and the smaller states subject to Moscow – are shying away from their former orthodoxy and modus operandi. In order to perpetuate their rule, they are limiting their use of violence and are seeking legal ways to reach compromises. This approach may lead to a situation wherein the Bolsheviks recognise the freedom to express different and opposing political tendencies, while also maintaining their rule. In other words, they will more or less recognise civil liberties. In this case, the ARF must act as an organised opposition force and struggle against Bolshevism through legal means.
- The need for law and order may take the Bolsheviks even further and create such an environment wherein they would be obliged to wish for and accept cooperation with opposing political groups (i.e. to reinforce, in whole or in part, democratic structures that protect political rights, while the opposing groups would be compelled to cooperate with the Bolsheviks for the sake of the homeland. In such a case, the ARF cannot shy away from cooperation. However, it should be aware of exactly what kind of cooperation it is being involved in and what responsibility it is assuming for itself.
In both cases, the ARF should have its prepared and explicit answer to the question about what kind of path Armenian political life will be taking.
If the ARF is going to form an exemplary oppositional force then it must be conscious of what it is opposing and what puts it in opposition to the politics of the Bolsheviks.
If it is going to cooperate with the Bolsheviks then it must know in advance what conditions it will put on the table and in what direction it will take this cooperation.
This question of “what” needs to become clearer for the ARF if it is to again be called upon to take a leading role, which is not impossible.
This “what” must not be expressed with distant ideals, general and vague expressions, and concepts that are intangible and empty for the general masses. The ARF’s mission should be clear and easy to understand, with clear and concrete demands imbibed with real value that are directly related to today’s reality and can be fulfilled starting even from tomorrow.
2
Beliefs and doctrines are not the main issues that must be reviewed, but the current politics and daily practice that needs to be decided and directly incorporated into the Armenian reality and within Armenia’s borders.
The time has come to give a clear and definitive answer to this question. The time has come to eliminate the confusion and mutual misunderstanding that pervades the ranks of the party. The time has also come for elements outside of the party to understand us, to be aware of our current demands and our chosen path, so that they may know who is to ally with us and who is to prepare resistance against us.
In this series of writings I will focus specifically on internal social policy, which is most of all in need of elucidation.
The ARF is by doctrine a socialist party. It is thus natural that its politics runs on socialist lines. However, Armenia is as of yet unripe for adopting socialist structure. This situation and this indubitable fact stands before the ARF like a cliff’s dead-end, obstructing its path and forcing it to seek alternative paths.
Every party must account for itself and never forget this most potent of facts, because it is this very fact that determines a party’s politics and its state function.
The matured and organised antagonistic forces that are required to push for class conflict in order to revolutionise socio-economic life in accordance with socialist demands do not exist in Armenia.
The proletariat does not exist as a class in Armenia.
Those 3-4 thousand workers who are dispersed across the railway line and in a few small factories here and there do not form a class in and of itself. This small group of Armenian labourers remain intimately connected to agriculture and to the petty bourgeoisie. It has not had sufficient time to become a separate and unique group that would represent a proletariat. In terms of mind-set the members of this group are still peasants or have adopted the mentality of the petty bourgeois. Moreover they are economically tied in several ways to the rural economy or small-scale business in the cities. This group does not possess any class consciousness and neither does it profess any particular ideology, although they are more than willing to reiterate socialist slogans heard from external sources, following in the footsteps of conscious and organised workers found in prominent economic centres.
For these platitudes to turn into a real consciousness and political force, the economic life and social categories that currently exist in Armenia need to change drastically. This requires time. Every people has its own level of social maturity and development, which are limited by various conditions. This level of maturity cannot be changed by good will or violence. It is possible to change living standards in order to accelerate the process of maturation, but, once again, this requires time and long-term work.
In any case, the number of workers in Armenia is so negligible (comprising less than 0.5% of the population) that even if this group were to have the highest level of class consciousness and organisation, it would still not be able to represent a political force capable of determining the will of the country.
The rural population, which represents by far the largest segment of the population in Armenia, will have the last word when it comes to political life, however it is currently far removed from socialist tendencies. Armenia doesn’t have – or more or less doesn’t have – a rural proletariat. A rural proletariat can only exist when there is landlordism and a capitalist economy, or at least a rich and independent rural class that is independent of the masses – i.e. a rural bourgeoisie.
Our country has none of these preconditions.
The Armenian peasant, with very few exceptions, lives either on state land or its own land and he manages his economy by his own means. There are of course peasants who are more or less wealthy (it would be better to say more or less poor), but this does not change their social characteristics and essence. Although they are poor, they are proprietors, with a specific mentality and particular tendencies.
Armenia does not have a bourgeoisie, in terms of a social class, to contradistinguish labour in general, and the proletariat in particular. In other words, this would be a powerful minority wherein the country’s wealth is concentrated and which exploits the working masses through its capitalistic enterprises. The bourgeoisie and proletariat are born of the same socio-economic structure and they condition one another. They are inseparable from one another. Where one doesn’t exist, the other also doesn’t exist.
There is no large capital or capitalists in our country. They didn’t exist before the war, but whatever seeds of capital were developing beforehand have been completed destroyed during the war.
That negligible bit of capital that currently exists in Armenia has been grinded and distributed to a select number of people.
There are no banks or currency exchange, there are no factories or large workshops, there is no centralised production. Mineral wealth is not being exploited by private entities or private capital. There are no railways, canals, telegram and telephone lines owned by private companies. There are no large trade centres or trade unions. There are no storage houses for raw materials or ready-made products. In other words, there are no products and owners, no capital and capitalists, against whom the working class should struggle, sinking the former system and establishing new social categories.
3
Armenia is one of those backward countries where a capitalistic economy has not developed, for which reason there is no proletariat or bourgeoisie – the two reified, assimilated and antagonistic social classes.
Fortunately there is no mass land ownership in Armenia, and there is no feudal authority, which is particular to other economically backward countries.
Armenia is a country of the petty bourgeoisie/small property owners. The property-owning rural and urban populations, with their small properties and the mentality of the petty bourgeoisie, with all its flaws and virtues, is the predominant type of individual in the Armenian nation.
This type of people is not mature enough for socialist structures, and so such structures cannot be born within this country. But, for instance, if they were forcibly established by external powers (such as by the Bolsheviks), it would cause general discontent, confusion and disorganisation on foundations that are unconducive to the rehabilitation of society.
The ARF has long realised this truth (more instinctively rather than consciously) and has governed Armenia accordingly – often unwillingly and in contradiction to its professed socialist doctrine.
The ARF is not the paid representative of the bourgeoisie, as opponents from the Left love to reiterate, and it is also not the defender of its interests.
The ARF has been and will remain the party for the Armenian working masses. However, petty bourgeoisie/small property ownership does not contradict the working class. It takes into account the fact that the petty bourgeoisie, within the borders of Armenia, represent a key element of the same working class.
The ARF, as an entity and representative of the will of the masses, independent of party programmes and official doctrines, is the blood child of the Armenian people. For this very reason, it cannot have a mind-set, conscience, tendencies or demands that differ from those of the people.
This is the ARF’s very weakness as a socialist party and its strength as a democratic party. This explains the reserved and mistrustful attitude of the other socialist parties towards us, in addition to the undeniable fact that the predominant majority of the Armenian people have for years either been part of the ARF or stood in support of it.
Independent from the ARF leadership’s individual perspectives and programmatic instructions, the ARF, in reality, has implemented a political programme in Armenia that has corresponded most befittingly to the socialistic structure of the Armenian working masses, as well as to their political reality, their conscience, their real ambitions and matured demands.
That political programme has not been socialistic per se. As in, it has not been directed against private property.
Opponents from the Left (primarily the Bolsheviks, of course) have made it a habit to call the ARF the party of the petty bourgeoisie. They believe that this name sounds very witty and offensive to the ears of ARF members. Perhaps it is indeed witty since in cases where the word “petty” is omitted and voluntarily forgotten, the word “bourgeois” remains and it is declined according to one’s needs and will.
What does one mean by “petty bourgeois”?
Every farmer in the villages who has their own plot of land, cart and lever; every cattle breeder or dairy farmer who has two or three milch cows and a dozen or so sheep; every gardener who has two tanaf gardens and a few dozen fruit-bearing trees; every shopkeeper in the cities who has a few hundred manet of goods in the shop; every homeowner who makes ends meet by renting out two or three rooms; every artisan – whether a sewer, a carpenter, a shoemaker, a tailor or a weaver – who has a workshop and keeps tools and a couple of students; every semi-intellectual and “teacher” who teaches at schools, works as an accountant or holds some other position.
If those mentioned above are all part of the “petty bourgeoisie” then the ARF can wholeheartedly say that it is the party of the petty bourgeoisie.
Because these are the people who, in the borders of Armenia, make up the Armenian working class (as well as the small number of labourers). They make up the masses of the ARF and it is on behalf of these people that the ARF speaks and works in the borders of Armenia.
The ARF would be in denial if it were to renounce this “petty bourgeoisie”. And why should it renounce them…
Let our opponents call us a bourgeois party, anti-revolutionary or whatever they wish – that’s their business.
It is not names that will strike fear in us, that will ruin our conscience or lead us astray from the path that we tread.
The ARF would be deemed to have betrayed its great and historic call of responsibility if it were to forget about reality, the distorted demands of everyday life and its duty due to a fear of name-calling.
4
The Armenian working class within the borders of Armenia is today not in a state to realise and implement the structures of a social economy. Such an experiment would ultimately destroy an already ruined country and would kill our newly formed, weak and unstable state.
The only way to rebuild our country’s economy – and thus to safeguard our state longevity – is to restore and develop the private economy. A private economy requires the protection of private capital – and in our case, not only protection, but also state support.
This is the social demand which, contradictory to our socialist principles, must be the basis of our internal and social policy.
We must take this path resolutely, without hesitation.
No conscious and responsible socialist party working in these conditions could demonstrate a different political attitude.
The ARF is not planning on protecting private capital for the sake of currying the favour of the insatiable bourgeoisie, but it is doing so in the interests of the working class. Taking any other course of action in the Armenian context would mean to remember only the name of socialist doctrine but to neglect its essence and to ignore its goal.
There is only one type of capital that must be nationalised from today, with the vision of socialising it in the future.
The abovementioned capital is land – with all its natural resources, including its mines, streams and lakes, forests and the like.
The ARF administration had already taken this course and there is no reason for it to withdraw or diverge from this course.
The peasant should have as much land under their ownership as they are capable of cultivating without compensating for the cost of the land or paying a special tax.
Land laws need to be drafted in such a way so as to on the one hand give free rein to the unobstructed and productive development of the private economy and, on the other hand, to avoid the emergence of new difficulties that would prevent us from transitioning to a social economy. Land must thus be bequeathed to the working peasant not as property (with its full property rights), but as an object to be cultivated and used, a tool for work and production.
Thus, land, as a form of capital, must be declared a property of the state and the people, and the right to use it without payment must be reserved for the working peasant.
If this socialist principle does not cause any direct and real obstructions or difficulties for the management of the small private economy (i.e. if the land laws are drafted in such a way that they will not hinder the drive towards the development of individual productivity) then the peasantry will gladly accept it and it will wholly satisfy their mature demands. This will be the most conducive and productive way to rebuild and safeguard the country’s economy.
For the same reason it is necessary to stimulate the development of both rural small business and, in parallel, large capitalistic agricultural production.
Armenia’s state border have not yet been drawn. As narrow as those border may be, it is possible that the bounty of our territories will be more than enough to satisfy the direct needs of our rural population (including, of course, those who have migrated here).
This fortunate circumstance will allow for the development of capitalist elements in the agricultural economy without harming or hindering rural small business, at least in the first few decades.
Those lands that remain free, after satisfying the needs of the rural working class, they require large investments (for instance, for the irrigation of waterless fields) to allow for their exploitation and they need to be contracted to capitalist entrepreneurs.
The investment of large capital into agriculture will raise the productivity of the country and will increase the state revenue. It will bring with it the widespread use of machine, refined methods of cultivation, science and technology, of which our illiterate and backward peasant is in dire need.
Capital must be invested across the board, not only in agriculture but also in other branches of production.
Capital is necessary to structure and develop our country’s economic life. There is no capital in the country, which needs to be brought in from outside. Capital abroad is in the hands of capitalists and is inseparable from them. Thus, capital can be imported only with capitalists and capitalism – there is no other way.
We must comprehend this reality and bow down before it.
To wage war against exploitative capitalists in the conditions we find ourselves would be equal to suicide. Not only must we avoid waging such a war, but we ourselves should seek, call for and stimulate capital.
Mineral resources, railway, vehicle transportation, telegram and telephone, hydroelectric power, electric lighting and such enterprises should be handed over to monopolists so that we may attract and import foreign capital.
Our objective is not to support capital, which will exploit our country’s resources and our people’s working force mercilessly.
But this vision should not stop us in our tracks because we have no other way of living and becoming a place fit for living – not only as a state, but also as a people.
We should not be afraid of burdening our future generations with debts. The work we are doing, as in the independence that we are struggling and making sacrifices for, is not for us, but for the future generations. It is thus just and mandatory that part of this burden is passed onto their shoulders.
5
The question may arise as to what will remain of ARF socialism if we implement such policies.
Let’s assume the worst and that nothing will remain of it.
This fear should also not stop us in our tracks.
The party and its program are not aims in themselves. If the Armenian people’s, and especially the Armenian working class’, interests demand that the ARF, for now, must put aside its doctrine and program, then it should have the courage to do so. This is a compromise, but there are situations where compromises become a requirement, while discrimination and not taking into account people’s wishes is a political crime.
The ARF needs to have the courage to look reality in the face and to devote its work to the needs of the people. If the party is not capable of fulfilling that mission then it should yield its authority and hand it over to more capable forces.
There is fortunately no reason for us to be in self-denial.
The “bourgeois” politics that we have outlined is a temporary compromise that must be implemented under the pressures of today’s insurmountable conditions. It is precisely a socialist party that must implement this program so that the compromise would indeed be of a temporary nature and would not diverge too far so as to exceed the demands of the current circumstances.
It is wrong to think that socialists have no role to play in a country’s government that is working within a bourgeois framework. Their socialist inclinations, which do in fact exist, will be expressed at every step of the way and will find ways to implement their ideas.
The nationalisation and distribution of land to the working rural population and the principle of “unpurchasability” is such a wide-ranging socialistic endeavour that no bourgeois government would take it upon itself to implement it. If the ARF succeeds in implementing (or supporting the implementation of) this programme then it would be justified in its representation of socialism.
We must be satisfied with this for now and leave the rest to the future, to its natural path and its inevitable end. It would be immature and a crime to ask for more now, to destroy what we have and reject what is possible for what is impossible.
It is a basic fact that it is not in the Ararat plains or the Abaran mountains that working people will fight the good fight against capital (and neither in Moscow).
It is a basic fact that a powerless, small, poor and backward country like Armenia, which is also independent of the structure and tendencies of its social economy, cannot create a socialist system since powerful and developed countries continue to inhabit capitalist structures. As a counterfactual, Armenian cannot remain capitalist if the developed world were to experience a revolution and establish a socialist system.
The working class in Armenia cannot accelerate or slow down the international path towards socialism. It cannot even give a small contribution to the global struggle because it has its own concern – a matter of life and death – which requires its full attention and energy.
It has the full right to say that it is leaving the fight between capital and labour to the antagonism between the great powers, while it devotes itself to urgent matters which are in such need of attention and work. It has the right to say that because it is more powerless and helpless than any other working class.
This is not a betrayal of the cause of the working class. The international proletariat cannot demand the suicide of the Armenian working class. Only immature thought, a blind doctrine, or a repulsive hypocrisy can throw such an accusation in the face of the Armenian working class.
The Armenian working class has its own mission to prioritise – it must restore its dwindling home and establish its political life. Treacherous is the one who forbids or hinders the fulfilment of this mission.
An independent political life, liberation from foreign rule, and the unobstructed right to self-determination are demands that must be prioritised above all by a socialist party.
Those who believe that the sole aim of socialism is the liberation from exploitative capital and that the only way to achieve this is through the nationalisation of capital are narrow-minded. Socialism is a much broader and deeper doctrine. It is a complete worldview that encompasses all aspects of public life and the demands of the working class – whether social, economic, political or cultural.
Political freedom is the foundation of and necessary prerequisite for all other freedoms. A socialist party that succeeds in granting the Armenian working class with this foundational freedom will have done a great deal for the sake of the victory of socialism – an endeavour which is worth living and dying for.
6
Is it necessary for the ARF to reserve the right to take over the Armenian state? Isn’t it preferable for another party to replace it?
It is a fact that the ARF has not managed to bear the burden that has befallen it in the recent past. The ARF government has not been able to establish the rule of law and stable state structures, not has it removed the small and large, internal and external political obstacles. After two and a half years of superhuman effort, it was forced to cede its place to another authority.
This is an undeniable truth and so the question of whether it is worth allowing others to take the reins is fitting.
It would indeed have been better if there was a more capable and competent political organisation than the ARF in the Armenian political field. There is unfortunately no such organised force and so it is up to the ARF to do its best.
The ARF has not fulfilled its calling. However, this is the best that the Armenian people could do, no more, no less.
If the loss of our newly found independence was the result of our incompetence in the face of insurmountable challenges and great powers, and didn’t simply represent a defeat, then the incompetence was not on the part of the ARF, but of the Armenian people as a whole. The ARF is the largest and most organised force that has managed to bring the Armenian people to the fore and so the ARF’s defeat is the defeat of the Armenian people.
This is the bitter reality which the ARF most of all laments.
Nevertheless, the ARF’s opponents and critics should not forget the following:
The ARF government, with its lack of experience and vulnerabilities, its defects and shortcomings, and despite its ailments, it has one irreplaceable virtue – it is the country’s government, connected to the country and its people, inseparable from them, with all its essence. It is not a separable entity, its separate experiences, desires and aspirations. It is an inseparable part of a whole body whose name is “the Armenian people” – always conscious, practical and very sensitive. It might not be capable of governing, but it will under no circumstances forget or betray the centuries-old cause of the Armenian people.
The ARF is the first in line to take any attack directed against the Armenian people and the Armenian cause, whether it comes from within or outside, from the left or the right. And if that ominous day comes when the ARF takes a deadly blow, which is expected from the Bolsheviks, then it will be the end of the ARF and also for the Armenian cause.
To those who do not understand this it might seem presumptuous and even ridiculous. Allow me to explain.
Individual members of the ARF and whole groups might be massacred, imprisoned, exiled, dispersed across the four corners of the world, neutralised, or they may change sides. The party’s ranks might reduce in number. Certain institutions may dissolve and the party’s political life might be obstructed or even interrupted for a certain period of time. The name “Dashnaktsutyun” (ARF) may even finally disappear and be forgotten.
But this will not yet mean the death of the ARF.
Its death will come the day the Armenian people loses this mind-set, betrays those principles and forgets those ideals which were born out of the ARF and have been maintained for 30 years by the front ranks of the Armenian army.
The ARF is not only composed of those few thousand people who are registered with the party. Its scope is much broader and its roots run much deeper than that. The ARF is the embodiment of Armenian grievances, its military might, which has struggled against subordination and has demanded its rights.
It is not the registered party members who make up the strength of the ARF. Its strength is in its ideology – that healthy, viable, mature and undefeatable ideology that makes up the essence of the ARF, which is passed on from generation to generation and has rooted itself in the collective spirit of the Armenian people.
What is that ideology?
To put it clearly and briefly – first of all, a political life independent of foreign rule.
This is all for now. The rest will come at the appropriate time, in its own ways. The rest will be implemented with the means that life’s course will dictate to us or to our successors.
The main thing for now is to focus on that “clear and brief” goal. The rest can come sooner or later, but this goal needs to be realised urgently.
This is history’s demand and also its threat – now or never.
In terms of national unity and a unique cultural-historical trial, the Armenian people are under great danger. It is a matter of life and death. It is only the establishment of an independent state that can unite the remnants of the Armenian people on Armenian lands and save its future and also to save its centuries-old culture for humanity.
It’s still possible to accomplish that today, otherwise tomorrow will be too late.
In the general context of deconstruction and reconstruction nowadays, wherein the bygone world’s political map is under question and is subject to fundamental changes, when old states are being dismantled and replaced by new ones on top of the former’s ruins, when disenfranchised and oppressed nations present their demands and their viability to the world – it is in this context that the Armenian people must find its place under the sun.
By making formidable sacrifices, having passed through seas of blood and left innumerable dead bodies in their wake, we have made an attempt to re-establish an independent Armenian state. This was a daring step to make, and even one that was punching above our weight. But it was necessary, because the time had come and it would not wait any longer for us. We had to either establish ourselves, create a state barricade around us amidst the seething worldwide war, or we would have been squashed and eradicated.
History takes its own course that we ourselves cannot alter, stop or slow down according to our will. We are forced to follow its course, but without letting it walk over our dead bodies.
We made an attempt to establish our independent state. We faced unassailable difficulties, we fought against our adversaries and we lost…
We were defeated and our short-lived independence is under great threat. Its name remains intact, however its foundations are being destroyed, its structure is shaking and ominous cracks are appearing from top to bottom.
Has our cause and struggle come to an end? Have we really exhausted all possibilities? Have we made use of all our capabilities and failed? Can we say that we have nothing more to do, that our desire to establish ourselves and our attempt to do so was simply an alluring illusion that came to nothing once it faced the ruthless reality? Is political independence beyond our means and are we simply obliged to bow down to destiny and die a silent death?
No. States are not formed in a day and they are in no way formed easily.
Only children would dream that on one auspicious day our state, organised and ready, adorned with flowers and garnished with sweets, would be presented to us and that our guardian angel would tell us from above to enjoy it in peace.
Freedoms are won through pain and sweat. Our travail was longer and more challenging than we could have imagined – so long and challenging that our powerless selves were unable to endure it.
The plight of Armenian today may lead to its political death. This threat is real and is extremely serious, but not insurmountable. This plight may become, or perhaps has already became, an important step towards what we have to do next.
What we have to do now is save the state, establish it on solid foundations and make it viable. This must be our greatest concern now – our only great concern.
In order to succeed we must join all our forces, under whatever colour or flag they may be, to struggle for the same cause.
Whoever is standing with us on this path and is determined to go to the end is a real ARF member (Dashnaktsakan), whatever their title/status may be (bourgeois or proletariat, socialist or clerical, Ramgavar or Bolshevik). That person is our natural and inseparable ally.
The enemy is the one who, either consciously or unconsciously, willingly or unwillingly, cuts our path, constructs barricades and trenches to block our charge ahead for the sake of global anti-revolutionism or for the sake of the bourgeoisie or proletariat.
Translated by Leon Rafi Aslanov
