The Eurasian Triangle. Russia, the Caucasus and Japan, 1904-1945

Reconquest Ë 95

Fig. 4.6.The cabinet of the Azerbaijan Republic, Baku, 1920. Seated in the center is Nasib Yusieyli
(Ussubekov), prime minister, murdered in May 1920, apparently by Bolsheviks.

an all-out confrontation with Bolshevik Russia.⁹⁴Rebels were mercilessly repressed,

causing a stir even among the Kemalists in Turkey who were collaborating with the

Bolsheviks.⁹⁵The Great Powers, which had de facto recognized Azerbaijan’s indepen-

dence, hardly took action against Moscow’s annexation of the state,⁹⁶in which there

was little Bolshevik inuence outside Baku.⁹⁷Later, in January 1921, Azeris and North-

ern Caucasus mountaineers created in Tiis a committee aimed at “liberating Azer-

baijan and the Northern Caucasus from the Russian occupation, restoring Democratic

republics, and creating a Caucasian confederation.” In February Tiis recognized the

committee as the provisional government of Azerbaijan and the Northern Caucasus.⁹⁸

Three days later, however, Tiis itself fell to the Red Army (discussed shortly).

94 See G.I. Kvinitadze,Moi vospominaniia v gody nezavisimosti Gruzii, 1917–1921(Paris: YMCA Press,
1985), 194.
95 See Kvashonkin, Khlevniuk, Kosheleva et al., eds.,Bolshevistskoe rukovodstvo, 173–174.
96 Kazemzadeh,The Struggle for Transcaucasia, 276–85.
97 See Audrey L. Altstadt,The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity under Russian Rule(Stanford,
CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1992), 110.
98 Mamoulia,Les combats indépendandistes des Caucasiens, 24.