missariat replacing the former one, were generally in control of the

situation in the Uyezd and, when necessary, managed to curb both

peasant riots and illegitimate actions by some armed gangs.

One of these operations was conducted in January 1918 by an

‘vigilante unit’ of Alibey Zizikski in Khachmaz. (30) In the meantime,

A.Zizikski’s units were standing guarantor of security for the Uyezd’s

Muslim population given the fact that at that particular period, i.e.

autumn 1917 to January 1918, the area witnessed increasing num-

ber of armed squads manned by WW1 demobs of Russian, Jewish

and Armenian origins involved in armed robberies and violent attacks

on landlord estates. Attempts by local authorities to disarm these ir-

regulars oftentimes resulted in armed clashes that could create an im-

pression of interethnic ones. Nevertheless, the overall situation in the

Uyezd at that moment was generally manageable, to a great extent

due to A.Ziziksi’s vigilantes. (31)

In his new capacity of the Uyezd Commissar, Alibey Zizikski, one

of the key figures in Azerbaijan’s national liberation movement and

a member-to-be of the National Parliament, was in fact maintaining

control over the political situation in the area by preventing takeover

or violent seizure of power in the Uyezd by the Baku Soviet.

Another highly esteemed and influential public figure in Guba

Uyezd, Hamdulla Efendi Efendizadeh, also a future member of the

National Parliament, secured stability in the Uyezd’s Davachi Precinct.

Given this situation, any attempts by revolutionary forces repre-

sented by the Guba Soviet of Worker, Soldier and Sailor Deputies to

establish a one-man rule in the area were hard to succeed.

In fact, as of mid-1917, the major struggle in Guba was going not

in-between the two power structures but within the Soviet itself, i.e.

among the Bolsheviks (communists) on the one hand, and the Socia-

list Revolutionary (

Esser

) and Menshevik branches on the other hand.

The former ones were striving in vain to assure majority in the Soviet.

The reason of low

bolshevization

(communist dominance) in the So-

viets at the Azerbaijani-populated areas, Guba among them, could

be partially explained by

“a bundle of social and ethnic relationships

and complexities in tackling bourgeois nationalist and petty bourgeois

parties and groups”

. (32) However, the very fact of more moderate

political forces’ dominance in the Soviet provided sufficient evidence

of lack of active public support by the Azerbaijani masses to violent

Events of 1918 in Guba in the Context of Plans for Mass Extermination

of Azerbaijan’s Muslim Population