Guba, April-May 1918. Documented Pogroms of the Muslims
74
rently going on, so we should stand for our nation”, or “I personally
have never seen him, however as I was told, Alibey was gathering a
squad, agitating people in rural areas and telling them that the Bol-
sheviks in junction with the Armenians are planning to exterminate
the Muslims…”. (196)
According to the witness testimonies, the squad Alibey ma-
naged to gather varied from 1,5 to 4-5 or up to 7-10 thousand figh-
ters. The witnesses confirmed the fact that Zizikski’s units “launched
an offensive” on Baku after he received the telegram with a view
to rescuing the city’s Muslim population from the Bolsheviks. They
reached all the way to Baku’s suburb of Khyrdalan, however they were
defeated and returned to Guba where they kept on their armed resis-
tance to the Bolshevik troops.
One of the witnesses stated that when the Bolsheviks had taken
Guba for the third time, he was one of the four envoys they sent to meet
Alibey Zizikski with the offer to give up arms and start cooperating with
the Bolsheviks holding a high-ranking position. He refused. This evidence
was upheld by another witness stating the following: “The Bolsheviks
asked to dismiss the gang as they were not here to wage the war against
the civilians, so they asked Alibey to arrive in Guba to take a service with
them. In response to this Alibey said that he would never comply with
the Bolshevik brigands and promised to clear both Guba and Khachmaz
from them”. (197) It should be hereby noted that the conversation took
place after the withdrawal of Amazasp’s units from Guba and the arrival
of a the Bolshevik squad led by Levon Gogoberidze.
No doubt, these testimonies provided sufficient grounds to
charge Alibey Zizikski with the fight against Bolsheviks, which was
in fact true. Meanwhile, as one may conclude from the files, what
the investigator was also striving to get was some evidence or facts
about the local Armenian population. If not the massacre per se, at
least involvement of Zizikski’s squad, if not him personally, in “plun-
dering” the Armenian population was exactly what he wanted to get.
However, responses gave little comfort: “No specific facts that I’m
aware of”. Most of the persons interrogated explained this by either
their being absent in town at that moment or trying to stay at home.
One of the explanations reads:”I’m an illiterate man, so I’ve forgotten
everything”. (198)
Even “the witness” recommended by the AzGPU failed to pro-