Armenia Between Turkey and Bolshevik Russia

The collapse of the First Republic of Armenia was caused not by the internal rather difficult situation but by external factors.

Armenia found itself under joint Kemalist-Bolshevik (Russian-Turkish) attacks. Bolshevik attacks were more critical because if there had been no support for Turkey from Soviet Russia, the Turks who were not in the best position would never have dared to attack Armenia.

The Bolsheviks did everything to insure themselves against the East, and for this reason, they sacrificed Armenia, a meaningless country for Kremlin leaders.

The term “World Revolution” at that time was quite an important tool for finding new allies. For Moscow, it was very important to support Ataturk, which would eventually be done. For the “national liberation movement of the Turkish people,” the Bolsheviks provided 5 million rubles in gold and weapons to the Turks.

David Fidanyan