The Brutal Chekist Repression in Armenia After the Assassination of Djemal Pasha

Djemal Pasha is one of the main organizers of the Armenian Genocide and the massacres of Arabs in Beirut and Damascus. The nickname “al-Saffah”, which means “butcher”, was given to him by the Arabs after his bloody deeds.

At Tiflis station on the evening of July 25, 1922, three richly dressed men of the eastern type got off the Moscow – Tiflis train. The weather was stuffy. The guests of the city got on a phaeton and went to a restaurant.

After dinner at about 11 o’clock in the evening, they left the restaurant. Turning right towards the street of Peter the Great, they stopped at the door of the Central Committee.

Out of nowhere, Dashnaks Petros Ter-Poghosyan and Artashes Gevorgyan (the son of a baker, a member of Andranik Ozanyan’s unit along with his brother) appeared. Gunshots rang out.

From a shot to the head, Sursen-Bey fell first. At the same moment, Musfet-Bey fell under the feet of Djemal Pasha. Djemal himself was left for last … “The Butcher” turned around, and his eye immediately met the barrel of a Mauser pistol…

Shortly after celebrating his 50th birthday in Moscow with important people from the Central Committee and the Cheka, Djemal was buried in Tiflis. Later, his body would be transported to Erzurum.

Zareh Melik-Shahnazaryan and Stepan Tsagikyan also participated in the organization of his assassination.

On August 1, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia, after receiving the report of the chief Chekist of Armenia Shavarsh Amirkhanyan in connection with the murder of Djemal, decided: “Allow the Cheka to make selective arrests among Dashnaks.”

The fact that the assassination was the work of the members of the Dashnaktsutyun party was not doubted by the Bolsheviks. The zealous KGB officers would arrest 300 people, but they would never manage to get on the trail of the executors of Djemal’s death sentence.

During the arrests, several hundred Dashnaks and innocent people were shot, including writers, cultural figures, participants of the Battle of Sardarapat, and many others. All this by the hands of the “Armenians” themselves. Namely, one of the organizers of these repressions was Anastas Mikoyan.