On March 16, 1921, Kemalist Turkey signed a treaty of “friendship and brotherhood” with Bolshevik Russia, the so-called Moscow Treaty.
As a result of the Moscow Treaty, Armenian territories totaling approximately 30,000 square kilometers were transferred to Turkey. These territories were captured as a result of Turkey’s armed aggression against Armenia, which ended just three and a half months before the signing of the treaty.
The Moscow Treaty was intended to secure the conquered Armenian territories for Turkey, and the Bolsheviks recognized the results of Turkish aggression. The Moscow Treaty (Article III) decided the fate of Nakhichevan, which had no connection to either Bolshevik Russia or Turkey:
“Both contracting parties agree that the Nakhichevan region within the borders indicated in Appendix I (C) of this Treaty forms an autonomous territory under the protectorate of Azerbaijan, on condition that Azerbaijan does not yield this protectorate to a third state.”
The treaty was ratified by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) on July 20, 1921, and by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) on July 31, 1921. The exchange of ratification documents took place on September 22, 1921 in Kars.
The treaty became the second international legal act of the Kemalist government of Turkey, while an internationally recognized government in the occupied capital of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul, remained under the administration of Sultan Mehmed VI Vahdettin, on whose behalf the Treaty of Sèvres had been signed by the Ottoman Empire in August 1920. This treaty was rejected by the Kemalists and did not come into force.
According to the Moscow Treaty, the RSFSR recognized Turkey within the borders of the National Turkish Pact, adopted by the Ottoman parliament on January 28, 1920, i.e., in accordance with the terms of the Armistice of Mudros. The treaty drew an international legal conclusion to the conquest and division of the Republic of Armenia between the RSFSR, Azerbaijan SSR and Turkey.
Adopted without the participation of the Transcaucasian republics, the treaty established Turkey’s northeastern border with these countries, confirming Turkey’s territorial acquisitions according to the Treaty of Alexandropol, with the exception of the city of Alexandropol and the eastern part of the former Alexandropol district of the Erivan Governorate, which Turkey pledged to transfer to the Armenian SSR, the northern part of the Batumi region, which Turkey pledged to transfer to the Georgian SSR, and the territory of the former Nakhichevan and Sharur-Daralagez districts of the Erivan Governorate, which Turkey pledged to transfer under the protectorate of the Azerbaijan SSR.
According to the treaty, the southern part of the Batumi region (Artvin district), the former Kars region, the former Surmalu district and the western part of the former Alexandropol district of the Erivan Governorate remained within Turkey.
The signing of the identical Moscow Treaty of Kars between the Kemalists, on the one hand, and the Transcaucasian SSRs, which joined the TSFSR in 1922 and within it – the USSR, on the other, in October 1921, completed the legal formalization of interstate borders, which still exist today.
And if the term of the Moscow Treaty, according to some sources, was determined to be 25 years, then the Treaty of Kars had no expiration date. Armenia has not ratified the Treaty of Kars and to this day does not recognize the current borders between Turkey and Armenia.
In 1945, the USSR tried to revise the treaty, making territorial claims to Turkey, but was not supported by other great powers. In 1953, Vyacheslav Molotov, reappointed as the foreign minister of the USSR after the death of Joseph Stalin, stated that “the USSR has no territorial claims against Turkey.”
On March 16, 1921, the Kemalists and Bolsheviks cancelled all previous agreements and determined the borders of the Transcaucasian states in the treaty “of friendship and brotherhood” signed in Moscow. The complete illegality of this treaty is obvious.
Firstly, in 1921 Mustafa Kemal in no way represented the Turkish state, which was officially still under the power of the last Sultan Mohammed VI. Kemal would only be elected president in 1923.
Secondly, Moscow had no right (even under Soviet law) to determine the borders of republics, which it itself called “independent”.
Finally, on March 16, the communists were not in power in Armenia, where, as we saw, the Dashnak government existed for about forty days.
Neither the Bolsheviks nor the Kemalists were bothered by the legality of their actions. The “friendship and brotherhood” proclaimed by both sides received a very real embodiment and were sealed with generous gifts: Moscow provided Turkish comrades with gratuitous aid in the amount of 10 million gold rubles and a significant batch of weapons.
These gifts in the form of money and weapons, which began in the summer of 1920, will continue, constantly increasing, until 1922; during these same years, as is known, millions of Russian peasants were dying of famine. The Kemalists had their own way of showing “friendship and brotherhood” towards the Armenians.
Just when the treaty was being developed in Moscow, on March 6, Turkish troops invaded the Akhalkalaki region, where 40,000 people had already fallen victim to the Young Turks in 1918. In just 10 days, that is, before the signing of the Moscow Treaty, they killed more than 10,000 Armenians.
The last Prime Minister of the First Republic of Armenia, Simon Vratsian, wrote in his book “Armenia between the Bolshevik Hammer and the Turkish Anvil”: “The reasons for the fall of Armenia’s independence were not internal, but external.
The Republic of Armenia fell under the combined blows of the Turks and the Bolsheviks. And first of all, the Bolsheviks, because if it had not been for the support of Soviet Russia, Kemalist Turkey would not have dared to attack Armenia under those conditions”.
The Bolsheviks did everything in their power to ensure their security from the East and for this purpose sacrificed Armenia, which was of no value to the Kremlin rulers. “World Revolution” – a very convenient term for conquest and making friends who are needed just now, then the need for them fades.
The main thing for Moscow was to support Atatürk. And this was done: 5 million gold rubles and mountains of weapons were handed over to the “national liberation struggle of the Turkish people”.
It’s just interesting, against whom was this “national liberation struggle” conducted. You don’t have to delve too deeply into Eastern politics to understand that it was directed against the Christian population of the Ottoman Empire – Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians.
The massacre of 1922 in Izmir (Smyrna), the repeated expulsion of returning Armenians of Cilicia, was carried out with Russian money and Russian weapons. In 1919, tens of thousands of Armenians from Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine were returning to Cilicia, where French rule was being established on the basis of a mandate. For some time, it seemed that Cilicia might become a completely independent state from Turkey under the protectorate of France.
Many Armenians, of course, remembered the Franco-Armenian fraternity that arose specifically in Cilicia during the Crusades. Unfortunately, the experience of French rule in Cilicia under the mandate was short-lived and led to catastrophic consequences for the Armenian repatriates.
Let’s recall another fact. On October 30, 1918, aboard the English cruiser “Agamemnon” in the port of Mudros, the Mudros Armistice was signed. It provided for: the opening of the Black Sea straits for the military fleets of the Entente with the provision of the allies’ right to occupy the forts of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles; the surrender of the remnants of Turkish troops in Hijaz, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and their withdrawal from Iran, Cilicia, Transcaucasia; the occupation by the allies of 6 Armenian vilayets “in case of disorders in one of them” and generally any strategic point in Turkey, if the allies consider it necessary for their “security”.
Bolshevik Russia urgently needed a treaty with Turkey at any level to neutralize the Entente, and Mustafa Kemal lacked weapons and money. Which he got in Moscow.
by Karine Ter-Saakyan
Translated by Vigen Avetisyan
On this topic, see from 1:06:40 minutes.
Please note, if you find that the video is missing for some reason, this happens when the neighboring formation with Armenia is indoctrinated, just type the title of the video into the YouTube search, the video will definitely be somewhere else.
THE TRAVELER ACROSS MILLENNIA – YEREVAN
