28 April, 1920. The downfall of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic

After Febrary 1917 the fall of the tsarist monarchy in Russia created favorable conditions for the development of national movements in its border lands. May 28, 1918 Azerbaijan rehabilitated its state structure - the Independent Azerbaijan Republic was established. Power in Baku was now in the hands of new Azeri government, dominated by the Musavat (Equality) party, which set up a government.

Under Bolshevik leadership the new wave of strikes became increasingly organized. More and more calls were heard at workers' meetings that Azerbaijan join Soviet Russia. An underground shipping-line functioned between Baku and Astrakhan that supplied Russia with oil and Baku Bolshevik revolutionary movement with money and arms...

In February 1920, at a congress held illegally in Baku, the separate Bolshevik groups in the city were united into the Communist Party of Azerbaijan. The lst Congress of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan began preparing for an armed uprising with the aim of overthrowing the Mussavat government.

Baku Bolsheviks appealed to the Soviet government for urgent help. Russian Bolshevik leaders justified the invasion because of the importance of the Baku region's oil to the Bolsheviks, who were still embroiled in a civil war. The Red Army met little resistance from Azeri forces because the Azeris were heavily involved in suppressing separatism among the Armenians that formed a majority in the Nagorno-Karabakh area of southcentral Azerbaijan.
On April 28, 1920 the first armed train of the 11th Red Army entered Baku. First Demacratic Azerbaijan Republic fell, thus Soviet power was established in Azerbaijan.

Following the establishment of Soviet power in neighbouring Georgia and Armenia, a treaty was concluded in March 1922, setting up a Federative Union of Socialist Trans-Caucasian Republics, which was soon transformed into a united Trans-Caucasian Soviet Federative Republic.

I december of the same year the Trans-Caucasian Soviet Federative Republic together with the Ukraine, Byelorussia and the Russian Federation united to form the Soviet Union (USSR)

The soviet invasion began a seventy-one-year period under total political and economic control of the state that became the Soviet Union in 1922. The borders and formal status of Azerbaijan underwent a period of change and uncertainty in the 1920s and 1930s, and then they remained stable through the end of the Soviet period in 1991.

For related links see:

• Office of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan
  • http://president.gov.az/azerbaijan/az6.htm
  • http://www.president.az/azerbaijan/az6.htm
• Azerbaijan Internet Links (Society and Culture - History) - http://resources.net.az/7.htm#History
• Library of Congress / Country Studies / Azerbaijan- http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/aztoc.html
• Virtual Azerbaijan (Adil Bagirov) Chronology of Azerbaijan History and neighboring regions.
  
  • http://www.zerbaijan.com/azeri/history1.htm
• EMBASSY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN – WASHINGTON, D.C.
  • http://azembassy.com/azerbaijan/hist.html
  • http://azembassy.com/azerbaijan/backgr.htm