25 years ago in Azerbaijan, two seemingly opposing referendums were held: the first in March 1991 on preserving the Union, the second in December of that same year, on the country’s independence.
Both polls received almost identical positive results with large turnout rates.
Could the public opinion of the country’s population have changed so dramatically in such a relatively short period of time?
A quarter century ago, in 1991, the former superpower of the USSR collapsed.
“The greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,”
according to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assessment of this event.
Already after the dissolution of the Union,
Grigory Yavlinsky
, leader of the Yabloko party and author of a program titled ‘500 days’ for reforming the economy of the USSR, wrote that,
“From a political point of view, the chance to build a renewed Union slipped away in 1989-1990. This took place because the country’s leadership lacked a strategic vision of the situation, and because of a systematic delay in decision-making”.
However, despite the fact that the disintegration process in the USSR had reached a critical point by the beginning of the ‘90s, the collapse of the Soviet Union was unexpected for all – both for its republics, which almost across the board had adopted the Declaration of National Sovereignty, as well as for the superpower’s main rival, the USA.
But attempts were made to preserve the Union until the very end. It was with this goal that, on March 17, 1991, there took place the first and only referendum in the USSR in the 70-year period of its existence.
Of the three Transcaucasian republics at that time, only the government of the Azerbaijan SSR decided to hold this referendum. Its closest neighbors, Georgia and Armenia, did not hold the referendum. The referendum on preservation of the Union was also boycotted in Moldova, and in the Baltic republics, which had previously already announced their independence.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was unexpected for all
One, single question was placed in the referendum: “
Do you consider it imperative that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics be preserved as a renewed federation of equal, sovereign republics, in which the rights and freedoms of an individual of any nationality will be fully guaranteed?”
In Baku, in the newly-elected Supreme Soviet, there were fairly large arguments over holding this referendum. Then-president Ayaz Mutallibov, Speaker of the Supreme Soviet Elmira Gafarova, and the pro-government, parliamentary nomenklatura insisted that the referendum be held in the republic, at that time that this was categorically opposed by the opposition, in the form of the People’s Front of Azerbaijan (PFA) and Heydar Aliyev – the former leader of the republic, former member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and general of the KGB all rolled into one – who by that time had returned to the country and was a member of the parliament.
Of the three Transcaucasian republics at that time, only the government of the Azerbaijan SSR decided to hold this referendum
This is how that time is remembered by Isa Qambar, member of the PFA leadership, then a deputy of the Supreme Soviet and future speaker of the Azerbaijani parliament, who is currently chairman of the Center for National-Strategic Research:
“The discussions in the parliament regarding the referendum dragged on bitterly for a fairly long while. We, the deputies from the
Democratic Bloc
, did everything possible to not permit the decision to hold a referendum.
As a final argument, ten of our deputies, including the current chairman of the Müsavat party, Arif Hajili, declared a hunger strike. But, the communist leadership of Azerbaijan, with the support of Russian bayonets, made a decision on the referendum. The deputies who had begun the hunger strike were, after a few hours, forcefully removed from the parliamentary hall at gunpoint.”
Some experts, when comparing the events of that period in the various republics of the USSR, forget that both the referendum on preserving the Union in March 1991, and the parliamentary elections of 1990 took place in conditions of military dictatorship.
The discussions in the parliament regarding the referendum dragged on bitterly for a fairly long while.
In the end of 1989, Azerbaijan burst forward in the struggle for independence, but after January 20, 1990, when Moscow sent troops to Baku, gunning down hundreds of peaceful citizens, we were cast far back from this goal. A state of emergency and curfew were introduced, and stayed in effect all the way
until the attempted coup by the State Committee on the State of Emergency (‘Gang of Eight’)
.
In this period, Moscow’s
stooge
Mutallibov tried in every way possible to draw closer to Gorbachev, to win his trust, receive some sort of personal, preferential treatment and, perhaps, something to resolve Azerbaijan’s problem. Because of this, the Azerbaijani government very willingly participated in all of Moscow’s initiatives.”
However, in addition to Mutallibov another, secretive figure played an incredibly important role during that period – the Kremlin’s man in Azerbaijan, people’s deputy of the USSR, second secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, head of the organizing committee on Nagorno-Karabakh,
Viktor Polyanichko
.
In his recollections, Isa Qambar referred to Polyanichko and Arkady Volsky as “strong personalities, serious figures in the Soviet nomenklatura, who implemented Moscow’s will in Azerbaijan, against Azerbaijan’s interests.”
Qambar also believes that “they set up the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.”
In his much-discussed book
Black Garden
,
Tom de Waal
, British journalist and specialist on the Caucasus, specifically mentions Polyanichko in connection with the referendum:
“When Volsky’s team left Nagorny Karabakh, Polyanichko now took personal charge of the new Organizing Committee set up to run the province. A realignment was taking place in Soviet politics, which suited Polyanichko perfectly.
“In Moscow, Azerbaijan’s continuing loyalty was deemed essential to the survival of the union, and he played the role of Moscow’s de facto viceroy in the troubled outpost. He formed a strong relationship with the leaders of the security establishment – men like Dmitry Yazov, the defense minister, and Vladimir Kryuchkov, the head of the KGB – and apparently also won the trust of Mikhail Gorbachev.
[…]
“On 17 March 1991, the Soviet leadership held a nationwide referendum on the future of the USSR. Azerbaijan took part and dutifully delivered a yes vote for preserving the Soviet Union in a new Union Treaty.”
According to official data, 2,903,797 citizens of the republic took part in that referendum, 93.3% voted for, 5.83% voted against.
Azerbaijan took part and dutifully delivered a yes vote for preserving the Soviet Union.
There then took place a chain of events. In April operation
Koltso
(Ring), in August the Gang of Eight’s attempted coup. In September, the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan – Boris Yeltsin and Nursultan Nazarbayev – came to Azerbaijan on a peace-building mission. Negotiations took place, first in Stepanakert, then in Zheleznovodsk. And already in the beginning of October, a full-fledged war began between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“In Autumn of 1991, in the village of Tuğ, members of Azerbaijani and Armenian families were killed. Polyanichko told Azerbaijanis that such things can no longer be tolerated, and told the Armenians that they needed to take up arms. True, he didn’t know that I heard these words.” This is how the co-chair of the Social Democratic Party of Azerbaijan,
Araz Alizade
, recalls those times.
Then, on October 18, 1991, at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan Republic, the “
Constitutional Act on the State Independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan
” was adopted.
However, for legitimacy this Constitutional Act had to be sealed by an expression of the people’s will.
In this way, the decision was made to hold a new referendum. This time, the question was formulated as follows:
“Do you support the adoption by the Supreme Council of the Constiutional Act on the State Independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan?”
The referendum of December 29 was the second nationwide public vote in the history of Azerbaijan. According to official information of the Central Executive Committee, this time 3,751,174 voters took part in the referendum, or 95.27% of the citizens who were included on the voter rolls. 99.58% voted for, and 0.2% against.
The historian Altay Qeyushev believes that
“if we compare these two referendums, the essence of the comparison is in the fact that in practical terms the country’s population did not take part in the first one. And the results of this referendum did not in any way embody the real intentions and desires of the Azerbaijani people.
“The referendum on preservation of the Union was falsified, the population didn’t want to participate in this poll, as was the case in neighboring Georgia and Armenia. Even then, after January 1990, the country’s population had an anti-Soviet disposition, that is, it didn’t want to remain a part of the Soviet Union.
The Constitutional Act
had to be sealed by an expression of the people’s will
.
“Whereas the referendum on the country’s independence – this was truly an expression of the will of the country’s population. The Azerbaijani people wanted independence even earlier. About a year, year-and-a-half earlier, the opinion that we should decide our own fate, independently of the Soviet Union or Russia, dominated the social conscious.”
According to the political expert
Zardushta Alizade
, the situation is quite the opposite:
“These referendums were held by Mutallibov and his team with the goal of
adapting their power in the face of developments
. The plebs couldn’t have cared less for independence and for democracy, for motherland and for the squabbles over power between the various clans coughed up by our deceased khanates.
“I am excluding a small (up to ten thousand in all of Azerbaijan) group of provincial folk who, not understanding the essence of the events, played the role of an instrument in this struggle between mafia clans for power.
“Not once (!) in all the history of Azerbaijan, whether on the country-wide scale or on the scale of an organization, have there been, nor can there be, honest elections and referendums. This is why in the March referendum a maximum of 10-15% of voters came to the ballot box, and in the December referendum roughly the same percent of the population was herded to the polls.
“I remember that H
aji Jabrail
from Nardaran
swore before God
that no more than five percent of voters in the village came to vote on the March referendum. The December referendum in no way differed from the March one. That is, the degree of nationwide indifference, then as now, was invariably high.”
But it’s hardly worth thinking that this story ended there.
As a result of the Karabakh war (1991-1994), which began in October of that same year, almost 20% of the country’s territory was occupied, and power in Azerbaijan was seized by the Aliyev clan. In 2003, Ilham Aliyev, the current president of Azerbaijan, received power from his father, the dictator Heydar Aliyev, who constructed a society of feudal estates in Azerbaijan. This was the first and only turnover of power by inheritance in the entire post-Soviet space.
Ten years later, in 2013, he managed to run for president a third time, this thanks to yet another referendum, which was successfully held by the government in 2009. And in September of this year, the most recent referendum was held to legitimize the Aliyev monarchy in Azerbaijan – 91.2% voted to extend the length of a presidential term to seven years.
In this way, the glorious tradition of referendums that shoot past the ninety-percent mark, which was established already a quarter century ago, continues to this day, legitimizing the government’s method of governance, and the catastrophic state of affairs that has taken shape in present-day Azerbaijan.
