The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (ArSSR), also known as the Armenian SSR, Soviet Armenia, or simply Armenia, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union, located in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Soviet Armenia bordered the Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia and the independent states of Iran and Turkey. The capital of the republic was Yerevan, and it contained 37 districts (raions). Other major cities in the Armenian SSR included Leninakan, Kirovakan, Hrazdan, Ejmiatsin, and Kapan. The republic was governed by Communist Party of Armenia, a branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Soviet Armenia was established on 29 November 1920, with the Sovietisation of the short-lived First Republic of Armenia. Consequently, historians refer to it as the Second Republic of Armenia. It became part of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (TSFSR) along with neighboring Georgia and Azerbaijan, which comprised one of the four founding republics of the Soviet Union. When the TSFSR was dissolved in 1936, Armenia became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union.
As part of the Soviet Union, Armenia experienced stabilization and security from hostile neighbors as well as notable economic, cultural, and educational advancements. During its 71-year history, the republic was transformed from a largely agricultural hinterland to an important industrial production center, while its population almost quadrupled from around 880,000 in 1926 to 3.3 million in 1989 due to natural growth and large-scale influx of Armenian genocide survivors and their descendants.
Soviet Armenia flourished during Vladimir Lenin's New Economic Policy, but suffered during the Great Purge of Joseph Stalin. The republic contributed significantly to the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War and experienced a period of liberalization under Nikita Khrushchev's Thaw. Following the Brezhnev era, Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms of glasnost and perestroika saw the rise of the Karabakh movement in 1988. Local authorities declared state sovereignty on 23 August 1990 and boycotted the March 1991 referendum on the New Union Treaty. An independence referendum held on 21 September 1991 was supported by more than 99% of voters. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991, the Armenian SSR ceased to exist, and Armenia became an independent state.
Formal name
Following the Sovietization of Armenia, the republic became officially known as the Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia. After the dissolution of the TSFSR in 1936, the name was changed to the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was used until 1991.
In Armenian, the official name had been variously changed since the creation of the ArSSR. It was initially "Hayastani Socʼialistakan Xorhrdayin Hanrapetutʼyun" (, Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia). The second name, in accordance to the then latest Soviet Constitution, was adopted on 5 December 1936 as Haykakan Xorhrdayin Socʻialistakan Hanrapetutʻyun (, Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic), with the term haykakan (հայկական, "Armenian") replacing Hayastani (Հայաստան, "Armenia"), and transposing the second (սոցիալիստական, socialist) and third (Խորհրդային, soviet) words. It was ratified by the ninth All-Armenian Extraordinary Congress of Soviets on 23 March 1937.
Thereafter, direct borrowings of soviet (սովետական, sovetakan) and republic (ռեսպուբլիկա, ṙespublika) were included in the formal name on 22 August 1940, in accordance with a regulation approved by the People's Commissariat of Enlightenment of the Armenian SSR. In 1966, the original term for republic was restored.
On 25 June 1989, the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR passed the bill that constitutionally restored the 1936 name, as well as in other legislative acts. After declaring the sovereign polity, the Supreme Council adopted the Declaration of Independence in which the formal name was declared Hayastani Hanrapetut'yun (, Republic of Armenia) on 23 August 1990.
History
Background Prior to the Soviet era, Eastern Armenia had been part of the Russian Empire since the 1813 Treaty of Gulistan and 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay. Marxism did not emerge among Armenian intellectuals until the end of the 19th century and eventually developed into the Union of Armenian Social Democrats, co-founded by Stepan Shaumian in Tiflis in 1902. However, it remained a minority movement until 1917.
After the October Revolution, the Bolshevik government led by Vladimir Lenin announced that non-Russian nationalities could pursue a course of self-determination, and in April 1918, the major national groups of Russian Transcaucasia declared independence as the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. By May 1918, this entity split into three independent states: the Democratic Republic of Georgia, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and the First Republic of Armenia. The latter was governed by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, Dashnaksutiun) and suffered from major socioeconomic difficulties, including a large population of refugees from the Armenian genocide.
Sovietization
By April 1920, the Red Army had gained the upper-hand in the Russian Civil War and overthrew the Azerbaijan Republic, thus establishing Soviet Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan's Sovietization had a "strong ripple effect in Transcaucasia and emboldened the Bolsheviks of Armenia to unfurl the flag of revolt." Although a minority, the Armenian Bolsheviks were vocal and persuasively appealed to the severe socioeconomic situation in the country. In May 1920, they led an uprising at Alexandropol, then the largest city in Eastern Armenia, demanding the establishment of a Soviet republic. The revolt was violently suppressed by the Armenian government, with its leaders executed or exiled.
By September 1920, Turkish forces had invaded Armenia and soon recaptured most of the historical Armenian territories that the Ottomans controlled before 1878. Concerned by the rapid advance of the Turkish nationalists, the Bolshevik government in Moscow approached Yerevan and offered to intervene on its behalf. However, "the Turks rejected any Russian interference." By the end of November, the 11th Red Army had entered the Armenian republic and announced that "Armenia's salvation lay in becoming a Bolshevik state" and "cutting its ties to the West." Faced with a dire situation, the Yerevan government instructed Alexander Khatisian to open talks with the Turks at Alexandropol and to appoint a team headed by General Drastamat Kanayan to transfer political power to the Bolsheviks.
On 2 December, Yerevan signed a short-lived pact with Moscow, securing Armenian statehood as a Soviet republic. The Bolsheviks promised to "restore Armenia's pre-September 1920 borders" and to grant amnesty to Dashnak and non-Dashnak officials. A few days later, however, the Armenian Bolshevik Revkom, led by Sarkis Kasyan and Avis Nurijanyan, arrived in Yerevan with the Red Army. Violating the agreement, they arrested several Dashnak leaders and "wreaked havoc for the next two months."
The war communism policies of the Armenian Revkom were implemented in a high-handed manner and failed to take into account the poor conditions of the republic and the general exhaustion of the population after years of conflict and civil strife. As the Soviet Armenian historian Bagrat Borian wrote in 1929, the Revkom engaged in "a series of indiscriminate seizures and confiscations, without regard to class, and without taking into account the general economic and psychological state of the peasantry." Such was the degree of the requisitioning and terror imposed by the local Cheka that in February 1921 the Armenians, led by the former leaders of the First Republic, rose up in revolt and briefly unseated the new Soviet government in Yerevan. The Red Army, which was campaigning in Georgia at the time, had to return to suppress the revolt.
New Economic Policy
Convinced that the heavy-handed tactics of the Revkom were the source of popular discontent in Armenia, in 1921, Lenin appointed Alexander Miasnikian, an experienced administrator, to carry out a more moderate policy and one better attuned to Armenian national sensibilities. With the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP), Armenians began to enjoy a period of relative stability in contrast to the turbulent years of the First Republic. Alexander Tamanian began to realize his city plan for Yerevan, and the population received medicine, food, as well as other provisions from Moscow. Garegin Nzhdeh's anti-Soviet rebellion, centered on mountainous Zangezur, was defeated and its leaders were driven out of Armenia, across the Araks River into Iran on 15 July 1921.
From March 1922 to December 1936, Soviet Armenia formed part of the Transcaucasian SFSR (TSFSR), together with Soviet Georgia and Soviet Azerbaijan. In 1921, one year before the founding of the TSFSR, Moscow had finalized negotiations with Turkey over the borders of Transcaucasia. In the Treaty of Moscow and the Treaty of Kars, Turkey renounced its claims on Batumi to Georgia in exchange for the Armenian regions of Kars, Ardahan, and Surmalu, all of which had been under Turkish military control since the Turkish invasion of Armenia in 1920. The treaties also granted the district of Nakhichevan to Soviet Azerbaijan as an autonomous republic.
The territory ceded to Turkey included the medieval Armenian capital Ani and Mount Ararat, the national symbol of the Armenian people. During the Kars negotiations, the Soviet side "attempted to retain at least Ani and a concession on the salt-mining town of Koghb, in Surmalu, for Soviet Armenia." However, Turkey rejected any border changes, "much to the disappointment of the Soviet side." Earlier, during the talks at Alexandropol, Alexander Khatisian also tried to convince the Turkish Nationalists to leave Ani and Surmalu within Armenia, but in vain.
Additionally, despite opposition from Miasnikian, the Soviet Kavbiuro granted majority-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh to Soviet Azerbaijan in July 1921, as the Bolsheviks did not have direct control over the region at the time and were primarily concerned with restoring regional stability. In his speech at the First Congress of the Armenian Communist Party in January 1922, Miasnikian further divulged that "Baku had threatened to halt kerosene supplies to Armenia if Yerevan did not relinquish its claims to Mountainous Karabakh."
Prior to his debilitating illness, Lenin encouraged the policy of korenizatsiya or "nativization" in the republics which essentially called for the different nationalities of the Soviet Union to "administer their republics", establishing native-language schools, newspapers, and theaters. In Armenia, the Soviet government directed all illiterate citizens up to the age of 50 to attend school and learn to read Armenian, which became the official language of the republic. The local government also implemented an orthography reform to facilitate the growth of literacy. Throughout the Soviet era, the number of Armenian-language newspapers (Sovetakan Hayastan), magazines (Garun), and journals (Sovetakan Grakanutyun, Patma-Banasirakan Handes) grew significantly. A Kurdish newspaper, Ria Taza (The New Path), was established in Armenia in 1930.