Atatürk Devri Türk Dış Politikası 1920-1938: Kafkasya, Balkanlar, Ortadoğu Siyasi, Sosyal, Kültürel, Ekonomik İlişkiler Perspektifinden
Political, Social and Diplomatic Relations Between Republic of Turkey and Azerbaijan and Soviet Russia
Cemil HasanlıAfter the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917, a Soviet state was established on the site of the former Empire. What was the attitude of the new Soviet state to the neighboring countries? While addressing the 8th Congress of the All-Russian Soviets, Lenin called the Kemalists “Turkish Octobrists.” Moscow waffled: who was to be chosen - Mustafa Kemal, Enver, or “leftist” Enverists (Russian State Archive of Social-Political History (hereafter referred to as RSASPH), May 23, 1923, p. 6, fund (f.) 82, record (r.) 2, vol. 262: Mirsaid Sultan-Galiyev, “Who Am I?: Autobiographical Notes,” letter to members of the CC RCP (B)) Nevertheless, treaties concluded by Soviet Russia in 1921 with Iran and Turkey put an end to the revolutionary intent not only of Moscow but of the newly established Soviet republics of the South Caucasus in their relations with neighboring eastern countries. At a conference in Kars in September–October 1921, representatives of the South Caucasus republics signed the first international document ever. Baku, Tiflis, and Erivan signed a treaty with Turkey, which had a positive effect on their international authority. By signing the Kars Treaty, the Armenian republics had thus recognized the Moscow Treaty concluded between Soviet Russia and Turkey. Inclusion of a special item about Nakhchivan remaining a protectorate of Azerbaijan in the Moscow and Kars Treaties proved to be an important result of the geopolitical reality in the South Caucasus. The established relations between Soviet Russia and Kemalist Turkey in the early 1920s on the basis of the Moscow and Kars treaties continued until the end of the Second World War.