History repeats itself, but Black January won't happen again

There is mourning in Azerbaijan today. The 36th anniversary of Black January.

On the night of January 20, 1990, an entire army of 26,000 personnel and hundreds of armored vehicles was simultaneously deployed in Baku, Sumgayit and a number of other cities of the republic. The operation to stifle the national liberation movement and protests against Armenian separatism was called "Strike". In one night, Azerbaijan, being still a Soviet republic, was literally occupied by the Soviet army. As a result, 147 civilians were killed and 744 were seriously injured. Baku residents of various nationalities were among the martyrs. It was an unprecedented massacre of civilians in peacetime. People were shot in the streets and houses, stabbed with bayonets, crushed by tanks.

The military invasion of the Soviet republic took place on the basis of a decree declaring a state of emergency in Baku on January 20, signed personally by Mikhail Gorbachev. The decree contradicted the provisions of both the Union and republican constitutions.

A year before Black January, there was already a crackdown on a rally in Tbilisi, when military force was used against participants of a rally for the independence of Georgia on the night of April 9, 1989. The Soviet troops used force, including sapper shovels, poison gas and armored personnel carriers. As a result of the tragedy, 21 people (mostly women) were killed and hundreds were injured. This event went down in history as "Bloody Sunday". A year after the occupation of Baku by the Soviet army, in January 1991, a violent crackdown on a rally of supporters of Lithuanian independence took place in Vilnius. Soviet paratroopers, with the support of the Alpha special group, stormed the TV tower and the television center, which led to the deaths of 14 people and injuries to about 600. This event was called the "January events" or the "Storming of the TV Tower."

The regime also committed a number of crimes against citizens of the Soviet country, but none of the tragedies were comparable in scale to what happened in Azerbaijan. This was the first time in the USSR when the Soviet army occupied a Soviet city and so brutally massacred the civilian population that even Human Rights Watch in its report "Black January in Azerbaijan" could not help but say that "the violence used by the Soviet army on the night of January 19th to 20th was so disproportionate." the resistance of the Azerbaijanis, which represented the implementation of collective punishment."

It really was a punishment. The Azerbaijani people were punished for having dared to speak about independence, decided to protest against the Armenian claims to their lands and raised their voice against ethnic cleansing in Armenia, which the authorities could no longer hide. The Azerbaijani authorities of that time behaved amorphously and cowardly, being completely incapacitated. Meanwhile, national leader Heydar Aliyev held a press conference at the Azerbaijani Permanent Mission in Moscow immediately after the events, at which he sharply condemned the atrocities committed, calling the actions of the Soviet troops terrorist, illegal and far from humanitarianism. The events of January 20 received a political and legal assessment only after Heydar Aliyev returned to power - in March 1994, the Milli Majlis adopted a resolution "On the tragic events committed in Baku on January 20, 1990."

It is noteworthy that in the same year 1990, on October 15, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his "contribution to reducing international tension and leading role in the peace process." These formulations sounded like a mockery of the grief and blood of the Azerbaijani people.

On January 20, 1990, the USSR lost Azerbaijan. Irrevocably. A lot of things happened during the years of Soviet rule, including good ones. But it was remembered by the Azerbaijani people only as the date when Soviet tanks crushed the remnants of faith in a huge country.

The saddest thing is that the events of Black January have not taught the centers of power anything. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia became the legal successor of the former principles, which immediately began to try to pursue the old policy in the new conditions. This resulted in instability throughout the entire perimeter of the post-Soviet space, which lasted for many years. And the source of the destabilization was the imperial policy, which remained relevant even after the collapse of the empire. The former Soviet republics, in the end, were able to get back on their feet, strengthen themselves, prove their right to sovereignty and take their place in the international arena. But each has a story related to Moscow's attempts to undermine their independence and bend them to its will.

Unfortunately, decades after the collapse of the USSR, the aftershocks of that policy do not stop. The Kremlin will not want to admit this, but it was precisely such actions that alienated the post-Soviet countries from Russia from the very beginning. The centrifugal processes did not begin yesterday, but back in the early 90s, when it seemed to the new, supposedly democratic authorities in the Russian Federation that the Union had collapsed only de jure, but not de facto. Democracy is democracy, and everything that belongs to you remains ours.

The most amazing thing is that even after the numerous failures of imperial policy, there are forces in Russia that want to "continue the banquet."

There are still echoes of the scandal recently caused by Vladimir Solovyov, who announced the possibility of holding "SVO" in the countries of Central Asia and Armenia. The resonance of that broadcast was very serious, right down to the diplomatic notes. The official authorities called Solovyov's statements his personal opinion, but there was no condemnation of the provocateur. If it were not for the resonance of his statements in the countries allied with Russia, the propagandist, who lives by the principle "so that I have everything and I would have nothing for it," would not have felt the consequences at all, but because of the noise he was removed from the air for a while - so as not to annoy Russia's neighbors. However, this measure greatly worried the huge mass of Solovyov's fans, who did not see anything special in his provocation. Solovyov has a huge audience, swallowing his every word. And therein lies the biggest problem.

Now, I think, the Russian Foreign Ministry should prepare for a new scandal. This time, the notorious Alexander Dugin went on the air, and not with assumptions, but directly literally demanded that Moscow begin to take measures against post-Soviet countries. In his opinion, in today's conditions, independent states on the periphery of Russia pose a strategic threat. Because if they are not under Moscow's full control, they will inevitably turn into "outposts" of the West or China. "One cannot accept the existence of a sovereign Armenia, or a sovereign Georgia, or a sovereign Azerbaijan, sovereign Kazakhstan, sovereign Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan," the propagandist said.

In fact, the propagandist called for the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, including Azerbaijan, to be deprived of sovereignty. Dugin called for "abandoning international law... engage in an active confrontation... Start acting like Trump... because we have no way out." And national states, in his opinion, are "garbage of the past."

The bloodshed in Baku on January 20, 1990 was organized based on the same philosophy. Therefore, for Azerbaijan, such statements do not sound like the meaningless private opinion of some talker. Before what happened on the night of January 20, no one in Azerbaijan could have imagined that the Soviet army would crush civilians with tanks. Those who led the people to protest that night thought that the tanks would stop in front of unarmed people. But the tanks did not stop. No one could have imagined that Soviet soldiers would shoot at apartment buildings, hospitals and hotels, and people died from bullets when they came to the windows to find out what the noise was on the street.

The events of January 20, 1990, taught us that the formula "this can't be happening" doesn't work. That's why there's so much attention to the chatter of Russian propagandists.

But this does not mean that Russia's neighbors are in fear. In fact, no one seriously expects military aggression from Russia. Not because it can never happen, but for a number of reasons. Firstly, because the experience with Ukraine, I think, has taught Moscow a lot, although it does not admit it. Secondly, because she will not break off relations with these neighbors in the difficult situation she finds herself in. The South Caucasus and Central Asia are its way out into the world in the face of sanctions. Thirdly, aggression against Central Asia will seriously affect China's interests, and it will not end well. And fourthly, today's talks about joint security protection in the Turkic space, which, due to geography, also includes non-Turkic countries in the region, are not just words. Russia will not get involved with the Turkic world. I don't think she really has any such plans at all. In addition, the military campaign in Asia will inevitably destabilize the national issue in the Russian Federation itself. Asia is not Europe. The East is a delicate matter.

But even if the collective Dugins and the collective Solovyovs at some point find the right number of sympathizers at the right time and in the right place, we hasten to warn that Baku will no longer allow other people's tanks to iron the streets of Azerbaijani cities. Never.