Part four: The ARF connections and relations with the Russian revolutionary parties during the First Russian Revolution (1905-1907)
Gevorg S. Khoudinyan
Already in 1904 during the last two months, all the main centers of the Russian Empire were in revolutionary upheaval. Apart from the two capitals, they included Poland, Finland and even the oil region of Baku; where the socialist-revolutionaries and social-democrats of Russia encouraged and with their leaflets called to fighting the multi-national workers who had risen up since December 13. “The Central Committee of the Self-Defense” of the ARF did not stay behind them: the leaflet published by them on December 19 with the abundance of its economic and social demands and consisting of 28 points at once was the most lavish one.
The revolution was ripening in the country, for which the opposition and revolutionary parties of Russia were getting prepared that held their conference held in Paris from September 30 to October 9, in 1904. To invite the latter to a new conference was initiated by the famous priest Gapon (Gevorg Gapon), who brought the people to the streets on January 9, 1905, in the capital Saint Petersburg. In March of 1905, the International Socialist Bureau sent the invitation drawn up by Georgy Gapon to the socialist parties of Russia. On the basis of that, on April 2, 1905, the conference of the revolutionary parties of Russia began their work in Geneva, the participants of which almost entirely had socialist orientation.
Although shortly after the Geneva Conference, double agent E. Azef who submitted a report to the Police Department had distorted the names of the ARF representatives who had participated in the Conference by making Rostom to “Rusten”, Honan Davtyan to “Oman”, and he only kept the code name of Martiros Margaryan – “Safo”, a member of the List body preparing the terror of Sultan
Hamid, but we were able not only to restore them, but also the names of the representatives of the other revolutionary parties.
The Geneva conference proposed the political goal of organizing a “general armed uprising” that would put the fate of the country in the hands of the people, in order to reorganize the empire on democratic-republican principles through the
convening of a Constituent Assembly. The first and the most important task was the convening of the Petersburg or the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, but in parallel to that, the convening of the Finnish Constituent Assembly and the “Polish Constituent Sejm” was being planned. As for the demand to convene the
Constituent Assembly of the Caucasus, it was clearly emphasized that it was about an autonomous region with federal ties to Russia.
In Geneva they also began to form appropriate structures coordinating the efforts of the parties participating in the conference. Moreover, one of them was supposed to work abroad and engage in campaigning and fundraising, and the other one was to operate in the country. The latter is known from the documents of the Tsarist Police Department as the United Combat Committee led by Georgy Gapon. ARF representatives actively participated in the formation and activities of the foreign body uniting the efforts of the revolutionary forces. And as for the armed struggle against tsarism within the country, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation carried it out with its own forces