Gorbachev Appeals to the People

Mikhail Gorbachev, Appeal to the Workers and the Peoples of Azerbaijan and Armenia. February 27, 1988

Mikhail Gorbachev responded to escalating unrest over demands to transfer Nagorno-Karabakh by stressing legality, democratic discussion, and Leninist nationalities policy. He warned against ethnic feud and “primordial” emotion, urging restraint, promising party oversight, and connecting it to perestroika’s broader project.

Original Source: Komsomolets, 27 February 1988.

Dear Comrades,

I appeal to you in connection with the events in and around Nagorno-Karabakh

The question has been raised of the transfer of this autonomous oblast from the Azerbaidzhan SSR to the Armenian SSR. An acute and dramatic nature has been imparted to this, which has led to tension and even to actions which go beyond the law.

I will state frankly: The Central Committee of the CPSU is concerned with this development of events, which is fraught with the most serious consequences.

We do not advocate evading a frank discussion of different ideas and suggestions but this must be done calmly, within the framework of the democratic process and legality, without permitting the slightest harm to the internationalist solidarity of our peoples. Serious questions of the people's destiny can not be left to the rule of primordial forces and emotions.

It is very important to assess one's anxieties not only in the context of local conditions but also with due regard for the processes of revolutionary renewal that are under way in the country.

Yes, there are unresolved problems in our life, but the fanning of feuds and mistrust between peoples only hinders their resolution. This would run counter to our socialist principles and our morality, counter to the traditions of friendship and brotherhood of the Soviet peoples. We live in a multinational country, moreover, and the republics, many of our oblasts, and even cities and settlements are multinational. The meaning of Lenin's nationalities policy is that every person and every nation should be able to develop freely and that every people should be able to satisfy its needs in all spheres of sociopolitical life, in their mother tongue and culture, in customs and beliefs.

Socialist internationalism is the source of our tremendous strength. The genuine fraternity and unity is our path.

The great Armenian poet E. Charents expressed it well, addressing Soviet Azerbaidzhan: "In the name of immense past suffering, in the name of life granted to us among victories, in the name of a friendly and creative unionãwe send greetings, greetings to a fraternal people."

How this is echoed by the words of S. Vurgun, great son of the Azerbaidzhani people: "We live not as neighbors but within each other. The peoples long ago took from each other fire for the hearth and their daily bread."

No mother would consent to her children being threatened by national feuds instead of firm bonds of friendship, equality, and mutual assistance and the truly great acquisition of socialism.

Many shortcomings and difficulties have accumulated in the N agorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. The new leadership of the oblast must take urgent measures for the rectification of the situation. The Central Committee of the CPSU has made clear recommendations about this and will follow firsthand their fulfillment.

For now the most important thing is to concentrate on overcoming the situation which has come about and resolving the specific economic, social, ecological, and other problems which have accumulated in Azerbaidzhan and in Armenia; in the spirit of the policy of restructuring and renewal being implemented throughout our country.

The traditions of friendship between the Azerbaidzhani and Armenian peoples which have formed over the years of Soviet power must be cherished and in every way strengthened. Only this approach corresponds to the genuine interests of all the peoples of the USSR.

You know that it is intended to devote a plenum of the Central Committee of our party specifically to the development of national relations. We have to discuss a wide range of questions in this very important social sphere and, on the basis of the fundamental gains of Lenin's nationalities policy, to outline ways for the concrete resolution of social, economic, cultural, and other problems.

You and I are all Soviet citizens, we have a common history, and common victories, and behind us lie great labor, misfortunes, and losses. We are engaged in the great cause of restructuring, on whose success depends the fate of socialism, our Motherland, and of each of us.

I appeal to you, comrades, to your consciousness and responsibility, to your prudence. We will perservere also in this trail of our Soviet internationalism and in our unshakable faith that only in an amicable family of all our peoples can we secure our society's progress and the prosperity of all its citizens.

I call on you to display civic maturity and restraint, to return to normal life and work, to observe public order.

The time for reason and sober decisions has come.

Source: Martha B. Olcott with Lubomyr Hajda and Anthony Olcott, eds., Soviet Multinational State: readings and documents (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1990), p. 545-546.