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26 Baku Commissars
26 Baku Commissars
26 Baku Commissars
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Soviet poster: "We will never forget the 26 murdered by British imperialists. 1918, September 20." By unknown artist. Baku, 1925

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The 26 Baku Commissars were Bolshevik and Left Socialist Revolutionary (SR) members of the Baku Commune. The commune was established in the city of Baku, which was then the capital of the briefly independent Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, and is now the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The commune, led by Stepan Shahumyan, existed until 26 July 1918 when the Bolsheviks were forced out of power by a coalition of Dashnaks, Right SRs and Mensheviks.

After their overthrow, the Baku commissars attempted to leave Baku but were captured by the Centrocaspian Dictatorship and imprisoned. On 14 September 1918, during the fall of Baku to Ottoman forces, Red Army soldiers broke into their prison and freed the commissars; they then boarded a ship to Krasnovodsk, where they were promptly arrested by local authorities and, on the night of 20 September, executed by a firing squad between the stations of Pereval and Akhcha-Kuyma on the Transcaspian Railway by Turkmen SR soldiers of the Ashkhabad Committee. They were executed for essentially letting the Islamic Army of the Caucasus seize Baku.[1]

Baku Commune

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The Baku Commune lasted from 13 April to 25 July 1918. It came to power after the bloody confrontation with the Muslim population, known as the March Days in Baku. During its brief existence, the Commune had to face several problems: from the shortage of food and supplies to the threat of a strong Ottoman Empire Army which wanted to attack Baku. Despite the difficult conditions, the Commune carried out several social reforms, such as the nationalization of the oil industry.[2]

Modeled on the Paris Commune, the Baku Commune included its own Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom)[3] and Commissariat of Foreign Affairs.[4]

On 5 June 1918 the Baku Red Army repulsed an assault by overwhelming Ottoman troops, but later it launched an unsuccessful assault on Ganja, the headquarters of the Ottoman Army of Islam, and was obliged to retreat to Baku.[5] At this point, Dashnaks, Right SRs and Mensheviks started to negotiate with General Dunsterville, the commander of the British troops in Persia, inviting his troops to Baku in order to defend the city from an imminent Ottoman attack. The Bolsheviks and their leftist allies opposed this scheme, but on 25 July the majority of the Soviet voted to call in the British, and the Bolsheviks resigned.[6] The Baku Commune was imprisoned by Turkmen Social Revolutionaries for participation in unlawful military formations,[citation needed] particularly for the March Days atrocities and was replaced by the Central-Caspian Dictatorship.

In contrast to what happened in many parts of Russia, where the Bolsheviks earned a reputation for ruthlessness executing those who did not support them, the Bolsheviks of Baku were not so strict. The Cheka in Baku executed only two persons, both members of the Soviet caught in embezzling public funds: the Commissar for Finance, Aleksandr Kireev, and the commissar of the steamship Meve, Sergei Pokrovskii.[7][5]

The executions

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Stepan Shahumyan, the leader of the 26 commissars

After the fall of the Baku Soviet in July 1918, the Bolshevik leaders and some loyal troops tried to reach Astrakhan, the only Caspian port still in Bolshevik hands. However, their ship was intercepted by the military vessels of the Caspian fleet and after undergoing an hour's bombardment in mid-sea they surrendered and returned to Baku. Most of the Bolshevik militants were arrested and remained in prison until a commando unit led by Anastas Mikoyan freed them from their prison.

Shahumyan, Dzhaparidze, Azizbekov, and their comrades, along with Mikoyan, then boarded the ship Turkmen, intending to reach Astrakhan by sea. According to recent historians, the sailors chose instead to sail to Krasnovodsk for fear of being arrested in Astrakhan. At Krasnovodsk the commissars were arrested by the town's commandant who requested further orders from the "Ashkhabad Committee", led by the Socialist Revolutionary Fyodor Funtikov, about what should be done with them. Three days later, British Major-General Wilfrid Malleson, on hearing of their arrest, contacted Britain's liaison-officer in Ashkhabad, Captain Reginald Teague-Jones, to suggest that the commissars be handed over to British forces to be used as hostages in exchange for British citizens held by the Soviets. That same day, Teague-Jones attended the committee's meeting in Ashkabad which had the task of deciding the fate of the Commissars. For some reason, Teague-Jones did not communicate Malleson's request to the committee, and claimed he left before a decision was made.[8] He further claimed that the next day he discovered the committee had eventually decided to issue orders that the commissars should be executed. According to historian Richard H. Ullman, Teague-Jones could have stopped the executions if he wanted since the Ashkabad Committee was dependent on British support and could not refuse a request from its powerful ally, but he decided not to do so.[9]

On the night of 20 September, three days after being arrested, twenty-six of the commissars were executed by a firing squad between the stations of Pereval and Akhcha-Kuyma on the Trans-Caspian railway. How Anastas Mikoyan, who was part of the group, managed to survive is still uncertain, as is the reason why his life was spared. In 1922, V. Chaikin, a Socialist Revolutionary journalist, published a description of the moments before the execution.[10]

At around 6 A.M. [relates a witness], the twenty-six commissars were told of the fate awaiting them while they were in the train. They were taken out in groups of eight or nine men. They were obviously shocked, and kept a tense silence. One sailor shouted: "I'm not afraid, I'm dying for liberty." One of the executioners replied that "We too will die for liberty sooner or later, but we mean it in a different way from you." The first group of commissars, led from the train in the semi-darkness, was dispatched with a single salvo. The second batch tried to run away but was mown down after several volleys. The third resigned itself to its fate ...

Impact

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Isaak Brodsky's The Execution of the Twenty Six Baku Commissars (1925) depicting the Soviet view of the execution.

Soviet officials later blamed the executions on British agents acting in the Baku area at the time.[11][12][13] When Soviet rule was established in the whole Caspian area, Funtikov, the head of the Ashkhabad 'Directorate' responsible for the executions, was imprisoned. Funtikov put all blame for the executions onto Britain, and in particular Teague-Jones who, he claimed, had ordered him to have the commissars shot. Funtikov was tried and shot in Baku in 1926. Britain denied involvement in the incident, saying it was done by local officials without any knowledge of the British.

This accusation caused a further souring of relations between Britain and the nascent Soviet government and helped lead to the confrontational attitude of both sides in the coming years.

According to Soviet historiography, two British officers on board the commissars' ship ordered it to sail to Krasnovodsk instead of Astrakhan, where they found a government led by SRs and British officers who immediately ordered the arrest of the commissars. The Soviets would later immortalize the 26 commissars as fallen heroes,[14] through movies,[citation needed] artwork,[15] stamps,[16] and public works including the 26 Commissars Memorial in Baku. In Isaak Brodsky's famous painting, British officers are depicted as being present at the executions.[17]

Soviet investigations

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Boris Vladimirovich Sennikov published a book in 2004 about his findings on the Tambov Rebellion where he mentioned several facts about the event.[18]

Sennikov claims that the famous Brodsky's painting is an invention of the Soviet historiography. The truth was established by the special commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) that arrived from Moscow. The commission was headed by Vadim Chaikin (PSR). The commission also consisted of a big group of a high-ranking Moscow's Cheka officers headed by Jēkabs Peterss, an international criminal associated with the Siege of Sidney Street. Sennikov also brings up a quote of Chaikin in the article of Suren Gazaryan "That should not be repeated" in the Leningrad magazine "Zvezda": "The painting of Brodsky Execution of the 26 Baku Commissars is historically false. They were not shot, but rather decapitated. And the executioner of the penalty was a single man - a Turkmen, a gigantic strength bogatyr. That Turkmen by himself with his own hands using a shashka beheaded all of them."[19] The pit with remains of the commissars and their heads was uncovered under the surveillance of the VTsIK special commission and representatives of Cheka. The report on the death of Baku commissars was sent by the commission to VTsIK, Sovnarkom, and the Central Committee of RKP(b).

In 1922 Vadim Chaikin published his book To the history of the Russian Revolution through the Grazhbin Publishing (Moscow) commemorating the first part "Execution of 26 Baku Commissars" to the event. After serving time in the Oryol Prison Chaikin on 11 September 1941 he was executed by a firing squad along with 156 other Oryol prison inmates during the Medvedev Forest massacre.

Baku, 2005. The wall of the house of the Baku Commissariat (1918)

The Commissars

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Funeral of the 26 Baku Commissars in 1920. The crying women is the mother of Mir Hasan Vezirov.
Grave (burial place) of 23 Baku commissars. Hovsan Cemetery. 9 May 2017

The 26 Baku Commissars comprised Bolsheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries, and excluded the Right SRs, Mensheviks, and Dashnaks.[3] There were many ethnicities among them: Greek, Latvian, Jewish, Russian, Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijani.[citation needed]

The 26 "commissars" were:[20][21]

Demolition of the 26 Commissars Memorial and reburial

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26 Commissars Memorial was a symbol of Azerbaijan SSR.

In 1920, the remains of the commissars were exhumed and reburied as Soviet martyrs in a central square in Baku.[22] They remained their until 2009 when Azerbaijani authorities began demolishing the city's 26 Commissars Memorial.[23] This was the latest monument of several that had been built to commemorate the Commissars erected in that park during the Soviet period. This last monument itself had been fenced-off since July 2008.[23] The remains of the commissars were reburied at Hovsan Cemetery on 26 January 2009, with participation of Muslim, Jewish and Christian clergy, who conducted religious ceremonies.[24]

The dismantling was opposed by some local left-wingers and by the Azerbaijan Communist Party in particular.[23] It also upset Armenia as the Armenian public believed that the demolition and reburial was motivated by the reluctance of the Azerbaijanis, after the Nagorno-Karabakh War to have ethnic Armenians buried in the center of their capital.[25] Another scandal happened when Azerbaijani press reports claimed that during the exhumation only 21 bodies were discovered and that "Shahumyan and four other Armenian commissars managed to escape their murderers".[25][26][27][28] This report was questioned by Shahumyan's granddaughter Tatyana, now living in Moscow, who told the Russian daily Kommersant that:

It is impossible to believe that they weren't all buried. There is a film in the archives of 26 bodies being buried. Apart from this, my grandmother was present at the reburial.[25]

Almost all monuments in Azerbaijan dedicated to the commissars including Shahumyan, Azizbekov, Dzhaparidze and Fioletov, have been demolished. Most streets named after the commissars have been renamed.

[edit]

Russian prominent poet Sergei Yesenin wrote "Ballad of the Twenty-six" to commemorate the Baku Commissars, poem first published in The Baku Worker, 22 September 1925.[29]

Russian band WOMBA named one of its albums The 27th Baku Commissar.[citation needed]

Italian prominent writer Tiziano Terzani wrote about the Baku Commissars in his book Buonanotte, signor Lenin (Goodnight, Mr Lenin: A Journey Through the End of the Soviet Empire, 1992).[citation needed]

A street in southwest-central Moscow is named after the 26 Baku Commisars Ulitsa 26 Bakinskikh Komissarov.

See also

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References

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Further reading

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[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

26 Baku Commissars

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The 26 Baku Commissars were a group of Bolshevik and allied Left Socialist-Revolutionary leaders, primarily , , and , who headed the from to late July 1918, establishing a short-lived soviet regime in the oil-rich Caspian port amid the Russian Civil War's ethnic and ideological fractures. Led by Stepan Shaumyan, an Armenian Bolshevik appointed by Lenin, the commissars seized power following the clashes in , where their Red Guard forces, allied with Armenian Dashnaks, defeated and massacred thousands of Azerbaijani Muslims aligned with the Musavat party, consolidating control through violence against perceived counter-revolutionaries. The regime implemented Bolshevik policies including of industry and suppression of opposition, but isolated by the Transcaucasian Federative Democratic Republic's and facing Ottoman advances, it appealed unsuccessfully for British aid before being ousted on 26 July by the , a pro-Allied socialist coalition of , Socialist Revolutionaries, and Dashnaks seeking to defend from Turkish forces. Imprisoned after the coup, the commissars were freed during the city's fall to Ottoman troops but recaptured en route to Bolshevik-held ; delivered to the anti-Bolshevik Ashkhabad Executive Committee in , they were tried summarily and executed by firing squad on 20 September 1918 near Pereval station. Soviet elevated the commissars as imperialist victims, fabricating tales of their drowning by British agents to symbolize resistance against intervention, a propagated through monuments and that obscured their role in local atrocities and the internal socialist dynamics of their demise; post-1991 dismantled such memorials, reflecting a reevaluation of their legacy as enforcers of Russified over indigenous aspirations.

Historical Context

Russian Civil War and Transcaucasia

The of 1917 triggered the disintegration of imperial authority in the Russian Empire's periphery, including Transcaucasia, where local committees assumed governance amid the withdrawal of central control. In response to the Bolshevik , the evolved into the on November 15, 1917, based in , functioning as a provisional administration that initially affirmed loyalty to the pre-Bolshevik and negotiated a separate armistice with the to stabilize the front. This body represented a of socialist and nationalist elements but struggled with ethnic divisions and the power vacuum left by demobilizing Russian troops. Rejecting Bolshevik authority and the , which ceded territories to the Ottomans, the Transcaucasian Seim proclaimed the Democratic Federative Republic of Transcaucasia on April 22, 1918, encompassing Georgia, , and in a fragile federation aimed at independence from Soviet Russia. Lasting only until May 28, 1918, the republic dissolved amid irreconcilable internal conflicts and external threats, with Georgian , Armenian Dashnaks, and Azerbaijani nationalists unable to forge unity against mounting pressures. In oil-rich , the local soviet reflected these tensions, where , drawing support from industrial workers, competed fiercely with , Dashnaks, and for dominance, exacerbated by March 1918 elections favoring Muslim nationalists and heightening Bolshevik-Dashnak apprehensions. The Brest-Litovsk Treaty enabled Ottoman forces to resume offensives in Transcaucasia from March 1918, liberating eastern Anatolia and invading Armenian territories, prompting the fledgling republic's declaration of war on May 26, 1918, which accelerated its collapse. To counter Ottoman advances and secure Caspian oil fields vital for the Allied war effort, Britain dispatched the Dunsterforce—a compact unit of about 1,200 troops—arriving in Baku on August 17, 1918, to bolster anti-Bolshevik and anti-Turkish elements, though limited in scale amid broader commitments on the Western Front. Concurrently, in the North Caucasus, General Anton Denikin's Volunteer Army consolidated anti-Bolshevik resistance, capturing the region by early 1919 and influencing southern dynamics through alliances and territorial ambitions against both Reds and local nationalists.

March Days and Ethnic Tensions in Baku

The , spanning March 30 to April 2, 1918 (Old Style), erupted in amid escalating ethnic and political divisions following the Bolshevik seizure of power in . The Baku Soviet, dominated by , faced opposition from Muslim socialist and nationalist groups, including the party, which sought greater autonomy or alignment with advancing Ottoman forces amid the collapse of Russian imperial control in the . Tensions boiled over when rumors of Muslim militia mobilization—prompted by Ottoman military gains and fears of Armenian dominance—led to clashes at the city's docks, rapidly escalating into citywide street fighting. Bolshevik leaders, prioritizing revolutionary consolidation and control over Baku's vital oil fields—which supplied up to 80% of Russia's and were essential for Bolshevik survival—formed a tactical with Armenian Dashnak units. This , comprising and armed Dashnaks, launched targeted on Muslim neighborhoods, exploiting ethnic animosities to neutralize political rivals rather than pursuing class-based conflict. Stepan , the Bolshevik commissar overseeing the , later acknowledged the strategy: "We exploited the situation and launched a full-frontal against the ." Bolshevik forces provided weapons to Dashnak units, enabling systematic pogroms that burned Muslim districts and executed suspected nationalists, framing the as a defense against "counter-revolutionaries." Casualties were overwhelmingly among the Azerbaijani Muslim population, with estimates from the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic's Extraordinary Investigation Commission placing the death toll at approximately 12,000 in alone, including civilians massacred in suburbs like Balajari and Bibiheybat; total regional losses, including surrounding areas, reached around 24,000. Bolshevik and Dashnak losses numbered in the hundreds, underscoring the one-sided nature of the sectarian attacks. These figures, drawn from eyewitness accounts and suppressed Azerbaijani archives, contrast sharply with lower Soviet-era claims of around 3,000 total deaths, which downplayed Bolshevik culpability to align with official narratives of class struggle. The violence dismantled organized Muslim opposition, allowing to impose dictatorial rule through the subsequent Baku Commune, but it entrenched ethnic hatreds and sowed chaos that undermined any pretense of broad popular support for Soviet authority. Rather than emerging from consensual , Bolshevik dominance in Baku stemmed from engineered , prioritizing resource control and power seizure over stable governance amid the power vacuum left by the Russian Empire's disintegration.

Formation of the Commune

Establishment of the Baku Soviet

The Baku Soviet emerged in the wake of the , with its initial formation occurring on November 13, 1917, under Bolshevik influence led by figures such as Stepan Shaumyan. Following the ethnic violence of the in 1918, which weakened moderate socialist and elements, the Soviet maneuvered to consolidate authority. On April 13, 1918, it dissolved the local Central Committee of the Transcaucasian Federation—a body tied to the short-lived —and proclaimed the Baku Commune as the supreme governing entity, effectively seizing power from competing factions. This transition marked a shift to direct Bolshevik control, supported by a tactical coalition with and the (Dashnaks). The Commune's establishment relied on precarious ethnic alliances, as Bolshevik forces lacked sufficient independent military strength. Defense against local Azerbaijani opposition and external threats hinged on integrating approximately 7,000-12,000 armed Armenian Dashnak units, which formed the backbone of the Guard's combat capabilities. This dependence highlighted inherent ethnic imbalances, alienating the Muslim majority population and fostering perceptions of the regime as an Armenian-Bolshevik imposition rather than a proletarian . From inception, the Baku Commune faced acute vulnerabilities, including chronic food shortages stemming from severed supply routes to the Azerbaijani countryside and by hostile nationalist forces. These pressures, compounded by internal factional strains within the , underscored the regime's fragility; it endured only until July 1918, when escalating military failures prompted its overthrow by anti-Bolshevik elements. The short tenure reflected the untenable reliance on coerced alliances amid broader Caucasian instability during the .

Appointment of the Council of People's Commissars

The (Sovnarkom) was formally established on April 25, 1918, at a session of the Soviet, serving as the executive organ of the Commune and declaring itself the supreme authority over Soviet power in . This body emerged in the aftermath of the violence, when Bolshevik-led forces, having consolidated control through alliances with Armenian Dashnak militias, ousted rival socialist factions and the Azerbaijani Musavat Party from influence in the soviet. , previously designated by as Extraordinary Commissar for Caucasian Affairs in late 1917, was appointed chairman, overseeing a structure modeled on the central Soviet Sovnarkom in Petrograd. Comprising 26 members, the council's selection process prioritized Bolshevik loyalists, with the majority drawn from the party's local cadre in , supplemented by a minority of to maintain a facade of . Bolshevik dominance was evident in the soviet's delegate composition prior to the appointment, where party members and sympathizers held over half the seats, enabling the exclusion of right-wing socialists and nationalists. Roles were distributed across key areas such as military defense under Prokofy Dzhaparidze, , labor organization, and nationalities , intended to centralize revolutionary administration amid regional chaos. However, the appointees' limited prior experience in —many being agitators or organizers rather than seasoned administrators—hampered effective execution from inception. The council's multi-ethnic makeup, including prominent like Shaumian and , was officially touted by Bolshevik proponents as exemplifying internationalist solidarity transcending national lines. Yet, this framing has faced scrutiny in post-Soviet , particularly from Azerbaijani perspectives, which highlight how the Bolshevik-Dashnak pact marginalized the Muslim majority and prioritized ethnic Armenian interests under a proletarian guise, revealing underlying tactical rather than principled internationalism. Azerbaijani sources, drawing on declassified archives, argue this composition exacerbated ethnic divisions rather than resolving them, though such claims warrant cross-verification against contemporaneous Bolshevik records for potential nationalist bias.

Governance and Policies

Administrative and Economic Measures

The Baku Commune, established in April 1918 under the leadership of the headed by Stepan Shaumyan, implemented administrative reforms modeled on Bolshevik practices elsewhere in , including the centralization of authority through soviets and commissariats responsible for key sectors. On June 1, 1918, the council issued a decree nationalizing the oil industry, seizing control of refineries and fields without awaiting directives from , in an effort to redirect resources toward proletarian needs and Soviet defense. This move, defended by Shaumyan as essential for workers' empowerment, disregarded the technical complexities of extraction and refining, prompting an exodus of skilled engineers and managers who viewed it as expropriation without compensation. Economic policies emphasized over production, supplanting pre-revolutionary managerial hierarchies with elected committees in Baku's refineries, which produced over 80% of Russia's prior to 1917. However, this shift eroded , as untrained committees struggled with and coordination, leading to a precipitous drop in output—estimated at up to 50% below pre-commune levels by mid-1918—compounded by requisitioning of equipment and fuel for immediate needs rather than long-term . Labor discipline faltered amid ideological fervor and shortages of spare parts, further hampering recovery despite nominal increases in worker employment through shortened shifts and rations. Parallel efforts at relied on requisitioning detachments to procure and supplies from surrounding areas, bypassing market mechanisms in favor of centralized allocation via ration cards prioritized for industrial workers. These measures, enacted amid regional , disrupted routes and alienated rural producers, resulting in and black-market proliferation; by July 1918, daily rations had dwindled to under 200 grams per person for much of the population, fostering famine-like conditions exacerbated by the commune's isolation and inability to import staples. Empirical accounts from the period highlight how such policies, while ideologically aligned with class warfare, causally intensified in a dependent on external , underscoring the disconnect between doctrinal imperatives and practical .

Repression and Conflicts with Local Populations

The Baku Commune's governance involved systematic suppression of Azerbaijani nationalist opposition, particularly remnants of the party, through arrests and disarmament campaigns following the . Authorities targeted suspected nationalists in the city's Muslim quarters, conducting house-to-house searches and detaining individuals deemed threats to Bolshevik control, which consolidated power but deepened ethnic divisions. These measures, enacted in the weeks after the Commune's proclamation on April 13, 1918, effectively dismantled organized Azerbaijani political activity within , forcing many leaders to flee eastward. Enforcement relied on Red Guard detachments augmented by Armenian Dashnak militias, whose dominance in security operations alienated the local Azerbaijani populace by associating Soviet rule with ethnic favoritism. Bolshevik leaders, including Stepan Shaumyan, justified these tactics as necessary against "" elements, but the preferential arming of non-Muslim units for policing Muslim districts fostered perceptions of targeted rather than class-based neutrality. This reliance on allied ethnic militias, rather than inclusive local forces, perpetuated simmering unrest and undermined claims of proletarian unity. The Commune also curtailed dissent by shutting down opposition newspapers and excluding rival socialists, such as and Right Socialist Revolutionaries, from executive bodies, reflecting a pattern of Bolshevik that prioritized ideological over pluralism. In June 1918, preparations for offensives against Muslim-held areas outside extended this repressive approach, signaling intent to preempt nationalist challenges through preemptive force. Such policies, while securing short-term stability, highlighted the Commune's coercive foundations, as local Azerbaijani communities viewed them as extensions of ethnic subjugation rather than revolutionary progress.

Military Collapse

Advances of Ottoman-Azerbaijani Forces

The Ottoman Army of Islam, commanded by Nuri Pasha, established its headquarters in on May 25, 1918, organizing joint Ottoman-Azerbaijani forces to counter Bolshevik advances from . On June 4, 1918, the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic formalized its military alliance with the through a of Mutual Assistance and Friendship, enabling coordinated operations against Bolshevik-controlled territories. This partnership positioned the allied forces as a unified front opposing the Baku Commune's expansionist policies, which had alienated Muslim populations in the region following the massacres. In response to the Commune's offensive ordered on , 1918, targeting to preempt nationalist consolidation, Ottoman-Azerbaijani troops repelled incursions in battles near Goychay and Salyan from June 16 to July 2, 1918. The decisive , spanning June 27 to July 1, 1918, resulted in the seizure of territories from Goychay to , dismantling Armenian-Soviet control in eastern and opening the path toward . These victories, leveraging Ottoman artillery and Azerbaijani irregulars numbering several thousand, exploited the Commune's overextended supply lines and ethnic divisions, as local Muslim communities provided intelligence and recruits to the advancing coalition. The Commune's strategic isolation deepened amid failed diplomatic overtures to British forces in the , appeals that contradicted Moscow's anti-imperialist stance and yielded no substantive aid by mid-1918. Lenin rebuked leader for these entreaties, viewing them as a deviation that undermined proletarian against pan-Turkic advances. By late July 1918, the Ottoman-Azerbaijani forces had closed to within striking distance of 's outskirts, their momentum unchecked by the Commune's fragmented defenses, which misjudged the resilience of the allied nationalist offensive. This external pressure, rooted in the Commune's underestimation of Ottoman logistical support via the Baku-Batumi rail line, isolated the Bolshevik enclave amid escalating encirclement.

Surrender to the Central Caspian Dictatorship

On July 25, 1918, amid the rapid advance of Ottoman and Azerbaijani forces toward and mounting internal opposition, the Bolshevik-dominated Baku Soviet collapsed politically. Non-Bolshevik factions within the soviet, primarily Socialist Revolutionaries, , and Armenian Dashnaks, seized control through a coup, dissolving the soviet and establishing the Central Caspian Dictatorship as the new . This dictatorship, oriented toward Allied powers, immediately appealed for British military assistance from the to bolster defenses against the approaching enemy armies. Stepan Shaumyan, chairman of the Baku , resigned his position, and the 26 commissars formally surrendered authority to the new regime. Although initially subject to arrest warrants issued by the , negotiations secured their release and safe passage eastward across the . The commissars, along with supporters and assets, departed aboard the steamer Turkmen, marking the effective end of the Bolshevik experiment in the city after five months of rule.

Capture and Executions

Evacuation and Transport to Krasnovodsk

Following the surrender of the Baku Commune to the Central Caspian Dictatorship on 25 July 1918, the 26 commissars were detained in Baku under the control of the provisional anti-Bolshevik authorities. As Ottoman and Azerbaijani forces advanced toward the city, the prisoners were placed aboard the steamship Turkmen on 14 September 1918 and transported eastward across the Caspian Sea to the port of Krasnovodsk (now Türkmenbaşy, Turkmenistan), approximately 400 kilometers away. The journey, lasting several days amid naval patrols by Caspian flotilla vessels loyal to the Dictatorship, delivered the group to the eastern shore without reported combat en route after an earlier interception attempt. Upon docking in Krasnovodsk around mid-September , the commissars were transferred into the custody of the Transcaspian Provisional Government, a Menshevik-Socialist Revolutionary coalition formed in Ashkhabad earlier that year by local workers opposing Bolshevik influence in the . This administration, operating from Krasnovodsk and Ashkhabad, maintained control over Transcaspian territories with logistical support from British forces under the Malleson Mission, which provided arms and advisors to counter advances from the east. The handover reflected the alignment of Central Caspian and Transcaspian anti-Bolshevik factions, both seeking to consolidate opposition to Soviet expansion amid the broader dynamics. The commissars were held in temporary detention facilities in Krasnovodsk, where local authorities coordinated with railway networks extending inland toward Ashkhabad and Fort Aleksandrovsk, facilitating further movement under guard. This phase occurred within a volatile zone influenced by White Russian elements, including detachments loosely affiliated with General Anton Denikin's , though direct operational control remained with the Provisional Government's and British-backed units. Conditions during detention involved basic provisioning amid heightened security, as the region served as a for anti-Bolshevik operations against Tashkent-based Soviet forces.

Circumstances of the Killings

The 26 Baku Commissars were summarily executed by firing squad on the night of September 20, 1918, in a remote section of the Kara-Kum Desert between the Pereval and Akhcha-Kuyma railway stations on the Trans-Caspian line, approximately 200 kilometers southeast of Krasnovodsk (now Türkmenbaşy). This location, at the 207th marker of the railway, was chosen for its isolation, ensuring no witnesses beyond the executioners. The commissars had been transported from Krasnovodsk's by rail earlier that evening, loaded onto freight cars under guard, reflecting the ad hoc nature of civil war detentions and reprisals. No formal trial or legal proceedings preceded the killings, consistent with the extrajudicial practices prevalent across factions in the , where and their opponents alike resorted to immediate executions to eliminate perceived threats amid territorial losses and supply shortages. Eyewitness reports from railway personnel and local accounts describe the group being ordered off the train, lined up, and shot at close range with rifles, with some commissars possibly wounded before fatal shots. The act unfolded rapidly, lasting minutes, underscoring the precarious security environment following the Baku Commune's collapse and the ensuing power vacuums in Transcaspia. The bodies were left at the site or minimally covered, exposed to the desert conditions, before Soviet forces in 1920 exhumed remains they attributed to the commissars from the vicinity and transported them to for ceremonial reburial. Forensic details from later examinations, including wounds from multiple types, corroborate a hasty group execution rather than prolonged . These events exemplify the reciprocal atrocities of the era, including Bolshevik reprisals against anti-Soviet elements and vice versa, though the commissars' deaths occurred amid a broader pattern of factional liquidations without .

Disputes over Method and Perpetrators

The Soviet narrative, propagated from 1919 onward, asserted that the 26 commissars were subjected to a barbarous without , ordered by British imperial authorities to eliminate Bolshevik influence in the Caspian region. This account implicated British military and political agents, including allegations against F. N. Hopwood, the British political officer in Meshed who liaised with Transcaspian anti-Bolsheviks, as facilitating or directing the killings amid Allied efforts to secure oil fields and counter . However, no primary documents or eyewitness testimonies substantiate a direct British command; Hopwood's correspondence and British Foreign records reflect awareness of the commissars' capture but emphasize local autonomy in Transcaspian governance, with British support limited to logistics against Bolshevik threats. Evidence from regional archives and survivor accounts points instead to execution by local anti-Bolshevik forces under the Provisional Government of the Transcaspian Territory, a coalition of Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and railway workers based in Ashkhabad and Krasnovodsk, who viewed the commissars as threats to their control over Caspian transport routes. These perpetrators, operating independently amid the Russian Civil War's fragmentation, ordered the killings on September 20, 1918, near Pereval station outside Krasnovodsk, following the commissars' transfer from the Turkmen steamship. The decision aligned with widespread civil war practices of summary justice against captured revolutionaries, where formal trials were rare and executions served to deter insurgency, rather than exceptional barbarity orchestrated by foreign powers. Disputes over the precise method persist, with Soviet depictions in art and reports emphasizing a firing squad to evoke martyrdom by gunfire, yet local testimonies describe decapitation by swords wielded by a single Turkmen executioner, a practice rooted in regional customs for high-profile condemned prisoners. These conflicting details underscore the politicization of the event, where Bolshevik sources prioritized anti-imperialist framing over empirical reconstruction, while Transcaspian records, though sparse due to wartime destruction, prioritize local agency in suppressing perceived Soviet aggression.

Soviet Response and Mythologization

Initial Investigations

In the immediate aftermath of the executions on September 20, 1918, Bolshevik leadership in and surviving sympathizers in the issued preliminary attributions blaming "" forces linked to the Central Caspian , but these lacked empirical substantiation or forensic detail due to the anti-Soviet control of the Transcaspian region until 1919. By April 1919, as advances in progressed, the Bolshevik referenced intercepted documents and refugee accounts to implicate British officers in the killings, yet no formal commission was dispatched for on-site verification amid ongoing hostilities. Following the of on April 28, 1920, authorities of the newly formed SSR organized the exhumation of the remains from a near Bik-Bulak station between Krasnovodsk and Ashkhabad, where the bodies had been interred without markers. Identities were purportedly confirmed through Bolshevik party cards, passports, and clothing descriptions recovered with the corpses, aligning with pre-execution records of the commissars' appearances and possessions, though independent corroboration was absent. The remains were transported to for reburial in (then a central plaza) on November 1, 1920, accompanied by rudimentary medical examinations that noted bullet wounds consistent with but offered no ballistic analysis or perpetrator tracing. These efforts revealed evidentiary gaps, including unidentified witnesses and unexamined local records from the era, with reports emphasizing ideological culpability over causal specifics.

Development of the Martyrdom Narrative

The Soviet portrayal of the 26 Baku Commissars rapidly evolved into a martyrdom following their execution in 1918, framing their deaths as a heroic against imperialist forces rather than internal Bolshevik . Early accounts, disseminated through official channels, attributed the killings to British officers, such as Reginald Teague-Jones, despite evidence indicating execution by Caspian Fleet sailors aligned with Soviet interests to prevent potential collaboration with advancing Ottoman-Azerbaijani armies. This fabrication served to unify Bolshevik supporters by emphasizing class antagonism over the ethnic and nationalist tensions that characterized the Baku Commune's rule, including the suppression of local Azerbaijani populations during the March Events of 1918. The narrative elevated the commissars as exemplars of and class struggle, systematically downplaying the Commune's repressive policies toward non-Russian ethnic groups and its failures in addressing local grievances. Soviet propaganda instrumentalized their story for recruitment drives during the Civil War, portraying the commissars' defiance as a model for soldiers confronting White forces and foreign interveners. Anti-imperialist rhetoric prominently featured accusations against the British, who were depicted as orchestrating to crush Bolshevik resistance in the , thereby justifying Soviet and vilifying Allied intervention in the region. Cultural dissemination romanticized the commissars' end through diverse media, including songs taught to schoolchildren—such as one evoking British gunfire against "our men from "—poems lauding their bravery, films, an opera, and postage stamps commemorating their sacrifice. This mythologization ignored discrepancies, such as the commissars' transport by Soviet-allied forces and the absence of British involvement at the execution site, constructing instead a sanitized heroic frame that omitted the Commune's internal divisions and ethnic violence. The resulting legend functioned as ideological glue, fostering loyalty across the USSR by recasting a chaotic episode as a foundational Bolshevik triumph.

Stalin's Involvement and Propaganda Use

In April 1919, Joseph Stalin published an article titled "The Shooting of the Twenty-Six Baku Comrades by Agents of British Imperialism" in Izvestia, condemning the commissars' execution as a premeditated act orchestrated by British imperialist forces in collusion with local Mensheviks like Prokofy Dzhaparidze's rivals and figures such as E. A. Stepanov. Stalin detailed purported evidence from telegrams and witness accounts implicating British command in Krasnovodsk, framing the killings as part of a broader counter-revolutionary plot to eliminate Bolshevik leadership during the chaotic evacuation from Baku. This piece, drawing on preliminary reports from Soviet investigators, established the foundational narrative attributing responsibility to foreign imperialists rather than internal Civil War dynamics or decisions by the Central Caspian Dictatorship's authorities. Stalin's intervention instrumentalized the event for Bolshevik , elevating the commissars to symbols of resistance against colonial exploitation and capitalist , which aligned with emerging Soviet anti-imperialist to rally support in multi-ethnic regions like Transcaucasia. By Soviet , the narrative crystallized the commissars as internationalist martyrs whose sacrifice exemplified the proletariat's struggle against British and Ottoman incursions, a theme propagated in official texts and commemorations to legitimize Bolshevik control over and justify the Red Army's 1920 invasion. This framing suppressed discordant details, such as the commissars' own of evacuation under local guard or the involvement of Turkmen militias acting independently of British directives, prioritizing a unified story of external villainy to obscure tactical failures in the Baku Commune's defense. Under Stalin's consolidation of power in , the martyrdom trope was further embedded in state ideology, with memorials and educational materials reinforcing the British-agent culpability to foster and deflect scrutiny from intra-party disputes, including Stalin's earlier tensions with figures like Stepan Shaumyan over Caucasian strategy. Archival evidence contradicting the foreign-orchestrated execution—such as orders from the Dictatorship's or absence of direct British orders—was marginalized in favor of the propagandistic line, aiding Stalin's portrayal of the party as infallible victims of imperialist conspiracy. This selective not only mythologized the commissars but also served Stalin's geopolitical aims, linking their "heroism" to Soviet in the East as a bulwark against perceived colonial threats.

Individual Profiles

Key Commissars and Their Backgrounds

Stepan Shaumyan served as the primary leader of the 26 Baku Commissars, heading the from to July 1918. Born on October 1, 1878, in Tiflis to an Armenian family, Shaumyan aligned with at the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party's congress and relocated to in 1907 to organize workers amid the city's booming oil industry. His prior experience included multiple arrests for revolutionary agitation and leadership in Caucasian Bolshevik networks, reflecting a commitment to over ethnic particularism. Prokofy Dzhaparidze, a Georgian from a landowning family born in 1880, contributed organizational depth as chairman of the Soviet's executive committee. Joining the RSDRP in 1898, he conducted party work across Georgia and , emphasizing Bolshevik tactics in multi-ethnic regions before the elevated him to regional committees. His background underscored the commissars' reliance on experienced agitators from the Tsarist underground, though their efforts yielded brief control rather than enduring governance. Ivan Fioletov, a Russian Bolshevik born in 1884, oversaw the Soviet of National Economy, focusing on in 's industrial hub. Active in revolutionary circles during the , Fioletov's role highlighted Russian cadre dominance in economic commissariats despite the group's advertised ethnic diversity. Meshadi Azizbekov, born January 6, 1876, to an Azerbaijani family, held the position of deputy people's commissar for internal affairs and gubernial commissar for , symbolizing ' attempt to incorporate local Muslim revolutionaries. Affiliated with the Azerbaijani Gummet party linked to Bolsheviks, Azizbekov's inclusion aimed to legitimize internationally, yet his influence remained marginal amid Armenian and Russian leadership prevalence. These figures, drawn from varied Caucasian and Russian origins, shared prior involvement in clandestine Bolshevik activities—such as strikes and —but demonstrated limited success in sustaining administrative authority beyond ideological mobilization. Their profiles illustrate nominal multi-ethnicity, with six among the leaders, driven by fidelity to Leninist centralism rather than regional autonomies.

Ethnic Composition and Motivations

The 26 Baku Commissars comprised a diverse yet uneven ethnic makeup, with forming the largest contingent at approximately 11 members, followed by about 5 , several , and only 2-3 such as Meshadi Azizbekov. This composition undercut the group's proclaimed commitment to , as the heavy Armenian presence aligned closely with ' dependence on Dashnaktsutyun militias—Armenian nationalist armed units—for maintaining control in amid ethnic tensions. While the commissars espoused Marxist ideology aimed at establishing Soviet power across Transcaucasia, their actions were substantially driven by ethnic . The Ottoman Army's advance into the in 1918, following the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and amid ongoing fears of reprisals after the Armenian-involved massacres of up to 12,000 Muslims during the in Baku, compelled the Commune to prioritize defense of Armenian communities and Bolshevik holdouts over broader class solidarity. The alliance with Dashnaks, who sought to counter Ottoman threats to Armenian populations in the wake of the 1915 genocide, further blurred ideological lines, positioning the commissars as de facto protectors of ethnic interests in a volatile multi-ethnic city where held disproportionate influence despite being a minority. In post-Soviet , reassessments portray the commissars less as heroic internationalists and more as instruments of Armenian nationalist agendas within a Bolshevik-Dashnak that suppressed Azerbaijani aspirations for and facilitated atrocities against the Muslim majority. This perspective, informed by de-Sovietization efforts, highlights how the group's limited Azerbaijani representation and reliance on external ethnic militias reflected pragmatic power consolidation rather than genuine multi-ethnic , contributing to enduring narratives of foreign imposition in Baku's history.

Controversies and Reassessments

Veracity of Soviet Claims

The official Soviet narrative portrayed the executions of the 26 Baku Commissars on September 20, 1918, near Pereval station as a ordered by British officers without , framing it as deliberate imperialist against Bolshevik leadership. Historical records, however, demonstrate no evidence of direct British orchestration or participation; the commissars were arrested by the anti-Bolshevik —a of local socialists and conservatives loosely allied with British Dunsterforce units for anti-Ottoman operations—and transferred eastward, where local authorities in Krasnovodsk (now Türkmenbaşy) carried out the killings amid chaotic conditions. Forensic examination of remains recovered in the and reanalyzed post-Soviet era revealed as the method, with heads severed individually by a local using an axe, contradicting depictions of orderly firing squads in Soviet art and accounts. The absence of a formal aligns not with targeted foreign but with widespread summary justice in the , where Bolshevik forces themselves executed thousands of opponents without , including during the Baku Commune's own repressions. Causally, the commissars' deaths represented localized retribution rather than geopolitical conspiracy; as leaders of the Baku Commune, they bore responsibility for the violence from March 30 to April 2, 1918, when Bolshevik-Dashnak forces killed an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 Azerbaijani Muslims in , targeting neighborhoods and in a preemptive against perceived threats. This ethnic dynamic, rooted in communal tensions exacerbated by the commune's policies of confiscation and suppression, rendered the executions a direct backlash from aggrieved local populations, including Turkmen border guards, rather than a British directive. Soviet amplification of foreign culpability served ends, obscuring domestic civil strife and the commissars' role in instigating interethnic bloodshed.

Ethnic and Nationalist Interpretations

The ethnic composition of the 26 Baku Commissars featured a notable overrepresentation of Armenians, with at least six individuals of Armenian origin, including leader Stepan Shaumyan and military figures like Baghdasar Avagian. This demographic tilt has been interpreted in Azerbaijani nationalist narratives as evidence of an ethnic alliance between Bolsheviks and Armenian Dashnaks, facilitating targeted violence against Muslim populations during the March Events of 1918. Azerbaijani historiography attributes direct responsibility for the massacres to the emerging Baku Soviet under Shaumyan, claiming the commissars orchestrated the killings of 12,000 or more Azerbaijanis and other Muslims as part of a premeditated ethnic purge to consolidate power by eliminating perceived counter-revolutionary elements among the Turkic majority. Independent estimates place Muslim civilian deaths between 3,000 and 12,000, stemming from clashes initiated by a Muslim demonstration against Bolshevik disarmament orders but escalating into systematic reprisals by armed Bolshevik-Dashnak units. From a nationalist Azerbaijani viewpoint, the Baku Commune represented not proletarian liberation but an extension of Russian imperial control, repurposed through Bolshevik ideology to suppress nascent Azerbaijani and favor Armenian interests amid regional Ottoman-Turkic sympathies. The commissars' policies, including the suppression of Muslim socialist factions like , are critiqued as masking ethnic aggression under class-struggle pretexts, with local Muslim communities perceiving the regime as alien occupiers who exacerbated inter-ethnic tensions inherited from Tsarist rule. In contrast, framed their actions as defense against bourgeois-nationalist uprisings threatening socialist order, prioritizing urban worker solidarity over ethnic divisions—a self-view that overlooked the Commune's reliance on Armenian militias for enforcement. This divergence underscores causal realities of competing nationalisms in the , where Bolshevik internationalism intersected with local ethnic grievances, rendering the commissars symbols of aggression rather than martyrdom in non-Soviet interpretations.

Civil War Realities vs. Heroic Framing

The Soviet portrayal of the emphasized their execution on September 20, 1918, as a martyrdom inflicted by British imperial agents and forces, framing them as unyielding defenders of proletarian ideals against external aggression. This narrative, propagated through official investigations and , omitted the commissars' direct involvement in the reciprocal violence characterizing the Russian Civil War's Caucasian theater. As leaders of the Commune from April 13 to July 25, 1918, under Stepan Shaumyan, they oversaw the suppression of perceived class enemies and nationalist opponents, including arrests, property expropriations, and executions aligned with the Bolshevik policy of . Historical accounts document their alliance with Armenian Dashnak militias, which facilitated the clashes earlier that year, resulting in the deaths of approximately 12,000 through targeted killings and pogroms against Muslim populations. Such actions mirrored the era's pattern of mutual atrocities, where Bolshevik regimes eliminated , landowners, and ethnic rivals, prompting retaliatory executions by White Guard units, Ottoman forces, and local anti-Soviet dictatorships. The commissars' overthrow by the on July 25, 1918, and subsequent execution by the anti-Bolshevik Ashkhabad Soviet in Krasnovodsk (now Türkmenbaşy) represented not exceptional victimhood but standard civil war reciprocity, comparable to White Terror campaigns that liquidated thousands of Reds across or Ottoman reprisals against Armenian nationalists following the massacres in . Archival evidence from declassified Soviet and regional documents underscores this brutality as systemic, driven by ideological consolidation rather than isolated heroism, with the commissars actively enforcing terror detachments against resistors to Bolshevik rule in and surrounding districts. This context challenges hagiographic accounts by privileging primary reports over mythologized commemorations, revealing the commissars as participants in a where no faction held moral exclusivity. Estimates of victims under Commune rule, though imprecise due to chaotic record-keeping, include hundreds executed for activities, paralleling the scale of reprisals they later faced. The absence of unique innocence in their fate aligns with causal patterns of the Civil War, where revolutionary fervor begat equivalent countermeasures from fragmented anti-Bolshevik coalitions.

Legacy in Post-Soviet Era

Memorials and Their Demolition

The remains of the 26 Baku Commissars were exhumed from their execution site near Krasnovodsk and reburied in a central park in Baku in September 1920, as part of early Soviet efforts to honor them as martyrs. This initial commemoration laid the foundation for subsequent memorials during the Soviet period. In the Soviet era, a more elaborate memorial complex was developed in Baku's Sahil Park. A high-relief commemorating the commissars' execution was erected in 1958 for the 40th of their deaths, followed by the full complex in 1968, designed by sculptors I. Zeynalov and N. Mamedov with architects G. Aleskerov and A. Guseinov; it included an symbolizing their enduring legacy. Following Azerbaijan's independence from the in 1991, de-communization initiatives targeted Soviet-era monuments. The at the 26 Baku Commissars Memorial was extinguished in the early , and the high-relief was destroyed in 1993. The site's fencing began in July 2008, leading to the complete demolition of the complex in January 2009, transforming the location into Sahil Park for public use. The commissars' remains were exhumed during the demolition and reburied on January 26, 2009, at Hovsan Cemetery in , in a ceremony attended by Muslim, Jewish, and Christian clergy to reflect the multi-ethnic composition of the group. This relocation drew international criticism, particularly from Russian and Armenian sources who decried the removal of what they regarded as a shared historical monument, while Azerbaijani officials and locals supported it as rejecting symbols of Bolshevik rule and Soviet domination. The action aligned with broader post-Soviet efforts to prioritize national independence narratives over communist iconography.

Azerbaijani Perspectives on De-Sovietization

In contemporary , the 26 Baku Commissars are portrayed not as heroic martyrs but as agents of a foreign Bolshevik imposition that deepened ethnic divisions during the Baku Commune of 1918. Scholars emphasize the commune's rule under Stepan Shaumyan as a period of ethnic violence targeting Muslim , aligning with narratives of Bolshevik-Armenian alliances exacerbating tensions rather than resolving class conflicts as Soviet accounts claimed. This view rejects the commissars' glorification, framing their activities as colonial overreach that undermined local Azerbaijani agency, particularly the Party's efforts for national sovereignty. Post-independence scholarship since 1991 prioritizes the memory of victims—Muslim civilians killed in interethnic clashes in March 1918—over commissar heroism, interpreting the commissars' policies as contributory to these divides. Modern accounts highlight the September 15, 1918, liberation of by the Caucasian Islamic Army and Azerbaijani forces as a pivotal rejection of the commune's , underscoring anti-colonial resistance to Russian-centric narratives. This reassessment aligns with broader de-Sovietization, viewing Bolshevik icons as symbols of rather than progress, informed by the and the 1990 events that reinforced nationalist priorities. The physical removal of Soviet-era memorials exemplifies this shift. Demolition of the 26 Baku Commissars Memorial in Baku's Freedom Square began in the early , with the extinguished and the main sculpture destroyed by 1993; the pantheon followed in January 2009, with remains reinterred in Hovsan Cemetery by May. Azerbaijani authorities justified these actions as erasing markers of Russian and Armenian dominance, redirecting public space toward national symbols like the Alley of Martyrs, which honors independence fighters. While the Azerbaijan Communist Party protested the 2009 phase as historical revisionism, mainstream policy reflects a consensus prioritizing over Soviet internationalism.

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