Stepan Shaumian

Stepan Georgevich Shaumian was an <a href="/facts/Armenians/SxHfJF8N">Armenian</a> <a href="/facts/Bolsheviks/UAHzalnN">Bolshevik</a> revolutionary and politician active throughout the <a href="/facts/Caucasus/sE8P8Ejg">Caucasus</a>. His role as a leader of the <a href="/facts/Russian_Revolution/kk1z6pnH">Russian Revolution</a> in the Caucasus earned him the nickname of the "Caucasian Lenin", a reference to Russian revolutionary leader <a href="/facts/Vladimir_Lenin/Mrwq2Xs4">Vladimir Lenin</a>.
The founder and editor of several newspapers and journals, Shaumian is best known as the head of the <a href="/facts/26_Baku_Commissars/7gefK8L8">Baku Commune</a>, a short-lived committee appointed by Lenin in March 1918 with the task of leading the revolution in the Caucasus and <a href="/facts/West_Asia/xXM15vIz">West Asia</a>. His tenure as leader of the Baku Commune was marred with numerous problems including ethnic violence between Baku's Armenian and <a href="/facts/Azerbaijani_people/nXFAmaLb">Azerbaijani</a> populations, attempting to defend the city against an advancing <a href="/facts/Ottoman_Army_of_Islam/8WFJr6HJ">Turkish</a> army, all the while attempting to spread the cause of the revolution throughout the region. Unlike many of the other Bolsheviks at the time, he preferred to resolve many of the conflicts he faced peacefully rather than with force and <a href="/facts/State_terrorism/lyK1BrFm">terror</a>.
Shaumian was known by various aliases, including "Suren", "Surenin" and “Ayaks". After the Baku Commune was voted out of power in July 1918, he fled across the <a href="/facts/Caspian_Sea/Ymc08gkR">Caspian Sea</a> with the other leaders of the Commune, known as the <a href="/facts/26_Baku_Commissars/7gefK8L8">26 Baku Commissars</a>. He and the rest of the commissars were captured and executed by anti-Bolshevik forces on 20 September 1918.

Stepan Shaumian open-in-new

Stepan Shaumian