March Days

1918 inter ethnic clashes and Bolshevik takeover attempt in Baku
the 1918 inter ethnic clashes and Bolshevik takeover attempt in Baku

In Soviet Azerbaijan, historical accounts of March Days were made to support the actions of Baku Soviet and to condemn Musavat as the culprit of the tragedy. Soviet historiography also tried to suppress the memory of 1918 massacres and omitted the fact that Bolsheviks used the Armenian Azerbaijani ethnic confrontation to gain power. However, in 1978, then leader of Soviet Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev recalled the forgotten March Days in his speech dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Stepan Shahumyan as follows:
In March 1918, the Musavatist anti Soviet rebellion was raised in Baku, intending to strangle the Soviet Government. Thanks to the firm and resolute action of the Bolsheviks, however, the rebellion was extinguished." Exactly twenty years later, as the President of independent Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev issued a decree condemning March Days as the beginning of Azerbaijani genocide. Text of the 1998 Presidential decree describes the March events as follows:

Taking advantage of the situation following the end of the First World War and the February and October 1917 revolutions in Russia, the Armenians began to pursue the implementation of their plans under the banner of Bolshevism. Under the watchword of combating counter revolutionary elements, in March 1918 the Baku commune began to implement a criminal plan aimed at eliminating Azerbaijanis from the whole of Baku province. In the opinion of the American historian Tadeusz Swietochowski, "in his enthusiasm, Shahumyan might not have remembered that in 1905 he himself had accused the tsardom of reaping in benefits of the Muslim Armenian massacres. It is doubtful that to him, as opposed to the Azerbaijanis, any similarity suggested itself." Joseph Stalin, who was Bolshevik People's Commissar at the time, stated in the "Pravda" newspaper that the March Days happened in protest of Transcaucasian Commissariat in Tbilisi:

All of Armenia is protesting against the usurpation of the self proclaimed Tiflis "government", demanding the resignation of the Sejm deputies. And the center of Muslims, Baku, the citadel of Soviet power in Transcaucasus, unified around itself the entire Eastern Transcaucasus, from Lenkoran and Kuba till Elizavetpol, with arms in hands is asserting the rights of people of Transcaucasus, who try by all forces to maintain a link with Soviet Russia. Victor Serge in Year One (First Year) Of the Russian Revolution: "The Soviet at Baku, led by Shahumyan, was meanwhile making itself the ruler of the area, discreetly but unmistakably. Following the Moslem rising of 18 (30) March, it had to introduce a dictatorship. This rising, instigated by the Musavat, set the Tartar and Turkic population, led by their reactionary bourgeoisie, against the Soviet, which consisted of Russians with support from the Armenians. The races began to slaughter each other in the street. Most of the Turkic port workers (the ambal) either remained neutral or supported the Reds. The contest was won by the Soviets."

The Armenian view of the March 1918 events was documented in a letter written by Archbishop Bagrat to the American mission in Baku. The letter began with the accusation that the Azerbaijanis, being the disciples of the Turks and the Germans, could not be trusted. Having thus disposed of the Azerbaijani version of the events, Bagrat stated that the battle was waged by the Musavat and the Soviet, while the Armenians remained neutral. The Archbishop claimed that some Armenian soldiers took part in the fighting, but that those were only isolated individuals for whom the Armenian National Council could not be held responsible. He also claimed that the Armenians gave shelter to some 20,000 Muslims during the struggle. According to Michael P. Croissant, the ARF set out to take revenge for the persecution and genocide suffered by Armenians at the hands of the Ottomans, while Tadeusz Swietochowski states that "Armenian historians do not offer an explanation for the political calculations behind this move, which was bound to entail terrible retribution, and they hint rather at an uncontrollable emotional outburst".

According to Firuz Kazemzadeh, the Soviet provoked March events to eliminate its most formidable rival – the Musavat. However, when Soviet leaders reached out to ARF for assistance against the Azerbaijani nationalists, the conflict degenerated into a massacre with the Armenians killing the Muslims irrespective of their political affiliations or social and economic position. Following an investigation, the Scientific Service of the German Bundestag came to the conclusion that, in specialist literature and journalism, there are different accounts of the events, incidents and casualty figures, which makes a reliable account difficult.

On 27 March 2012, the New York State Senate adopted the first ever legislative resolution J3784 2011 proclaiming 31 March 2012 as the Azerbaijani Remembrance Day. The resolution was introduced by the State Senator James Alesi at the initiative of the members of Azerbaijan Society of America and Azerbaijani American Council. On 31 December 2010, Governor Jim Gibbons of the U. S. State of Nevada proclaimed 31 March as Remembrance Day of 1918 massacres of Azerbaijani civilians in what became the first such recognition by the U. S. government institution.