Azerbaijan is commemorating the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis which is also known as “March Genocide” and also as “March Days” in human history when over 12,000 Azerbaijanis including women and children were massacred by Armenians.

The Genocide started on March 30, 1918 and continued unchecked till April 2, 1918 in Baku and at several other places of the then Baku Governorate of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic.

This genocide was put under carpet during Soviet Union era and reality about what happened to Azerbaijanis during the Spring of 1918 came only on surface when Azerbaijan got independence and late President Heydar Aliyev released a Decree on March 26, 1998 calling for political-legal assessment of this genocide. Since then March 31 is marked at the state level as Day of Azerbaijanis` genocide, carried out actions of respect of the memory of victims of genocide.

Special correspondent of state run news agency AZERTAC, Vugar Seyidov in one of his article says massacre of 1918 was skillfully prepared and ruthlessly implemented act than the 1905-1907 attacks. The victory of Bolsheviks during the Russian revolution of 1917 and thereby collaboration with them gave the Dashnaksutyun Party way for smooth realization of its nationalistic objectives. Capitalizing on the situation that followed October 1917 Revolution in Russia, Armenian nationalists began to pursue the implementation of their plans under the banner of Bolshevism. In 1918, leader of the Russian Bolsheviks Vladimir Lenin appointed ethnic Armenian Stephan Shaumyan Extraordinary Commissar of the Caucasus. By that time, the Bolsheviks seized power in Baku and viewed the Armenian Party of Dashnaktsutyun as a source of support for eliminating the influence of Azerbaijani national party-Musavat in Baku and the regions. In this regard, the interests of Bolsheviks and Dashnaks by March 1918 coincided.