Starting from February 1988, the main forms of citizen disobedience, relaying of demands were peaceful protests, rallies, sit-ins and hunger strikes that featured many slogans, however without violence or clashes with the police. It was during the Karabakh Movement (February, July, September 1988) that as a sign of protest against the actions of the Central Government, and for the first time in the history of the Soviet Union, a general nationwide strike was announced. The February 1988 strike had its peculiarities and perhaps that is why it was not mentioned as one of the first strikes in the USSR even by the progressive party media.

An indicator of the constitutional nature of the Movement was the May 1988 demand that the Armenian parliament convene. This demand was accompanied by sit-ins, hunger strikes, and efforts to work with the deputies to explain the situation. Eventually, the session took place and by the request of the deputies themselves.

The same scenario played out again at the end of November 1988, this time on a larger scale. At that time, the leadership of the parliament did not consider convening a special session expedient because of their own attitude on issues to be discussed. However, on the insistence of a considerable group of people’s deputies, the session convened in the Opera building, the very heart of the Movement. During the session, the deputies objected to the proposed draft on elections in the USSR (a directive from Moscow) and did not agree to ratify the decision to make amendments to the USSR Constitution, considering these amendments anti-democratic. Convening the session at the epicenter of the democratic movement and the decisions made by the session were testaments to the people’s victory. Indeed, for the first time on that day, since the formation of the democratic parliament, the people convened the session they wanted, discussed the issues they wanted, ratified the decisions they wanted and all this without the presence of those from “above;” it was an indication of the abyss that existed between the central leadership and the people. However, that same night martial law and a curfew were imposed in Yerevan and the decisions of the democratized parliament were deemed unconstitutional and illegal by the central government.

The fact that during that session, the issue of Nagorno Karabakh was secondary meant that the Movement was truely commencing in the spirit of reconstruction (perestroika) (in its real sense and not as meant by Gorbachev), it was serving the general democratization of the country and was not a narrow nationalistic movement. People believed a solution to the Karabakh issue would be possible only through real reformations across the USSR.

b) It was during the Karabakh Movement, in October 1988, when for the first time in the Soviet Union and possibly in the Eastern bloc countries, that alternative elections were organized. Karabakh Committee members Ashot Marucharyan and Khatchik Stambultsyan, head of the “Charity” benevolent organization were elected to parliament.

Here, it is important to mention that in 1988-1989 (even on the eve of the 1990 spring parliamentary elections) the Karabakh Committee did not strive to come to power at any price, which is what the Party leadership and the media were accusing them of. If that was the priority of the Committee, then they would have taken the course of recalling a number of parliamentarians. But the priority was to convince deputies to implement the people’s will within the possibilities afforded by the laws in place. This was achieved in the fall of 1988 by managing to get two representatives into parliament, where they (as well as several other Committee members invited as observers) managed to make the voice of the people heard. Within only a month and a half in parliament, the activity of the two parliamentarians and what is most important, the dominating pathos of democratization played such an important role in the work of the parliament that it led to its general democratization. The November 24, 1988 session mentioned above was overwhelmingly the result of this process.

The November 7 “parade” (marking the Soviet anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917) compared with the hundreds of thousands who rallied on November 18, illustrated that the Movement was truly stirred from the bottom up. It also underscored the Constitutional approach to the struggle adopted by the Karabakh Committee that resulted in establishing the de facto rule of the people and both the Committee leading the people’s struggle and the November 22-24 parliament sessions registered that the people and the Committee had also secured de jure rule. This meant that the constitutional approach to the struggle had yielded positive results despite it being rejected by the USSR leadership keen on implementing a “revolution from above.”

The height of the efficiency of this constitutional struggle came during the parliamentary elections of May-June 1990 that saw the creation of a parliament where non-communists had the majority and when following several rounds of voting, Karabakh Committee member, Levon Ter-Petrosyan was elected Chairman of the Supreme Council. The “Declaration of Independence” was adopted on August 23,1990 marking the beginning of a transition from a country with a Soviet style rule to the process of building an independent democratic republic.

c) Unlike the Baltic countries, where the movements were directed toward independence from the beginning, [7] anti-Soviet sentiments in Armenia grew gradually; an indication of the bottom up makeup of the Movement. The main “blame” for this process fell on the actions of the democratic reform proclaiming USSR and CPSU leadership that also included resistance to the implementation of Lenin’s principle of people’s right to self-determination, the failure to give a political and legal evaluation to the Sumgait events (which in people’s consciousness were irreversibly associated with the 1915 Genocide), the punitive actions of the Soviet-Russian military units in Armenia and so on.

...to be continued.