began the war as chief of staff of the Southwestern Front, then commanded the Northwestern Front in 1915 during its successful but costly withdrawal from the Polish salient.
As Stavka chief of staff for Tsar Nicholas II after August 1915, Alekseyev functioned as de facto supreme commander, but was tainted in 1916 by the ill-conceived Naroch operation and by failure to support the more successful Brusilov Offensive. While maintaining contact with the liberal opposition, he left Stavka in December 1916 for reasons of health, then returned in March to June 1917 as
ALIYEV, HEIDAR
supreme commander. An ardent anti-Bolshevik between the two Russian revolutions of 1917, he fought against the disintegration of the army, even agreeing to serve temporarily as the army’s commander-in-chief after the Kornilov Affair of September 1917. Following the Bolshevik coup of November 1917, Alexeyev and Lavr Georgievich Kornilov became the military nucleus around which a White counterrevolutionary movement in the Don and Kuban organized the Volunteer Army. Alexeyev’s death in October 1918 at Yekaterinodar deprived the Whites of perhaps their most talented commander and planner. He left the legacy of a keen military professional who consistently rendered impressive service as commander and staff officer under extraordinarily challenging military and political circumstances. See also: KORNILOV AFFAIR; NICHOLAS II; STAVKA; WHITE ARMY; WORLD WAR I
Wildman, Allan K. (1980, 1987). The End of the Russian Imperial Army. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
OLEG R. AIRAPETOV
(b. 1923), Soviet Azerbaijani statesman, president of Azerbaijan (1993- ).
Heidar Alirza Oglu Aliyev was born in Nakhichevan, Azerbaijani SSR. Aliyev studied architecture and history in Baku. In 1944 he joined the KGB of Soviet Azerbaijan and became its director in 1967. In 1969 Aliyev became first secretary of the Communist Party (thus effective leader) of Soviet Azerbaijan. In 1982 he was invited to Moscow as a full member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) Politburo and first deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. He also served as a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR for twenty years.
Following Mikhail Gorbachev’s accession to power, Aliyev was forced to resign from his positions in the Party in 1986 and in the government in 1987. Aliyev resigned from the CPSU in July 1990 citing, among other reasons, his objections to the use of the Soviet army units against demonstrators in Baku earlier that year. He returned to Nakhichevan, where he relaunched his career as the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Nakhichevan and deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani Supreme Soviet. In 1993 he was asked by the embattled President Abulfaz Elchibey of independent Azerbaijan to return to Baku. By October 1993 Aliyev was elected president of Azerbaijan. He was reelected in 1998.
Aliyev’s main priority as leader of independent Azerbaijan was to secure domestic stability and effective control and exploitation of the country’s hydrocarbon resources. Aliyev was able to neutralize unruly elements that threatened internal peace, as well as others who could challenge him politically, while pursuing a policy of selective political and economic liberalization.
In foreign affairs Aliyev adopted a supple and pragmatic approach. He moderated his predecessor’s excessively pro-Turkish, anti-Russian, and anti-Iranian policies. Aliyev used the country’s hydrocarbon resources to increase Azerbaijan’s international stature and, working closely with Georgia, secured the West’s political support to balance Russia’s influence.
Aliyev’s initial policy of continuing military operations in the Nagorno-Karabakh war caused further territorial losses to Armenian forces as well as a new wave of internally displaced persons. In 1994 he agreed to a cease-fire. Aliyev has supported the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s mediation efforts for a permanent solution to the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as direct negotiations.
His administration continues to be plagued by charges of authoritarianism, widespread corruption, and tampering with elections. Eight years into his administration, Aliyev’s main challenges-the problems of Karabakh, of succession, and of securing new major routes for the export of Caspian hydrocarbon resources-remain largely unresolved. See also: ARMENIA AND ARMENIANS; AZERBAIJAN AND AZERIS; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Curtis, Glenn E. (1994). Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Washington, DC: Library of Congress. Herzig, Edmond. (1999). The New Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs.
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Swietochowski, Tadeusz. (1995). Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. New York: Columbia University Press.
The Russian Revolution of 1917, occurring in the third year of World War I, initially inspired great hopes in the countries engaged in the brutal struggle against the Central Powers that was exacting so terrible a carnage and so enormous a financial drain. The prospect of a new ally, the United States, seemed bright, since a war without the Romanov autocracy as an ally could now be claimed to be truly one of democracy against the old order of Europe, of which Russia had been one of the bastions. Unfortunately, Russia was already severely weakened by the war, both on the battlefield and on the home front. It was left to the United States to provide direct aid and a moral presence, but time was running out, and opposition to the war, with its huge human sacrifices and economic burdens, was a persistent trend in the new “democratic” Russia. The inability of the Provisional Government, headed by Alexander Kerensky, to deal with the situation led to a victory of the left wing of the revolution in the form of a Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917.
This created a dilemma for the Allies, because the Bolsheviks were largely committed to ending the war. If the new Soviet government withdrew from the war, considerable German military forces would be shifted from the Eastern Front to the Western Front in 1918, thus nullifying the mounting American presence there. Opinion was sharply divided on a course of action. Some Allied agents in Russia believed that Bolshevik leaders could be persuaded to delay a peace or even to continue a military effort in return for desperately needed aid. Others advocated direct military intervention to maintain an Eastern Front, especially because of evidence that some units of the old Russian army remained intact and committed to continuing the war. American and British representatives in Russia, such as Raymond Robins and Robert Bruce Lockhart, campaigned for the former course, while influential political leaders urged direct military intervention, some maintaining that an American force of 100,000, could not only maintain a viable Eastern Front but also destroy the “communist threat.” The crisis came in March 1918 with the Soviet government’s negotiation of terms for a peace with Germany at Brest-Litovsk. Since there had been no forthright pledge of assistance, Vladimir Lenin felt that ratification of the treaty was necessary, but about the same time, due to deteriorating conditions in the major ports that contained large amounts of Allied supplies for Russia, detachments of marines from Allied warships in the harbors landed to safeguard personnel and reestablish order in the old port of Archangel on the White Sea, in the new one of Murmansk in March 1918, and at Vladivostok on the Pacific in April. Doing anything more at the time was precluded by the concentration of available men and supplies on the Western Front to stem a surprisingly successful German offensive. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk gave Germany access to a large part of the Russian Empire and to valuable military supplies, much of Allied origin. Moreover, a large number of liberated German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war were able to return to combat in the West or control large areas of Russia, such as Siberia.
With the German offensive in the West stopped, but the Russian situation continuing to deteriorate, the Allies considered a more substantial military intervention. President Woodrow Wilson was reluctant to interfere in another country’s affairs, especially because it might result in dividing the old Russian Empire and its resources among the other Allies. But, in the interests of Allied harmony (and their commitment to a future League of Nations), he
