Azerbaijani Communists and Russian Bolsheviks

Within a few days of the opening of Parliament the Himmät's new platform was outlined in a declaration written by Shaikhul-Islamzadä and printed in the official government newspaper. Its two main points were (1) recognition of the fact that the newly created republics had won independence as a consequence of the principle of self-determination and (2) recognition of the necessity for socialist participation in the democratic governments of the emerging states.

The advent of the parliamentary regime revived the languishing Azerbaijani socialist movement. By early 1919 the membership of the Himmät in Baku alone reached some three hundred, two-thirds of them workers. In March the party healed its split by admitting the remnants of the pro-Bolshevik faction. The Himmät was also infused with young blood, a seemingly healthy development except for the fact that some of these men in their twenties were Bolshevik-oriented. The same was true of the former pillar of the “Tiflis Center,” Garayev, who together with other youthful radicals – Mirza Davud Huseynov, Mir Fattah Musävi, and Ashum Äliyev – took seats in the party's central committee side by side with the old-guard Mensheviks Abilov, Aghamalioghlï, and Pepinov. Garayev and Musävi, who were also appointed deputies to Parliament, soon began to act as spokesmen for the Bolsheviks.

Bolshevik influence, which had reached its nadir in the summer of 1918, regained some ground in the first year of Azerbaijani independence.