Armenian Americans

ARMENIAN AMERICANS. Large numbers of Armenians immigrated to the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most of them came from the Ottoman Empire, fleeing the persecutions and massacres of 1895–1896 and 1908, and, finally, the 1915 Armenian genocide. Many of these immigrants, especially those who were educated and lived in cities, were influenced by the cultural and political awakening of the Armenian people that had taken place in the nineteenth century in Western (Turkish) and Eastern (Russian) Armenia, dominated during this period by the Ottoman and Russian Empires, respectively.

In the 1880s and 1890s politicized Armenians in the Turkish- and Russian-dominated homeland, disillusioned by the broken promises of the major Western powers (England, France, and Germany) to guarantee them cultural and political autonomy—the question of complete independence and sovereignty was not raised at this time—began the formation of political parties for the achievement of their goals. The two major groups established in the late nineteenth century were the Social Democrat Hunchak Party (Hunchaks) and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaks).

Founded in Geneva in 1887, the Hunchaks were influenced by Marxist thought, the party being the first Armenian socialist organization. Their energies were directed at Turkish Armenia as the most oppressed sector of the historic homeland. They believed that only through revolution and an international socialist perspective could the historic homeland be liberated. On the other hand, the Dashnaks, founded in Tlflis (modern Tbilisi, Georgia) in 1890, had a much more nationalistic perspective. Their goal for the liberation of the historic homeland was envisaged in the context of a sovereign nation-state rather than a world federation of socialist states (which the Hunchaks advocated). However, the two organizations were able to cooperate in certain political activities, since both advocated the accomplishment of their goals through revolutionary means (political agitation, violence when and if necessary, illegal action, etc.)

Both the Hunchaks and Dashnaks established branches of their respective political organizations in the United States in the 1890s. Since Worcester, Massachusetts, was the first Armenian center on the East Coast, it was in that city that the first Hunchak (1890) and Dashnak (1895–1896) branches were established. As the Hunchak Party was a member of the Second International, many of its members cooperated with the American Socialist Party. In 1906 the Socialist Armenian Organization of the United States was founded. At first affiliated with the left wing of the Socialist Party, this group eventually was absorbed into the Communist Party.

World War I brought new hope to both the Armenian nationalists and socialists. The nationalists, led by the Dashnaks, pinned their hopes and aspirations on the Allied powers. Their party was able to establish a short-lived independent Armenian state in Transcaucasia between 1918 and 1920, that was oriented toward the Allies. The socialists, led by the Hunchaks, Armenian Bolsheviks, and others, looked to the newly formed Soviet state for help in attaining their goal of a liberated socialist Armenia. Invaded by Kemalist Turkey and pressured by the Soviets, the Dashnak-led Republic of Armenia collapsed and was replaced by a soviet socialist republic in November 1920, with the full support of the Hunchaks and Armenian Bolsheviks.

After World War I and the collapse of the Second International, the socialist movement split, and Socialist and Communist parties were formed throughout the world. In 1921, with the fusion of two groups, America’s Communist Party was formed, and, as noted above, the Socialist Armenian Organization of the United States united with it. In the same year the Communist Party established an Armenian bureau that carried on agitation work among more than fifty thousand Armenian-American workers. Owing to the activities of Armenian Communists, an “Armenian Labor Union” was formed in 1921 and tried to persuade Hunchaks and Armenian workers to join. This in turn led to the formation of the Armenian Labor Party in 1922. In 1923 this party joined with the Hunchaks in founding the Armenian Federation of the American Workers Party, which fell apart soon after its inception.

The internal conflicts of the Communist Party in the 1920s and the subservience of the Party to the Soviet Union and Stalin in the 1930s had a profound effect on its national sections, including the Armenian, so much so that by the beginning of World War II these sections were no longer operative. With the disintegration of the Armenian section of the Communist Party, a group of former members, uniting with Armenians sympathetic to the Soviet Union and to communist ideology, formed the Armenian Progressive League (Progressives) in 1938. This organization supported the efforts of the Soviet Union in its fight against fascism in World War II, as well as being an ardent defender of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Since the 1950s there has been a general dearth of Left politics and activities among Armenian Americans. This has been due in part to the generally upswing in conservatism and in part to the profound changes that have taken place in the Armenian socialist and communist organizations. The Hunchaks, owing to ethnocentric and ideological pressures, tended to de-emphasize socialism and instead promoted Armenianism, conforming to the nationalistic ideology of the two other major Armenian political parties, the Dashnaks and the Ramkavars (Ramkavar Freedom Party), a bourgeois-liberal organization. These organizations published a number of papers, both Armenian and English, in this country. The Hunchaks published a weekly called Massis (Ararat) on the West Coast and a monthly, Eritassard Hayastan (Young Armenia), on the East Coast (both in Armenian). The Dashnaks published a daily called Asbarez (Combat) on the West Coast and a daily, Hairenik (Fatherland), on the East Coast (both in Armenian, with Asbarez having an English section), as well as an English weekly called the Armenian Weekly. The Ramkavars published a daily called Baikar (Struggle) in Armenian, as well as an English weekly called the Armenian Mirror Spectator. The progressives published a weekly called Lraper (Reporter) in Armenian and English, and both they and the Hunchaks were unique (among long-established radical groups of immigrants in the United States) in having been revived to a degree by a new influx of recent Left-minded refugees, immersed in Armenian language and culture.

With the demise of the Soviet Union and the formation of an independent Armenian state in Transcaucasia in September 1991, two of the major diasporan Armenian parties (Hunchaks and Dashnaks) began to establish branches in the homeland. Under these circumstances very strong ties have been forged between the American sections of these organizations and those of the fledgling Republic of Armenia.

“The Armenians in the USA” (in Armenian). In The Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 1. Yerevan: 1974.

Atamian, S. The Armenian Community. New York: Philosophical Library, 1955.

“The Communist Party of the USA” (in Armenian). In The Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 1. Yerevan: 1974.

Mirak, R. Torn between Two Lands: Armenians in America, 1890 to World War I. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983.

Nalbandian, L. The Armenian Revolutionary Movement. Berkeley and Los Angeles: UCLA Near Eastern Center, 1963.

Walker, C. J. Armenia: Survival of a Nation. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981.