Gummet

(Energy), an Azerbaijani social democratic group. Gummet was founded in 1904 by the Baku committee of the RSDLP for political work among working-class Muslims, in order to involve them in the revolutionary struggle, educate them in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, and conduct agitation and propaganda, taking into consideration their language and national customs. Gummet, which became a mass organization, was part of the Bolshevik organization. It communicated with the Baku committee through an exchange of representatives. However, for tactical reasons Gummet often posed as an independent organization. P. A. Dzhaparidze, A. M. Stopani, and S. M. Efendiev participated actively in the creation of Gummet, and M. A. Aziz-bekov, A. Akhundov, M. Mamed’iarov, N. N. Narimanov, and S. G. Shaumian were also among its leading members.

During the Revolution of 1905–07, Gummet participated in the organization of strikes, the work of the Baku soviet and the Union of Petroleum Workers, and the printing of leaflets. From October 1904 to February 1905 the organization issued the hectographed newspaper Gummet in Azerbaijani and published the program of the RSDLP in Azerbaijani (1906). The arrests of 1907–11 weakened Gummet’s activity. It resumed active work after the February Revolution of 1917. In the regions of Baku and other cities of Azerbaijan divisions and groups of Gummet were founded. The newspaper Gummet was published from July 3 (16), 1917. Gummet and the Baku party organization were presented at the Sixth Congress of the RSDLP (Bolshevik). The congress heard a report on Gummet’s activities. On behalf of the congress the Central Committee welcomed Gummet as the first social democratic organization of the Bolshevik tendency among the toiling Muslims and commended it for its revolutionary work.

After the temporary fall of Soviet power in Baku (July 1918), Gummet went underground. Many members left for Astrakhan, where the organization’s bureau was established and the newspaper Gummet was published. At the end of 1918 the leaders of the Menshevik Gummet organization, which had existed since the summer of 1917 in Tbilisi, arrived in Baku. They participated in the Musavatist parliament, forming a socialist faction. In order to use the parliament for revolutionary work, the Baku Bolshevik committee agreed to form a single Gummet organization (March 1919). By the end of 1919 the Gummet Bolsheviks had broken with the Mensheviks. In February 1920, the Baku organization of the RCP (Bolshevik), Gummet, and Adalet (a social democratic organization) formed the Azerbaijani Communist Party (Bolshevik).