Abstract
On the night of 19 January 1990, more than 100 people died and about 400 were injured when Soviet troops invaded Baku following riots and pogroms which had been taking place against the Armenian population of the city. However, even the Armenians have questioned the timing of the Kremlin's intervention days after the violence had taken place. The purpose, it has been suggested, was not to protect lives but to curb the growing power of the,Azerbaijani Popular Front.
According to witnesses, soldiers fired indiscriminately. Some of those hurt were unarmed, innocent civilians. They included old people, women and children. Whether it was indeed an attempt to restore the power of the Communist Party, or harshly to reestablish order in a discontented region, what took place was an example of severe and largely gratuitous violence by Soviet troops. As thefollowing eyewitness report and photographs show, it was nothing short of a massacre.