ABSTRACT
The Hay Heghapokhakan Dashnaktsutiune (Armenian Revolutionary Federation, ARF) was founded in 1890 in Tiflis. First established as the Federation of Armenian Revolutionaries, the organization aimed at coordinating the activities of various student and radical groups devoted to Western Armenian liberation. During the second half of the nineteenth century the agrarian and economic crises in Western Armenian dominated the Armenian agenda. The first Armenian political party was founded by Eastern Armenians, who shared a sense of common history with Western Armenians—though not necessarily a common culture—and provided humanitarian assistance to them. According to the 1892 program of the ARF, the basic pattern in history has been the exploitation and political domination of political and economic elites over the working majority. The Armeno-Tatar conflict of 1905-1907 was an episode that strengthened the national character of the ARF. Among the many problems it posed was the threat to the position and properties of the Armenian bourgeoisie in the Caucasus.
