According to the Human Rights Watch reporter Robert Kushen, "the action was not entirely (or perhaps not at all) spontaneous, as the attackers had lists of Armenians and their addresses".
This process took place in the light of the new economic and political policies, perestroika and glasnost, introduced by the new General Secretary of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev who had come to power on March 10, 1985.
[11][9] This unprecedented action by a regional soviet brought out tens of thousands of demonstrations both in Stepanakert and Yerevan, but Moscow rejected the Armenians' demands labelling them as "nationalists" and "extremists".
At the same time groups of young Azerbaijanis were roaming the streets, terrorizing Armenian citizens and warning them to leave the town.
According to him, at first a large crowd gathered in the Lenin Square of Baku, and at nightfall different groups separated from the Azerbaijani Popular Front demonstrators, and started to attack Armenians.
[23] Kirill Stolyarov in his book "Break-up" describes beatings of the elderly, expelling them from their homes, burning people alive and other cases of savagery.
[24] Soyuz weekly on May 19, 1990 reported "... in the course of Armenian pogroms in Baku raging crowd literally tore a man apart, and his remains were thrown into a garbage bin".
Aleksei Vasiliev, an Azerbaijani soldier of the Soviet army testified seeing a naked woman being thrown out of the window into the fire in which her furniture was burning.
[26]Bill Keller, who was in Baku after the events, in his report for The New York Times wrote: Here and there, boarded windows or soot-blackened walls mark an apartment where Armenians were driven out by mobs and their belongings set afire on the balcony.
The Armenian Orthodox Church, whose congregation has been depleted over the past two years by an emigration based on fear, is now a charred ruin.
[27]On January 15 Radio Liberty reported: "Raging crowds killed at least 25 people at night of 14 in the Armenian district of Baku – the capital of Soviet republic of Azerbaijan.
[28]One of the leaders of the National Front of Azerbaijan Etibar Mammadov himself testified of the cruelties and of no official intervention: "I myself witnessed the murder of two Armenians near the railway station.
"[29]Russian poet David Samoylov referring to Baku pogroms made a note in his diary on January 18, "The atrocities in Azerbaijan are shocking.
"[30] Thus the pogrom in Baku resulted in numerous human casualties; dozens of thousands of Armenians lost their houses and were deported from the country – this was acknowledged by the Chairman of the Soviet of the Union Yevgeny Primakov on the closed session of the Supreme Council of USSR on March 5, 1990.
Azaddin Gyulmamedov, a young Azerbaijani who attended the rally in Baku on the 13th and witnessed the outbreak of anti-Armenian violence, gave the following testimony: We went to see what was happening.
"[36] Baku massacre survivor Emma Bagdasarova (currently US citizen) gave the following account: When the beatings began, my cousin was beaten on a tram.
Then I was told, as I hadn't seen it myself, there was a woman literally ripped in half...[38]On January 20, 1990, after the Armenian population was already expelled from the city, the Soviet troops intervened in Baku and a state of martial law was declared.
National Deputy of the USSR, Nikolai Petrushenko, voiced his concern of indifference or collusion by the Azeri government,[42] as did Vadim Bakatin, the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR[43] The authorities thus not only failed to stem the anti-Armenian attacks, but also raised serious doubts about whether the Soviets wished to stem the violence at all or merely to hold the power in Baku.
A Moscow News article dated February 4, 1990 reported[citation needed]: Unlike Sumgait, the Soviet army was late in Baku not for 3 hours, but for a whole week.
The authorities of the Republic closed their eyes also on the intentions of Azerbaijani right wing to escalate the confrontation with Armenia... the arson of the Armenian church with no police intervention was one of the examples of this policy.
The newspaper Novaya Zhizn at the time of the pogroms reported, "The number of Armenians killed in Baku has already surpassed that of Sumgait; this new tragedy was the direct consequence of the authorities trying to silence the first one.