Hnchak Party

The Hnchak Party, formally the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party, was founded in Geneva in 1887. It was a Marxist party that aimed at socialism and at the freedom of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which it sought through revolution. Its best-known leader was Avetis Nazarbekian, and in 1890 it took the name Hunchakian Revolutionary Party.¹

In 1890 its representative at Tiflis, Ruben Khan-Azat, joined the talks that formed the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and insisted that the new union take socialism as its goal. The compromise left the word socialism out, and the Hnchak leadership in Geneva declared in May or June 1891 that no real union had taken place and withdrew.²