The Soviet side, led by Shahumyan, realized that full civil war was starting and its own forces were insufficient against Azerbaijani masses led by Musavat. Allies were found among the Mensheviks, SRs, and the Kadets (right-wing liberals), which promised to support the Bolsheviks as the champions of the "Russian Cause." In response to these, Musavat's Achiq Söz newspaper noted that while Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were fighting all year, both were uniting against Musavat even with the Kadets and the Dashnaks. The paper attributed such alliance to national factors, and concluded that the Soviet's attempt to provoke "one nationality against another, instead of fighting a class war, was a tragic capitulation of democracy". On the morning of 31 March, Azerbaijanis opposed to the Bolshevik disarming of the Caucasian Native Cavalry Division held protests in Baku, demanding to arm the Muslims. The Azerbaijani Bolshevik organization Hümmet attempted to mediate the dispute, proposing that the arms taken from the Caucasian Native Cavalry Division be transferred to the custody of the Hümmet. Shahumyan agreed to this proposal, but on the afternoon of 31 March, when Muslim representatives appeared before the Baku Soviet leadership to take the arms, shots were already being heard in the city and the Soviet commissar Prokofy Dzhaparidze refused to provide the arms. He informed the Hümmet leadership that "Musavat had launched a political war". The talks broke off abruptly when the Soviet's soldiers were fired upon. The Bolsheviks accused the Muslims of responsibility for the incident, stopped negotiations, and opened hostilities. Later Shahumyan admitted that the Bolsheviks deliberately used a pretext to attack their political opponents: Armenians initially remained neutral as the Muslim rebellion against the Soviet began. The Musavat Party proposed an alliance with the Dashnaks, but was given a rebuff. The Armenian leadership withdrew its forces to the Armenian areas of Baku and limited its action to self-defense. On the evening of 31 March, machine-gun and rifle fire in Baku intensified into a full-fledged battle. On the morning of 1 April 1918, the Committee of Revolutionary Defense of Baku's Soviet issued a leaflet which said: Forced to seek support from either Muslim Musavat or Armenian Dashnaktsutyun, Shahumyan, himself an Armenian, chose the latter. Following initial skirmishes in the streets, the Dashnaks proceeded to initiate a massacre, wildly killing Musavat military elements and Muslim civilians alike without mercy or discrimination in both Baku and the surrounding countryside. There were