August Uprising - Aftermath

Aftermath

Reports of the extent of the repressions caused an outcry among socialists abroad. Leaders of the Second International sent a resolution to the League of Nations condemning the Soviet government, but did not achieve any substantial results. Clara Zetkin, a notable German Social Democrat, attempted to counteract the negative publicity, visited Tiflis and then wrote a leaflet on Georgia, in which she claimed that only 320 persons had been shot. Nonetheless the public outcry resulted in unpleasant repercussions for the central government in Moscow, prompting the Politburo to set up a special commission, led by Ordzhonikidze, to investigate the causes of the uprising and the Cheka activities during its elimination. In October 1924, following the issuance of the commission’s report, some members of the Georgian Cheka were purged as "unreliable elements" who were presumably offered up as scapegoats for the atrocities. Ordzhonikidze himself admitted before a meeting of the Central Committee in Moscow in October 1924 that "perhaps we did go a little far, but we couldn't help ourselves.” On 7 October 1924, the Soviet administration (Sovnarkom, "Council of People's Commissars") of Georgia declared an amnesty to all participants of the revolt who would surrender voluntarily. In early March 1925 the Chairman of the All-Union Executive Committee, Mikhail Kalinin, arrived in Georgia and called for the amnesty of the participants of the August 1924 insurrection, and for the suspension of religious persecutions. As a result, the Cheka grip in Georgia was relatively eased (for example, Catholicos Patriarch Ambrose and the members of the Patriarchal Council were released), military pacification was completed and an appearance of normality returned to the country, but Georgians had suffered a shock from which they were never able to completely recover. The uprising proved to be a last armed effort of Georgians to oust the Bolshevik regime and regain their independence. The most active pro-independence part of the Georgian society, nobility, military officers and intellectual elites were virtually exterminated. Only a few survivors such as Cholokashvili, Lashkarashvili and some of their associates managed to escape abroad. The Georgian émigré Irakly Tsereteli considered the event disastrous both for the future of social democracy and of Georgia. The failure of the uprising and the intensified police repression that followed decimated the Menshevik organization in Georgia and it no longer was a threat to the Bolsheviks. However, Beria and his colleagues continued to use a "menshevik danger" as an excuse for reprisals in Georgia. During the years 1925–6 at least 500 socialists were shot without trial.

The uprising was also exploited as the pretext for disrupting Tiflis University which was seen by the Bolsheviks as a shelter of Georgian nationalism. Despite the fact that several leading academics, who sympathized with or even participated in the anti-Soviet movement, eventually distanced themselves from the idea of an armed revolt and even denounced it in a special statement, the university was purged of unreliable elements and placed under the complete control of the Communist Party. Substantial changes were made in its structure, curriculum, and personnel, including the dismissal of the Rector, a noted historian Ivane Javakhishvili.

On the other hand, the events in Georgia demonstrated the necessity for greater concessions to the peasants; Stalin declared that an August 1924 uprising in Georgia was sparked by dissatisfaction among the peasants and called the party to conciliate them. He admitted that "what has happened in Georgia may happen throughout Russia, unless we make a complete change in our attitude to the peasantry" and placed the responsibility for the errors committed on subordinate officials. Vyacheslav Molotov, an influential member of the Politburo, for his part declared: "Georgia provides a startling example of the breach between the Party and the mass of the peasantry in the country." As a result, the Communist Party of Georgia chose, for the time being, to use peaceful persuasion rather than armed coercion to extend their influence over the peasant masses, and to moderate the attempts to enforce collectivization. The extension of the radical land reform and the relative freedom granted peasants reduced hostility to the new regime. Although the last attributes of Georgia’s political and economic sovereignty, which both the Mensheviks and the "national Communists" had fought to preserve, had been eliminated, the final victory of the Soviet power in Georgia was accompanied by moderate economic growth, that ensured relative stability in the country. Another important factor in lessening opposition to the Bolsheviks, particularly from the intelligentsia, was the policy of "nativization" persuaded by the Soviet government in the 1920s; Georgian art, language, and learning were promoted; the spread of literacy was sponsored and the role of ethnic Georgians in administrative and cultural institutions enhanced.