August Uprising - Background

Background

Georgia was proclaimed a Soviet Socialist Republic on 25 February 1921, when the Red Army took control of Tiflis (Tbilisi), the capital of Georgia, and forced the Menshevik government into exile.

The loyalty of the Georgian population to the new regime proved not easy to obtain. Within the first three years of their rule, the Bolsheviks managed to recruit fewer than 10,000 people into their party, while the Mensheviks still enjoyed significant popularity in Georgia, counting over 60,000 members in their organizations. The 1918–1921 independence, though short-lived, had played a crucial role in the national awakening of Georgia, winning a popular support to the ruling Menshevik party. The forcible Sovietization and grievances over the ensuing border rearrangements in which Georgia lost sizeable portion of its pre-Soviet territories to Turkey (see Treaty of Kars), Azerbaijan SSR, Armenian SSR and Russia, fueled a widespread opposition to the new regime. The new Bolshevik government, led by the Georgian Revkom (Revolutionary Committee), enjoyed so little support among the population that it faced the distinct prospect of insurrection and civil war. The Bolsheviks had limited ties with the Georgian peasantry, which was overwhelmingly opposed to collectivization and dissatisfied over land shortages and other economic troubles. The situation in the country was further aggravated by a famine prevailing in many areas and the summer 1921 outbreak of cholera which carried off thousands of victims. The desperate shortage of food and the breakdown of medical services resulted in heavy mortality, Catholicos Patriarch Leonid being among the dead. The highly politicized working class of Georgia, with its severe economic problems, was also hostile toward the new regime as were the national intelligentsia and nobility who had pledged their loyalty to the Menshevik republic. A delayed transition from the Revkom’s rule to the Soviets’ system, subordination of workers’ organizations and trades unions to the Bolshevik party committees and Moscow’s centralizing policy created a discontent even among the multiethnic workers of Tiflis who were the most sympathetic towards Communist doctrines.

Public discontent within the Georgian society indirectly reflected in a bitter struggle among Bolsheviks about the way in which social and political transformation was to be achieved in Georgia. Hardliners led by Sergo Ordzhonikidze, head of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee (Zaikkraikom) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and Joseph Stalin, People's Commissar for Nationalities for the RSFSR, launched a series of measures aimed at elimination of the last remnants of Georgia’s self-rule. They were opposed by a group of Georgian Bolsheviks, described by their opponents as "national deviationists" and led by Filipp Makharadze and Budu Mdivani, who advocated tolerance toward the Menshevik opposition, greater democracy within the party, a moderate approach toward land reform, and, above all, called for greater autonomy from Moscow and stubbornly opposed Stalin’s project of uniting all the three Transcaucasian republics economically and politically. The crisis known as the "Georgian Affair" lasted throughout 1922 and ended with the hardliners’ victory. As a result, Georgia was merged with the Armenian and Azerbaijan republics into the Transcaucasian SFSR, a decision which delivered a heavy blow to Georgian national pride. With the defeat of "national deviationists", the Bolsheviks became more assertive; all kind of opposition was suppressed; those parties which still retained legal status were forced to announce their dissolution and declare their official loyalty to the Soviet authorities between April 1922 and October 1923. Those who continued to operate did that as underground organizations. The Georgian Orthodox Church was also persecuted; over 1,500 churches and monasteries were closed or demolished and a number of clerics were imprisoned, including Catholicos Patriarch Ambrose who was arrested and tried for having sent a letter of protest to the 1922 Genoa Conference in which he described the conditions under which Georgia was living since the Red Army invasion and begged for the "help of the civilized world".