Georgian Affair (1922)

Background

Soviet rule in Georgia was established by the Red Army in the February-March 1921 campaign, engineered above all by the Georgian-born Stalin and Ordzhonikidze, head of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee. Lenin, fearful of international consequences and a crisis with Kemalist Turkey, consented only on 14 February 1921 and afterwards complained of inconsistent information from the Caucasus. Aware of widespread opposition to the militarily imposed regime, he favoured a reconciliatory policy towards the Georgian intelligentsia and peasants. Moderates such as Filipp Makharadze read this as a way to secure a broad base for Soviet power and advocated tolerance of the Menshevik opposition, greater internal party democracy, gradual land reform and respect for Georgia's sovereignty; Ordzhonikidze and Stalin sought instead to eliminate political opposition and centralise party control.

In early July 1921 Stalin visited Tbilisi, delivered a speech against local nationalism and was booed by a workers' assembly. He removed Makharadze as head of the Georgian Revolutionary Committee for insufficient firmness, replaced him with Polikarp Mdivani and told local leaders to 'crush the hydra of nationalism'. Within less than a year, however, Stalin was in open conflict with Mdivani.

Conflict over the federation

At issue was Georgia's status in the projected union. Over the objections of other Georgian Bolsheviks, Ordzhonikidze had launched in late 1921 the formation of a union of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and, with Stalin's strong backing, insisted that this federation join the Soviet Union as one federative republic. The Georgian Central Executive Committee, Mdivani above all, demanded instead that Georgia enter as a full member, preserving a stronger individual identity. Ordzhonikidze's proposal nevertheless passed a Georgian Party Congress with the support of rank-and-file delegates.

Stalin and his aides accused the Georgian leadership of selfish nationalism and labelled them 'national deviationists'; the Georgians replied with charges of 'Great Russian chauvinism'. On 21 October 1922 Mdivani contacted Moscow to berate Ordzhonikidze in harsh terms; the same day Lenin sent a telegram rebuking Mdivani, upholding Stalin's position and endorsing the integration of the Transcaucasian republics. The conflict peaked in November 1922, when Ordzhonikidze struck a member of the Mdivani group during a verbal confrontation; the Georgian leaders complained to Lenin with a long list of abuses, including that incident. A third-party account names the victim as the Georgian Communist Kobakhidze, who had called him 'Stalin's donkey'. On 19 October the Zakkraikom had removed Okudzhava from his post, and the whole Georgian Central Committee resigned in protest.

Lenin's intervention

In late November 1922 Lenin dispatched the Cheka chief Dzerzhinsky to Tiflis to investigate. Dzerzhinsky sympathised with Stalin and Ordzhonikidze and gave Lenin a smoothened picture in his report, but Lenin's doubts mounted, and he also feared an outcry abroad and in other Soviet republics. In late December 1922 he accepted that both men were guilty of imposing Great Russian nationalism on non-Russian nationalities.

On 30 and 31 December 1922 Lenin dictated 'The Question of Nationalities or Autonomisation'. Shocked that Ordzhonikidze could resort to physical violence, he wrote that 'no provocation or even insult can justify such Russian manhandling', that the whole business of 'autonomisation' was radically wrong, that Ordzhonikidze should receive exemplary punishment, and that 'the political responsibility for all this truly Great-Russian nationalist campaign' lay with Stalin and Dzerzhinsky. He insisted on distinguishing the nationalism of oppressor and oppressed nations and argued it was better to overdo concessions to national minorities. The text became one of his last major writings. Over 15-16 December 1922 his condition worsened so that he could no longer write, and the Central Committee restricted contact with him and limited dictation to 5-10 minutes a day. On 25 January 1923 the Central Committee endorsed the Dzerzhinsky report; Lenin was absent and forbidden to receive it.

Lenin's misgivings were nevertheless not fundamental. As his health deteriorated, the Georgian leaders were left without a major ally, watching Georgia pressed into the Transcaucasian federation that joined with the Russian SFSR, Ukraine and Belarus in the Soviet Union on 30 December 1922.

Outcome and aftermath

The Politburo decision of 25 January 1923 removing Mdivani and his associates was a conclusive victory for Ordzhonikidze and his backers. In one account, on 5 March 1923 Lenin broke off personal relations with Stalin and tried to enlist Trotsky to take over the Georgian question, preparing several notes; on 9 March he suffered a third stroke, and Trotsky declined to confront Stalin. With Lenin's notes suppressed, the Georgian Communists were isolated at the 12th Party Congress in April 1923. Historian Stephen Kotkin has challenged the authenticity of the source materials behind that account, while most historians consider Lenin's major writings of the period an accurate reflection of his views.

The affair held back the careers of the Georgian Old Bolsheviks, while Ordzhonikidze's reputation also suffered and he was soon recalled from the Caucasus. Mdivani and his associates were moved to minor posts and not actively attacked until the late 1920s, but most of them were executed during the Great Purge of the 1930s. Another major consequence was the intensification of political repression in Georgia, leading to an armed rebellion in August 1924 and the ensuing Red Terror, which took several thousand lives.