Georgian Affair (1922)
그루지야 사건
A political conflict sparked in late 1922 when the Georgian Bolshevik leadership resisted Moscow's plan to fold Georgia into a Transcaucasian Federation, insisting on direct full-member status in the USSR. The dispute escalated when Ordzhonikidze physically struck a Georgian Bolshevik, and the Dzerzhinsky commission sent to investigate whitewashed the incident. An outraged Lenin dictated 'The Question of Nationalities or Autonomisation,' his final testament on the national question, but the Stalin–Ordzhonikidze line prevailed. The affair crystallised the tension between Great Russian chauvinism and national self-determination at the very birth of the Soviet Union.
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Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) factual base: background, key actors Ordzhonikidze/Stalin vs. Mdivani/Makharadze, Dzerzhinsky commission, Lenin's break with Stalin
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian article with details on Ordzhonikidze's temperament, the slap incident with Akaki Kabakhidze, and the Great Russian chauvinism charges
- Marxists Internet Archive Lenin's primary text 'The Question of Nationalities or Autonomisation' (Dec 30–31, 1922), dictated in direct response to the Georgian affair; condemns Ordzhonikidze's violence and assigns political responsibility to Stalin and Dzerzhinsky