Georgia on Protecting Independence: from the Brest Peace to Occupation by Soviet Government

Abstract

Based on documents of the archive of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University and the archives of the International Institute of Social History, as well as on memoirs, the articles offers an insight into the coming of the Georgian Mensheviks to power in the country in 1918 and the attempts of the new republic to defend its independence and territorial integrity in the context of the First World War and the Civil War in Soviet Russia. It examines the diplomatic activities of the Georgian government as a part of the Transcaucasian Federal Republic and the protection of their own state interests in the struggle against both Soviet Russia and Turkey. The authors pay special attention to the complicated negotiations in Trebizond in March 1918 with respect to the signing of a peace treaty with Turkey and the organisation of military resistance against the Turkish invasion and the proclamation of the independence of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. Keywords: Georgia, Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, emigration, Social Democratic Party (of Mensheviks), diplomatic negotiations in Trebizond.