Abstract
This article looks at the semiofficial cult of the Red (People’s) Guard in Georgia from 1917 to 1921. The guard originated in the chaos and uncertainty of late 1917 and played a key role in securing the power of Noy Zhordania and the social democrats in Georgia against Bolshevik and other challenges. It also served as the power base for its undisputed leader, Valiko Jugeli. The official and party press fostered a heroic cult around the Guard, its exploits, and its leadership, reflected in Jugeli’s diary-style memoir, A Heavy Cross (1920). The guard’s cultivated image was selfless, politically conscious, internationalist, and devoted to the revolution. Its many critics saw it as thuggish, undisciplined, chauvinistic, corrupt, and militarily ineffective. The mutual dependency between Zhordania and Jugeli ensured that the guard was politically untouchable in Georgia. The need to maintain the loyalty of the guard, and gain the support of Jugeli, was at times a crucial factor in the politics of the country. Ultimately, the power and influence of the guard eroded the effectiveness of Georgia’s armed forces, and its treatment of national minorities, particularly Armenians and Ossetians, helped Bolsheviks inside and outside Georgia undermine and then overthrow the Democratic Republic. After the Sovietisation of Georgia in 1921, the record of the guard was used to discredit the social democrats’ democratic credentials domestically and internationally. Since around 1990, the guards’ South Ossetia campaigns of 1918–1920 have been used to underpin the area’s claims for independence from rule by Tbilisi.
Highlights
Georgia after March 1917Tiflis was the administrative and military centre for all Transcaucasia.From 1914 Russia’s war effort against the Ottoman empire was run fromTiflis, reserve troops were garrisoned there, and troops returning from the southern front passed through the city
Georgian social democrats identified with the Mensheviks – so much so, that in early April 1917 the local Bolsheviks opted to
Commission known as OZAKOM, but the real authority in Georgia and much of Transcaucasia lay with the Tiflis Soviet, headed by Zhordania
Summary
Tiflis was the administrative and military centre for all Transcaucasia. Tiflis, reserve troops were garrisoned there, and troops returning from the southern front passed through the city. After the fall of Tsarism in March 1917, the key regional political figure in Tiflis became Noy Zhordania, the charismatic Menshevik-aligned leader of the regional committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDRP) and chair of the Tiflis Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Commission known as OZAKOM, but the real authority in Georgia and much of Transcaucasia lay with the Tiflis Soviet, headed by Zhordania. Transcaucasia experienced the same deterioration in political, economic and social stability as the rest of Russia during 1917, the Mensheviks in Georgia retained their grip on the main political institutions and the loyalty of their working-class base. They did not lose many supporters to the Bolsheviks. Their tacit transformation into an increasingly national Georgian political force played an important part here
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