Georgia: A Social-Democratic Peasant Republic

Front matter

A SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC PEASANT REPUBLIC

IMPRESSIONS AND OBSERVATIONS

BY

Preface

THE present book is the result of a visit which I made to Georgia in August, 1920. Invited by the Social-Democratic Party of Georgia, I journeyed thence at the same time as the delegation of the Second International, which had been asked to visit the country by the Georgian Government. Falling ill in Rome, I was only able to reach the country fourteen days after the delegation arrived, in fact, just at the time when the latter was returning. I remained a much longer time in the country, from the end of September until the beginning of January. In view of the state of my health and the unfavourable weather, I was prevented from visiting every part of the country, like the delegation. To this must be added my ignorance of the Georgian language. Nevertheless, I was able to enter into direct contact with the people, and to acquaint myself with their ideas. Likewise, the native literature relating to the country, both official and private, was inaccessible to me because of the language difficulties, so far as I was not aided by translators.

Thus I cannot pose as one who has investigated the country. Nevertheless, I have learned far more of it than an ordinary tourist; everybody most readily gave me information upon all things that I asked about; both the heads of the Government and officials as well as the representatives of the Opposition; proletarians as well as business people and intellectuals.

The Communists kept far away from me. What they had to say could be seen each day in the daily papers which they published in Tiflis, although in Russia no Social-Democratic paper is allowed to appear. Naturally, this did not prevent the Communists from complaining about the lack of freedom in Georgia at every opportunity.

The freedom of the Press in democratic countries renders it easy for abuses to be brought to light, provided equal freedom is accorded to all sections.

Access to all institutions and undertakings was readily granted to me. As I made it a principle not to announce my visit beforehand, I could be certain that I should not be shown Potemkinian villages.

Thus, in spite of all difficulties, I have collected a large amount of information!, and believe I have obtained a correct picture of the characteristics of the country, at least in broad outline.

It is not my intention to write a book of travel—my personal experiences were too slight for this purpose—nor do I propose to give a detailed account of the country and the people. I must leave this to observers who are able to remain a longer period in the country and to see more of it than I did, and who are familiar with the language of the country.

What occupied my attention in Georgia, and what I shall deal with in this book, is not a geographical nor an ethnological, but a social problem, the question whether a real Socialist Government is possible in a country which is economically more backward than its Russian neighbour; how such a Government was able to maintain itself there, without dictatorship or terrorism, using the means and methods of democracy, and what it was able, under these circumstances, to achieve.

Thus I went to Georgia to study an interesting and important social experiment, and to draw from it conclusions which would be generally valid for Socialist practice. What I studied was the antithesis to Bolshevism. However insignificant it appears, it deserves our attention not less than the Bolshevist experiment, with its many sensational reverberations.

Unfortunately, it has become impossible to follow the practical development of the two experiments side by side to its culminating point. The process of consolidation of the Georgian community was brutally interrupted by the Russian neighbour and competitor.

When, in January of this year, I set out upon my return journey to Europe, I heard that the representative of Soviet Russia spoke to the Georgian Government in tones of warmest sympathy. To-day the representatives of Georgia are in possession of proofs that already in December, 1920, the Russian Government were making their military preparation for the invasion of Georgia, which followed in February. Then the country again became a province of Russia, in the form of an independent Soviet Republic. The small country was hedged in by a Russian Red Army, which numbered 120,000 men, and plundered to the utmost extent. As a subjugated territory, Georgia suffered more severely from the domination of Bolshevism than unhappy Russia itself. The course of its complete ruination, up to the point of absolute starvation, which was completed within the Russian Empire in four years, only occupied a few months.

I described, in the German edition of this work, conditions which I had just seen, but which have been completely superseded by other conditions at the time this English edition appears. Nevertheless, the subject still retains vital interest. For we are still confronted with Russian Bolshevism, the antithesis of the Social-Democratic Republic of Georgia, a knowledge of which is so helpful in enabling us to judge rightly the methods of Soviet Russia.

The dictatorship of the Moscow tyrants cannot become permanent in Georgia, any more than in Russia itself. The Georgian people have survived many barbarous invasions; they will also survive the devastation of the Red Army, and the horrors of the Extraordinary Commissions. In Russia, and consequently in Georgia, too, democracy must eventually triumph again.

Then the problems and experiences which I came up against in Georgia, and which are set forth in the present book, will find added significance beyond the confines of Georgia, for the whole of Russia and its border States.

The immediate future will, no doubt, be terrible for the country both north and south of the Caucasus. And even when every dictatorship, White as well as Red, is replaced by democracy, the economic organisms of those districts will, for a long time, bleed from a thousand wounds, and exist in a state of painful convalescence.

Our tasks in Western Europe at the present time consist in strengthening and unifying the Socialist parties and their international organisation. The more we succeed in this, the sooner shall we be in a position, not only to raise our own working class and our own nations, but also to lend powerful aid to a speedy recovery in the East.

Only for astronomers, but not for Socialists, is the saying valid that light comes from the East. When we Socialists of the West are called upon to bring redeeming light to the world, this does not signify a compliment to us, but a task which imposes on us the most devoted activity for our great ideal of the emancipation of the oppressed.

K. KAUTSKY.

Berlin-Charlottenburg, September 8th, 1921.

Chapter 1: Natural Conditions

GEORGIA

CHAPTER 1.

NATURAL CONDITIONS.

WHAT we learn to know when visiting a country are its forms and colours, and the character of its landscape.

At a first glance Georgia is bewitching, and this impression deepens as the endless variety of its pictures disclose themselves to our view. From a sea coast, with sub-tropical vegetation, the Caucasus rises to a height of more than fifteen thousand feet. The German explorer, Merzbacher, relates in his book, "The Caucasian Highlands," that from the summit of Elbrus (18,000 feet), he enjoyed a view which made such a powerful impression that compared with it the peaks of the Central Alps only left a feeble remembrance.

He also declares that the Via Mala, the Tamina, the Liechtenstein Gorge, and other renowned places, were left far behind by the wild, rocky scenery of the Tchegen, or of the Alasan and Korsuf rivers. Neither the Bernese Oberland nor Engadine, neither Judikarien nor Cortina came near to equalling the Swanetnian landscape in the grandeur of its proportions, in the harmony of its parts, in the wealth of its vegetation, or in the splendour of its colours.

I have quoted the testimony of the classic explorer of the mountains and peoples of the Caucasus, as I was prevented from enjoying its beauties on the spot.

Merzbacher was as well acquainted with the Alps as with the Caucasus, and others, who know both mountain ranges, consider the beauty and dimensions of the Caucasus to be superior to those of the Alps. If the reader will imagine the Bay of Naples to be a part of Switzerland, he will get an idea of the variety and perfection of nature to be found in Georgia.

Georgia not only combines sub-tropical coasts and glaciers, but also contains a great fulness of vegetation, produced by the tropical heat and great humidity, and close to this are arid desert regions. There is also a surprising number of medicinal springs of various kinds, which burst out of the volcanic soil.

Georgia has much to offer to invalids as well as to nature lovers and artists. Before the war, tourists and invalids, both from Russia and from. Western Europe, had begun to visit the wonderful country whose attractions were heightened by the fact that, unlike Switzerland and Italy, they were in many respects as yet untried. In the Caucasus there are virgin forests and remote valleys which no stranger has hitherto trodden. An evidence of the primitive character of the country is furnished by the circumstance that large beasts of prey are constantly met with there, as well as other kinds of wild animals. Bear's flesh comes into the market at Tiflis for sale, like beef with us, and at no higher price. On one occasion when, out of curiosity, I bought some bear's flesh, I asked where the bear had been shot, and was informed fifty miles from Tiflis—quite near the capital, and not in some remote Caucasian valley.

But Georgia is not only a veritable paradise for tourists, sportsmen and invalids. Nature also felt obliged to please the economists. Natural beauty and richness of soil, which are so seldom found together, are combined in Georgia to an extraordinary degree. The soil is extremely fruitful and capable of bearing rich harvests of southern and northern products, according to the position of the land. Oranges, figs, olives and tea flourish on the coast of the Black Sea, and cotton is cultivated towards Azerbaijan. Maize, wheat or barley are sown almost everywhere. Georgia is particularly rich in excellent wine, and seems to be the home of the grape, which grows wild in the woods. Tobacco also thrives very well, and, in quality, seems to be better than that of Trebizond. Nowhere have I seen such abundance of fruit as in Georgia, and in this respect it can only be compared with California. The Georgian mountains, especially the Caucasus, are infinitely rich in valuable woods. In minerals, too, Georgia conceals great treasures, of which the most important is the manganese of Tchiaturi, which ranks as the richest in the world. The three most considerable deposits of manganese are to be found in Brazil, India and Georgia. In 1913 these countries exported:—

Brazil | | 122,000 | tons of manganese.

India | | 772,366 | tons of manganese

Georgia | 1,061,731 | tons of manganese

Rich seams of coal are found in Georgia in at least two places, and, in addition, iron, copper, lead, zinc, etc.

In antiquity the country was famed for its gold (whence the legend of the Golden Fleece), but no gold mines are worked to-day. In many copper and zinc mines small admixtures of gold are found in the ore.

Chapter 2: Historical

CHAPTER II.

HISTORICAL.

Thus Georgia lacks nothing to make her not only one of the most beautiful, but also one of the richest countries in the world. But the material position of the Georgians does not depend merely upon the richness of the land in which they live; it is also, determined by the manner in which they have made use of it, and the relations they are obliged to enter into with their neighbours. In other words, it depends not only upon the natural, but also upon the social and economic conditions in which they exist. And during recent decades these conditions have: been anything but brilliant in Georgia.

For about a thousand years Georgia was indeed favoured by its geographical position, in that it came into, contact with Greece through the Black Sea.

The soil of many Greek States was too stony and sterile to support their growing populations. As seafaring progressed the Greeks learned to fetch the corn which they needed from Southern Russia. Thus they came into contact with the coasts of the Black Sea. They were also attracted to Georgia by the: gold which was then found there. As early as the eighth century B.C. colonies were planted by Greek towns along the Black Sea. The Georgians became acquainted with Greek civilisation at a time when the Germans, or their predecessors, living in primeval woods, stood on no higher plane of civilisation than the savage Indians of North America when they were discovered by Europeans.

Even more than by gold, the Greeks must have been attracted to Georgia because it provided so good a route, from the West to the East, to the then rich territories of Persia and Central Asia. Eastern and Western civilisation met in Georgia, and stimulated its intellectual development.

But highways to rich countries attract not only the merchant, but also the warrior, whether he be plunderer or conqueror. In the degree; in which the. connection between West and East, Greece and Central Asia, developed in Georgia, the clashes of Western and Eastern; armies became more frequent, and Georgia suffered devastation from being made a theatre of war. But it always recovered speedily, so long as it remained a highway of world commerce.

When, however, the Turks put an end to the Byzantine Empire, conquered not only Asia Minor and Constantinople, but also the Balkan; Peninsula, and dominated the Black Sea, Georgia was cut off from Europe.

Henceforth the trade route from West to East was across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. At the same time, Persia and Central Asia fell to pieces. Georgia lost more and more the capacity to make; good the consequences of the. everlasting state of war. Its civilisation, its prosperity, and even its population rapidly diminished. The only thing that persisted throughout the perpetual feuds on its soil was the feudal exploitation of the masses of peasants by numerous petty princes; an exploitation which became more oppressive in the degree that the peasant became poorer.

The consolidation of Russia brought about a change. The struggle of the West against the: robber nomads and conquerors who had penetrated into Europe during the middle ages was first successfully undertaken by Russia.

First the Tartars, and then the Turks, were pressed back by the Moscow Czars who established their own authority over the territory thus vacated. At the end of the eighteenth century they had been driven back as far as the Caucasus.

In 1783, Catherine the Second concluded with the Georgian King, Heraklius II, an agreement under which the latter accepted the protection of the Empress. This protection did not save Georgia from being again plundered by the Persians, but it prepared the way for the complete subjugation of the country by the Russians, who annexed Georgia as a province to their Empire in 1801.

The internal feuds and the hostile, invasions now gradually ceased. Still more important was the fact that Georgia was once more able to enter into relations with Europe. But the representatives of European civilisation were practically confined to Russian officials, generals and aristocrats, who brought from Europe what they themselves had assimilated, the external gloss which did not always sufficiently hide Asiatic barbarism. The feudal oppression and exploitation was not lightened, but even made heavier by the military and bureaucratic regime.

Meanwhile the Russian autocracy did not remain completely unchallenged. The economic development created in the Russian Empire revolutionary sections, which eventually became strong enough to give battle to Absolutism, although, at first, only by means of underground warfare.

In many of the Border States, which formerly had known a separate political life, the struggle against Russian Absolutism became especially intensive owing to the fact that it signified not merely the breaking of the fetters of Absolutism and Feudalism, but also the casting off of the foreign tyranny.

This was the case in Poland and also in Georgia. In these countries all classes felt the pressure of the foreign bureaucracy in the most severe form. In Poland the peasants were played off against the large landowners, and sometimes favoured, but nothing like this happened in Georgia. Those who were not masters of the Russian language were everywhere degraded and excluded from all offices. Even in the factories of Georgia a worker who had not undergone an examination in Russian was liable to be refused employment.

The growth of Georgian resistance to the foreign yoke was assisted, for a time, by the practice of the Russian Government in banishing to Georgia, as well as to Siberia, its subversive subjects, such as Poles. This practice did not last long, as Georgia commenced to mutiny in the middle of the last century. It was then the turn of the Georgians themselves to be banished, and they shared this fate in the fullest measure, the struggle against Czardom had to be carried on with the aid of the ideas of the more highly developed West. Not only the officials, the military and the aristocrats, but also the revolutionaries of Russia drew their knowledge and methods of thinking from Western Europe.

This occurred at a time when the revolutionary movement of Russia received such an accession of strength that the Liberals had become Conservative, and only the Socialists represented revolutionary thought. Thus the Russian Revolutionaries became Socialists, in spite of the weakness of the proletariat and its class struggle in the Russian Empire. And just as the capitalists of Russia chose the more perfected forms of European technique for the industry which they founded, so the Socialists of Russia chose the most perfected form of Socialism, the Marxian.

This also applied to Georgia. There only for a short time the Opposition movement was led by the aristocracy, as in Poland, and possessed a purely nationalist, character. At the time when serfdom was abolished in Russia an echo was heard in Georgia in the form of peasant unrest, which was suppressed with bloodshed.

The Opposition movement first became strong and systematic when industrial capital was attracted to Georgia by the building of the railway from Tiflis to Baku (commenced in 1880); by the increasing significance of petroleum production in Baku, and its growing exports of that article. Although capitalism was still in an undeveloped stage, Socialism of the Marxian kind took root in Georgia at this time. In the ten years between 1890 and 1900 the Socialist movement rapidly gained in strength.

Its first champions were the practical organisers and agitators Sylvester Jibladse and N. Tcheidze, with whom was soon associated the publicist and theoretician, Noe Jordania, who did even more for Georgia than Plechanoff did for Russia, as he remained in the country instead of working from a place of exile, and as he united the talents of the practical fighter with the activities of the thinker and publicist.

The first strike in Tiflis took place in the year 1896, and the First of May was celebrated ini that town from 1899 onwards.

In the following year, on May 1st, 1900, a workers' festival was arranged, at which about five hundred workers were present. The most hopeful outlook prevailed, and for the first time revolutionary songs were heard in the Georgiani language, in the midst of banners with the portraits of Marx, Lassalle and Engels.

In the same year the Socialist organisations of Georgia joined up with the Social-Democratic Party of Russia, which was formed at that time.

The Georgian Socialists did not desire that local particularism should cut them off from the mass of the struggling proletariat of Russia. From the very first they attached importance to the ideal of international solidarity as opposed to Georgian nationalism. Without depreciating the demand of the Georgian nation for self-determination, they believed this would be most effectually promoted within the sphere of the Russian Social-Democracy, which stood for universal self-determination. Unlike the Polish Socialists, they entered the International as Russian Social Democrats. The International did not include any separate Georgian Social-Democratic Party.

By adopting this course, however, the Socialists of Georgia became involved in all the errors and confusions through which Russian Socialism has passed.

In contrast to Georgia, where the Proletarian movement has nearly always remained true, to Marxian Social-Democracy, the Socialist movement of Russia has been split into various sections.

On the one hand was the Social-Democracy, with tendencies in line with the thought of Western Europe, and postulating an advanced stage of capitalism as the indispensable preliminary to Socialism; and, on the other hand, was the Social Revolutionary Party, with a specific Russian Socialism, which it sought to base lather upon the peasants and the vestiges of village communism than upon the proletariat. These doctrines could scarcely find any support in Georgia, as in that country village communism had completely disappeared.

An antagonism soon arose within the ranks of the Russian Social-Democracy, between divergent conceptions of Marxism. The first conception, which may be called that of Western Europe, emphasised the importance of the economic movement, and the other, or Russian, conception perceived in force not merely the midwife but the creator of a new society. The first conception involved, in particular, the development of the self-consciousness and the independent activity of the proletariat, and consequently favoured Democracy, which alone formed the groundwork for this development; and the other conception saw in the proletariat merely a tool to be wielded by a small and resolute organisation of Socialists. Those holding the first conception remained true to the Marxian method, which they consistently employed in spite of all the difficulties which arose from the economic and political backwardness of the country; those holding the other conception began by substituting the dictatorship of a conspiracy society for democracy within the party organisation; and from this point they tended to move farther away from the Marxian method towards the: pre-Marxian ideas of Blanqui and Weitling. The more the members of this section deviated from Marxian methods, the more obstinately they clung to Marxian phrases the better to exploit the repute in which the name of Marx was held in Russia, and they expended all their energies upon learning by heart such phrases as suited them, which they interpreted in their own way. In place of Marxian science they set up Marxian scholastics.

In the early days of this split, which occurred in 1903, the Georgian Social Democrats ranged themselves on the side that was dominated by the Marxian and Western European outlook, that is, on the side of the Mensheviks.

They soon became the strongest element in this section, to which they remained absolutely loyal. In Russia, on the other hand, there were constant fluctuations in the relative strength of the Menshevists and the Bolshevists. Yet the general tendency of the Russian proletarian movement showed itself to be very favourable to Bolshevism. Certainly the Bolshevists were the worst Marxians, but their preponderance was to be explained on Marxist lines by the special conditions in which the class struggle was carried on in Russia. In Georgia, and also in Poland, which stood in national opposition to Russia, the special Russian form of Marxism found no foothold. The Georgian Social-Democrats were the picked troops of Russian Menshevism. Consequently, from the commencement Georgia appeared to Bolshevism as the enemy deserving the most bitter hatred, and to-day it has become the hereditary enemy. After the first Russian Revolution, Georgia was the country which constantly returned the largest Menshevist majority in the Duma Elections since 1906, and which furnished many of the Menshevist martyrs.

Scarcely one of the leading comrades in Tiflis whom I have recently met has not made acquaintance with Siberia.

Georgia also, provided the Russian Party with a series of its best leaders and representatives. Jordania, Ramishvily, Tsereteli, Japaridze, Tcheidse, Lomtatidze, Gëgëtchkori, Macharadze and Tchenkeli played in Petrograd a political role not less important than in Tiflis.

The Social-Democratic fraction of the last Russian Duma before the October Revolution chose the same Tcheidse to be its leader. It voted against war credits and adhered to the Zimmerwald Conference. It was Tcheidse who read the Zimmerwaldian manifesto in the Duma. And when the 1917 Revolution created the Workers’ Councils, Tcheidse was chosen President of the Petrograd Workers' Council—a proof of the confidence reposed in him by the Russian proletariat through his parliamentary activity.

By the side of Tcheidse in the Petrograd Workers' Council was the Georgian Tsereteli, who had hastened there from his Siberian place of exile.

The Menshevists were not able to, assert themselves in Russia. They were too weak to carry out their peace policy in opposition to the war policy of the Cadets, in coalition with whom they had formed a ministry, of which Tsereteli was a member; and they could not decide to support the, Bolshevist agitation, which aimed at the dissolution of the Army before the conclusion of peace, and the complete sacrifice of Russia to German, Austrian and Turkish invasion, plundering and conquest.

The middle course which the Menshevists would have pursued was well conceived. But as is so often the case in history when great and irreconcilable oppositions come into conflict, those who worked for the final result which was given by the parallelogram of forces were paralysed by the clash of the antagonisms, and only after the strength of the two extremes had been exhausted was this object of the middle party to be finally attained.

Thus the Menshevists were soon eclipsed in Russia, but not in Georgia. In that country there were no Cadets, and no Bolshevists of importance. The majority of the Socialists of Georgia, supported by Jordania, had been unfriendly to the Coalition policy, and demanded a purely Socialist ministry. The Revolution brought the Social-Democracy of Georgia, as a compact and resolute party, to a dominant position, which was not seriously contested from any quarter in the country.

But it was a bad heritage into which this party entered. The immediate situation was desperate, in view of the masses of Russian soldiers, filled with Bolshevist hatred against Menshevist Georgia, which in their retreat from the yet more hostile and ferocious Turks, broke up into plundering bands and swarmed into Georgia.

Apart from this, the economic position of the country was grievous in the extreme, and its enduring power was slight. Even before the war it had suffered considerably from the neglect of its agriculture and its industry, and the inadequacy of its means of communication. And to this was now added the devastation of four years of war, and protracted isolation from the industry and civilisation of Europe.

Chapter 3: Agriculture

CHAPTER III.

AGRICULTURE.

Even to-day the land of Georgia is cultivated in the most primitive fashion. There, as elsewhere, feudal dependence and the prevalence of short leases impeded the development of agriculture. The implements of Georgian agriculture reminded German observers, only a short time ago, of Biblical times.

In 1905, Paul Hoffmann wrote, in his book on "German Colonies in Transcaucasia," as follows:—

"Only in recent times have modern ploughs been widely used in Transcaucasia, and the colonists are still partly assisted by the wooden ploughs of the Georgians."

If this is the case with the German colonists, who represent a higher type of agriculture, it applies still more to the Georgian peasants themselves. The plough does not penetrate the soil very deep, and requires an uncommonly strong team, five to ten pairs of buffaloes. Merzbacher saw ploughs drawn by twenty-four animals, which needed seven men to guide them. What an expenditure of energy to secure a scanty result. Thrashing is managed with a thrashing sledge, provided with a flint, which appeared to Merzbacher to be a relic of the stone age.

The methods of soil cultivation are as primitive as the implements used. Rotation of crops and artificial manuring are quite unknown. The tillage resembles the system which existed in Germany at the time of Charles the Great. The same crop, whether wheat or barley, is planted year in and year out in the same field, sometimes three years in succession, until the harvest decreases. Grass is then allowed to grow, and the soil is used as pasture, again for several years in succession, when it is sown once more with crops.

The cattle which is put on the pastures is small and insignificant, at least the horned cattle. The absence of the cultivation of fodder is not only prejudicial to the raising of cattle and to agriculture, but also to afforestation. The sheep and goats ruin the woods, and destroy every aftergrowth of trees, especially in the eastern and dry regions. We have spoken above of the boundless riches of Georgia in wood, but these are very unevenly distributed. Wood is to be found in the districts of the Black Sea, and in the hardly-accessible and sparsely populated districts of the Caucasus. The drier and more populous districts are in many cases completely woodless.

Thus, for example, not a single tree is to be found on the whole range of mountains which surrounds Tiflis. Nor is there any trace of soil tillage in these desert places, which scarcely yields sustenance for goats.

The growing destruction of the woods increased the dryness of the climate, and therefore the danger of harvest failures. In former times this danger was averted by great irrigation works. As in so many other countries of the East, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Central Asia, there were great territories in Georgia which, with the aid of artificial irrigation gave the richest harvests, without which they would have remained sterile. The laying out of irrigation canals was an important task of the old Oriental Governments.