The August Uprising (Georgian: აგვისტოს აჯანყება, romanized: agvist'os ajanq'eba) was an unsuccessful insurrection against Soviet rule in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic from late August to early September 1924.
Aimed at restoring the independence of Georgia from the Soviet Union, the uprising was led by the Committee for Independence of Georgia, a bloc of anti-Soviet political organisations chaired by the Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party. It represented the culmination of a three-year struggle against the Bolshevik regime that Soviet Russia's Red Army had established in Georgia during a military campaign against the Democratic Republic of Georgia in early 1924.
Red Army and Cheka troops, under orders of the Georgian Bolsheviks Joseph Stalin and Sergo Ordzhonikidze, suppressed the insurrection and instigated a wave of mass repressions that killed several thousand Georgians. The August uprising was one of the last major rebellions against the early Soviet government, and its defeat marked a definitive establishment of Soviet rule in Georgia.
Background
The Red Army proclaimed Georgia a Soviet Socialist Republic on 25 February 1921, when they took control of Tiflis (Tbilisi), the capital of Georgia, and forced the Menshevik government into exile.
Loyalty of the Georgian population to the new regime did not come easily. Within the first three years of their rule, the Bolsheviks managed to recruit fewer than 10,000 people into their party, while the Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party still enjoyed significant popularity in Georgia, counting over 60,000 members in their organizations. The 1918–1921 independence, though short-lived, had played a crucial role in the national awakening of Georgia, winning a popular support to the ruling Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party. The forcible Sovietization and grievances over the ensuing border rearrangements in which Georgia lost sizeable portion of its pre-Soviet territories to Turkey (see Treaty of Kars), Azerbaijan SSR, Armenian SSR, and Russia, fueled a widespread opposition to the new regime. The new Bolshevik government, led by the Georgian Revkom (Revolutionary Committee), enjoyed so little support among the population that it faced the distinct prospect of insurrection and civil war. The Bolsheviks had limited ties with the Georgian peasantry, which was overwhelmingly opposed to collectivization and dissatisfied over land shortages and other economic troubles. The situation in the country was further aggravated by a famine prevailing in many areas and the summer 1921 outbreak of cholera, which carried off thousands of victims. The desperate shortage of food and the breakdown of medical services resulted in heavy mortality, Catholicos Patriarch Leonid being among the dead. The highly politicized working class of Georgia, with its severe economic problems, was also hostile toward the new regime as were the national intelligentsia and nobility who had pledged their loyalty to the Democratic Republic of Georgia. A delayed transition from the Revkom's rule to the Soviets' system, subordination of workers' organizations and trades unions to the Bolshevik party committees and Moscow's centralizing policy created a discontent even among the multiethnic workers of Tiflis who were the most sympathetic towards Communist doctrines.
Public discontent within Georgian society indirectly reflected a bitter struggle among Bolsheviks about the way to achieve social and political transformation in Georgia. Hardliners led by Sergo Ordzhonikidze, head of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee (Zakkraikom) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and Joseph Stalin, People's Commissar for Nationalities for the RSFSR and himself a Georgian, launched a series of measures aimed at the elimination of the last remnants of Georgia's self-rule. They were opposed by a group of Georgian Bolsheviks, described by their opponents as "national deviationists" and led by Filipp Makharadze and Budu Mdivani, who advocated tolerance toward the Menshevik opposition, greater democracy within the party, a moderate approach toward land reform, and, above all, called for greater autonomy from Moscow and stubbornly opposed Stalin's project of uniting all the three Transcaucasian republics economically and politically. The crisis known as the "Georgian Affair" lasted throughout 1922 and ended with the hardliners' victory. As a result, Georgia merged with the Armenian and Azerbaijan republics into the Transcaucasian SFSR—a heavy blow to Georgian national pride.
With the defeat of national deviationists, the Bolsheviks became more assertive, and suppressed all kinds of opposition. Between April 1922 and October 1923, parties that still retained legal status were forced to announce their dissolution and declare official loyalty to the Soviet authorities. Those who continued to operate did so as underground organizations. The Soviets also persecuted the Georgian Orthodox Church, closing or demolishing over 1,500 churches and monasteries. They imprisoned a number of clerics, including Catholicos Patriarch Ambrose who was arrested and tried for having sent a letter of protest to the 1922 Genoa Conference, in which he described the conditions under which Georgia was living since the Red Army invasion and begged for the "help of the civilized world".
Preparation
In the course of the Red Army invasion, part of the defeated Georgian forces withdrew into the mountains and organized themselves into a number of small partisan groups. From 1921 to 1922, guerrilla warfare broke out in several regions of Georgia. In May 1921, the highlanders of Svaneti, northwestern Georgia, led by Mosestro Dadeshkeliani, Nestor Gardapkhadze and Bidzina Pirveli, rose in rebellion. After a resistance of six months, the revolt was put down and its leaders were purged. In early 1922, the rebellion against the Soviet rule broke out in Khevsureti, another mountainous district, but in northeast Georgia. Soviet troops using aviation managed to stop this rebellion from spreading, but could not crush it completely. Colonel Kakutsa Cholokashvili, who had led the revolt, managed to escape to the neighboring Chechnya, whence he made several inroads into Georgia, preventing the Bolsheviks from gaining a foothold in the eastern Georgian mountains. The local militsiya chief Levan Razikashvili was arrested and later shot for having sympathized with the rebellion.
Still, these revolts were local and spontaneous and did not attract large masses. Within the period of 1922–1923, 33 of 57 active guerrilla detachments disintegrated or surrendered to the Soviet authorities. The deplorable situation of the anti-Soviet opposition forced all major underground parties to seek closer cooperation. The negotiations proceeded slowly, however, and it was not until mid-1922 that the Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party reached an agreement with their formal rivals—the National Democrats and some other political groups—to coordinate their efforts against the Bolsheviks. Soon the opposition parties congregated into an underground movement known as the Committee for the Independence of Georgia or the "Damkom" (short for damoukideblobis komiteti, Committee for Independence). Sponsored by the government of Georgia-in-exile, the Damkom began preparations for a general uprising in Georgia. The organization set up a "Military Center" and appointed General Spiridon Chavchavadze the commander-in-chief of all rebel forces. Several members of the former Democratic Republic of Georgia government returned clandestinely from exile, including the former Minister of Agriculture, Noe Khomeriki, as well as the former commander of the National Guard, Valiko Jugheli. The organizers, encouraged by the Georgian emigrants in Europe, had still more expectations that the Western powers intended to help. They also hoped that the Georgian revolt would further other Caucasian peoples to rise in arms, but the secret negotiations with Armenian and Azeri nationalists yielded no results and even more promising talks with the Muslim Chechen leader, Ali Mitayev, were finally aborted due to mass arrests and repressions in the North Caucasus.
The Georgian branch of the Soviet secret police, Cheka, with recently appointed Deputy Chief Lavrentiy Beria playing a leading role, managed to penetrate the organization and carried out mass arrests. A prominent Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party activist, David Sagirashvili, was arrested and then deported to Germany in October 1922 along with sixty-two other members of Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party. A heavy loss was sustained in February 1923 by the Georgian opposition, when fifteen members of the military center were arrested. Among them were the principal leaders of the resistance movement, Generals Kote Abkhazi, Alexander Andronikashvili and Varden Tsulukidze; they were executed on 19 May 1923. In March 1923 the Cheka discovered an underground Menshevik printshop and arrested several oppositionists. The Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party leaders Noe Khomeriki, Benia Chkhikvishvili, and Valiko Jugheli too fell into the hands of the Cheka on 9 November 1923, 25 July 1924, and 6 August 1924, respectively. Sardion Tevzadze was also swept up in Cheka's raids and executed at the end of August 1924. Moderate Georgian politicians like Samson Dadiani had also distanced themselves from armed struggle.
Under these circumstances, some Georgians doubted whether the uprising could be successful. The captured rebel leader, Jugheli, urged Cheka officials to allow him to inform his comrades that their plans had been discovered and advise them to abandon their proposed revolt, but the Cheka refused. Jugheli's message still reached the rebels, but the conspirators decided that this might have been a Cheka provocation and went ahead with plans for the uprising.
There are many indications that Soviet intelligence had been, at a certain level, implicated in provoking the uprising. The Cheka, employing secret agents in local socialist circles, were well informed of the conspiracy and popular dissatisfaction with Bolshevik rule. Instructed by Stalin and Ordzhonikidze, Beria and his superior, Kvantaliani, actually encouraged the rebellion so they would have a pretext for eliminating all political opposition and avenging personal scores with their former rivals in Georgia.
Outbreak and reaction
On 18 August 1924, the Damkom laid plans for a general insurrection for 2:00 am 29 August. The plan of the simultaneous uprising miscarried, however, and, through some misunderstanding, the mining town of Chiatura, western Georgia, rose in rebellion a day earlier, on 28 August. This enabled the Soviet government to timely put all available forces in the region on alert. Yet, at first the insurgents achieved considerable success and formed an interim government of Georgia chaired by Prince Giorgi Tsereteli. The uprising quickly spread to neighboring areas and a large portion of western Georgia and several districts in eastern Georgia were wrested out of Soviet control.
The success of the uprising was short-lived, however. Although the insurrection went further than the Cheka had anticipated, the reaction of the Soviet authorities was prompt. Stalin dissipated any doubt in Moscow of the significance of the disorders in Georgia by the one word: "Kronstadt", referring to the Kronstadt rebellion, a large scale though unsuccessful mutiny by Soviet sailors in 1921. Additional Red Army troops under the overall command of Semyon Pugachev were promptly sent in and Georgia's coastline was blockaded to prevent a landing of Georgian émigré groups. Detachments of the Red Army and Cheka attacked the first insurgent towns in western Georgia—Chiatura, Senaki, and Abasha—as early as 29 August and managed to force the rebels into forests and mountains by 30 August. The Red Army forces employed artillery and aviation to fight the guerrillas who still continued to offer resistance, especially in the province of Guria, a home region to many Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party leaders and thus overwhelmingly disloyal to Bolshevik rule. Tiflis, Batumi and some larger towns, where the Bolsheviks enjoyed more authority, remained quiet as did Abkhazia and most of the territories compactly settled by ethnic minorities.