Bolshevik order in Georgia: Social Status and Repressions: Abkhazians, Adjarians, Ossetians, by Marc Junge & Bernd Bonwetsch

Originally published in German as Bolschewistische Ordnung in Georgien: Der Große Terror in einer kleinen kaukasischen Republik by De Gruyter Oldenbourg in 2015, the book was later translated into Russian and Georgian. Authored by Marc Junge and Bernd Bonwetsch from Ruhr University Bochum, it was also published by the German Historical Institute in Moscow.

The chapter below, titled "Social Status and Repressions: Abkhazians, Adjarians, Ossetians", has been translated from the Russian version.

BOLSHEVIK ORDER IN GEORGIA
Published in Two Volumes
Volume 1
The Great Terror in a Small Caucasian Republic

For the first time in the historiography of the Great Terror, all three key NKVD mass operations in Georgia are examined together: the operation under Order No. 00447 (the "kulak" operation), the operation targeting "national groups," and the social purge carried out by the "militia" troika. The study centres on the unique aspects of the terror in Georgia, where some of the repressive powers were delegated from the central authorities to local ones. This delegation manifested in the mass sentencing of elites by the troika of the Georgian SSR's NKVD, an extrajudicial body originally designed for the swift prosecution of ordinary Soviet citizens with no ties to power or its privileges. The research reveals a remarkable similarity between unconstitutional extrajudicial bodies (such as the troikas and dvojkas) and legitimate judicial institutions like the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. Another distinguishing feature of the Great Terror in Georgia was the surprisingly "lenient" treatment of national diasporas, with the exception of Germans, by the so-called "national" troika of the Georgian SSR's NKVD. Six interviews with descendants of the Great Terror’s victims from the village of Khashmi near Tbilisi shed light on the personal traumas and fears that the terror of 1937–1938 left behind, as large numbers of fathers, relatives, and loved ones were arrested in Khashmi, as they were throughout Georgia.

Chapter 5 – pp. 245-267

Social Status and Repressions: Abkhazians, Adjarians, Ossetians

In the late 16th century, Abkhazia fell under the influence of the Ottoman Empire, leading to widespread Islamisation of the Abkhazians. However, from 1810 to 1864, Abkhazia was gradually annexed by Russia, which provoked fierce resistance from the Abkhazians. During the annexation process and as a result of uprisings in 1866–1867 and 1877–1878, a large number of Abkhazians—muhajirs—were expelled by the Russian authorities and emigrated to the Ottoman Empire. Even today, Abkhazian diasporas exist in Turkey and Syria [95]. Many thousands of Abkhazians perished during their escape, as well as from poor supplies and epidemics that ravaged the Ottoman ports where they disembarked. Some Abkhazians had already migrated in the 16th and 17th centuries, even before the Ottoman conquest, to the northern side of the Caucasus Mountains, where their descendants still live in Russia, forming the ethnic group known as the Abazins [96]. The populations that remained in Abkhazia after the departure of the elites were generally socially weakened. As a result, they came under strong Russian and Georgian influence and were partially converted to the Orthodox faith, unless they were already Christian, as Abkhazia had been a Christian country long before Islamisation.

Due to the sparse population of Abkhazia, a significant number of migrants from Mingrelia (Western Georgia), Svaneti, as well as Armenia, Greece, Russia, and Ukraine settled in the region [97]. Around Sukhum, Estonian, German, and Moldovan villages also emerged. The Abkhaz language belongs to the Northwestern or Western Caucasian language group, along with two other languages—Circassian and Ubykh (the latter of which is now extinct) [98].

Following the civil war, some Abkhazians, who had fought against the Georgian Mensheviks, gained strong support from Moscow after the Sovietisation of Georgia in 1921. This was especially due to the good connections of Nestor Lakoba, the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Abkhazian SSR. Although in the 1920s Abkhazians made up only half of Abkhazia’s population and their numbers continued to decrease due to the process of 'Mingrelisation'—which affected Orthodox Abkhazians in areas bordering Mingrelia—the majority of leadership positions in the autonomous republic’s government were held by Abkhazians [99]. Thus, the Abkhazians quickly came to possess a relatively large group of party officials.

The republic acquired a special status after it was officially declared the Soviet Socialist Republic of Abkhazia in 1921, although in practice, it did not correspond to this status, as it was part of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, and therefore part of the Georgian SSR. As a result, in the 1924 Soviet Constitution, Abkhazia, along with Adjara, was listed as an “autonomous” republic. This anomaly or ambivalence—a Soviet Socialist Republic as a state within another Soviet Socialist Republic—was partially rectified in 1925 when the first downgrade of Abkhazia's 'union' status occurred, reducing it to that of a Treaty SSR, as enshrined in the republic's first constitution. The status of a Treaty SSR meant that it was a Soviet republic with special relations with Georgia, and the 1921 treaty remained in force, according to which Abkhazia, indirectly through Georgia, was part of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. However, this status, like the previous one, was unique, making Abkhazia the only 'Treaty' republic within the Soviet Union. It was only in 1931 that its status was downgraded to that of an autonomous republic (ASSR) [100].

Such a high specific status of Abkhazia from 1921 to 1931 was not merely symbolic; it actually provided better formal opportunities, enabling the leadership of Abkhazia to appeal directly to Moscow and pursue a political line that was either independent or, at the very least, deviated from the central authorities in Tbilisi. Soviet and post-Soviet Georgian historiography, along with works influenced by it, often—likely not without ulterior motives—sought to minimise this history of Abkhazia's special status. This was partly achieved by designating it as the Abkhaz ASSR starting from 1921. Soviet historiography fundamentally refused to acknowledge that in 1931 the status of the national administrative entity had been downgraded, as it was necessary to portray only elevations in status (a similar distortion was applied to the history of the Karelo-Finnish SSR from 1940–1955). Georgian historiography, meanwhile, yielded to the temptation of nationalism and did not aim to provide the Abkhazians with any arguments in favour of Abkhazia’s independence [101].

In 1937, the Abkhazians, like the Turks, Greeks, Laz, Germans, and others, were considered a national diaspora in the sense that the majority of Abkhazians lived outside the USSR, primarily in Turkey, with a small group residing in the French Mandate territory of Syria. However, they differed from all of the aforementioned national groups in that their homeland was within the Soviet Union, while the majority of Abkhazians abroad had formed as a result of emigration from Abkhazia, predominantly in the 19th century, rather than the reverse.

The situation was somewhat different for the Ossetians. The main areas of Ossetian settlement are north of the Caucasus Mountains (North Ossetia). In the far northwest of this region, Muslim Ossetians (Digors) live, while the majority of Ossetians are traditionally Orthodox Christians. This is especially true for Ossetians living in Georgia, among whom there are practically no Muslims. In the territories claimed by Georgia, Ossetians do not live in compact groups. In the South Ossetian Autonomous Region, created in 1921, Ossetians made up two-thirds of the population (around 70,000 out of 100,000), while an additional similar number of Ossetians lived outside the autonomous region, among the Georgian population in Kartli-Kakheti. The Ossetian language is an Indo-European language, part of the Iranian branch, and the Ossetians are descendants of the Iranian-speaking Alans, who played a significant role in the Middle Ages.

Ossetians in Georgia were traditionally peasants, and their places of residence were particularly underdeveloped areas with no large cities. Until 1921, Tskhinvali was not even a district centre. The small intelligentsia in the few Ossetian towns were, by nationality, Georgians, Armenians, and Jews, and the church language was Georgian. The Ossetian population had a low level of education, practically no native elite, and was initially poorly represented in the Communist Party. Like the Abkhazians, the Ossetians participated in the struggle against the Georgian Mensheviks in 1918–1921 on the side of the Red Army.

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