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Georgia Within the Soviet Union
In seven decades as part of the Soviet Union, Georgia
maintained some cultural independence, and Georgian nationalism
remained a significant--though at times muted--issue in relations
with the Russians. In economic and political terms, however,
Georgia was thoroughly integrated into the Soviet system.
The Interwar Years
After independence was declared in 1918, the Georgian
Bolsheviks campaigned to undermine the Menshevik leader
Zhordania, and in 1921 the Red Army invaded Georgia and forced
him to flee. From 1922 until 1936, Georgia was part of a united
Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (TSFSR) within
the Soviet Union. In 1936 the federated republic was split up as
Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, which remained separate Soviet
socialist republics of the Soviet Union until the end of 1991.
Although Stalin and Lavrenti Beria, his chief of secret
police from 1938 to 1953, were both Georgians, Stalin's regime
oppressed Georgians as severely as it oppressed citizens of other
Soviet republics. The most notable manifestations of this policy
were the execution of 5,000 nobles in 1924 as punishment for a
Menshevik revolt and the purge of Georgian intellectuals and
artists in 1936-37. Another Georgian Bolshevik, Sergo
Ordzhonikidze, played an important role in the early 1920s in
bringing Georgia and other Soviet republics into a centralized,
Moscow-directed state. Ordzhonikidze later became Stalin's top
economic official.
Data as of March 1994
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