საქართველოს სოციალ-დემოკრატიული პარტიის მიმართვა ევროპელი კოლეგებისადმი 1926 წელს
Loading...
Date
2024
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ივანე ჯავახიშვილის სახელობის თბილისის სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტის გამომცემლობა
Abstract
Military attachés played an important role in the structure of the Polish State intelligence apparatus. The military attaché to Turkey – first in Constantinople and then in Ankara, was assigned to keep a close eye on the southern territories of the USSR, given the importance of the Caucasus. In addition, the Polish military attaché closely followed the “Soviet campaign in the Middle East” from the Turkish capital and “coordinated the liberation movements in Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia”. Moreover, the military attaché in Constantinople was directly responsible for organizing intelligence activities in the South Caucasus. Interestingly, the military attaché in Constantinople was more informed about the events in the Caucasus than the Polish military attaché in Moscow. As part of the Soviet Union, the Caucasus, like southern Ukraine and Turkestan, was supervised by the military attaché to Turkey.
The Central Archive of Modern Records in Poland – Archiwum Akt Nowych (AAN) contains a particular section (1191) of military attachés, which, along with other documents, holds part of the archives of the Polish State Attaché to Turkey.
Naturally, the Polish military attaché to Turkey was well informed about the situation in Georgia. In addition, he actively communicated with Georgian military or political figures who emigrated to Turkey or Poland. Georgians in exile, and those who remained in the motherland to participate in the national liberation movement, often sought to disseminate information in Europe via the Polish attaché.
An excellent example of this represents the attached document in a file of the mentioned fond (A II 33). A three-page document is printed in Polish and concerns the repressive policies of the Soviet authorities in Georgia. Unfortunately, the record does not have a date, but it is indicated in the text that the events described in the letter took place in 1926.
After the 1924 uprising, letters appeared in the British press which seemed to be justifying the terror of the Soviet regime in Georgia. Among them was the Manchester Guardian, which published articles by members of the radical left-wing Labor Party. The émigré government and members of the Constituent Assembly on the other hand, constantly published response letters addressed to the pro-Soviet authors asking them to reject their articles.
In early 1925, a message reached the occupied Georgia that a joint delegation of the British Labor Party and Trade Unions would visit the county to investigate the circumstances after the uprising. The British were supposed to study in detail the difficult situation that had developed in Georgia since 1921 and especially after the 1924 uprising. The Georgian illegal Trade Unions and the Central Committee of the Social Democratic Party drew up a joint letter and addressed the British Labors. The letter, imbued with pathos, hoped that the British left would scrutinize the atrocities and repression that befell thousands of Social Democrats and ordinary workers, including executions, torture and deportation.
After the 1924 uprising, a joint delegation of Socialists from Belgium and France visited Georgia.The Communists received them with great honor. Factories and other objects were shown, though the members of the delegation naturally “heard” nothing about the politicians, workers and ordinary citizens shot or repressed during the occupation of 1921 and after the uprising of 1924.In August 1925, the Secretariat of the Illegal Workers' Unions of Georgia and the Illegal Central Committee of the Social Democratic Party addressed the German Social Democrats and the Socialist International in Amsterdam. The appeal criticized the report by the Franco-Belgian socialist delegates and tried to let them know why they had no idea about the crimes of the Cheka. In the end, the letter asked the German bureau of the Social Democrats and the International to send a new delegation to clarify the circumstances. At the same time, the bureau of the illegal Trade Union turned to the German workers with a request to come to the scene and see the catastrophic situation the Georgian workers found themselves in.
Appeals and letters to European socialist politicians were still being sent by political prisoners from various concentration camps and dungeons of the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1920s.
The document, kept in the Archiwum Akt Nowych, refers to the Soviet repressions, the visits of the European left to Georgia, and the methods the Bolshevik government used to treated them.
The document was drawn up by the illegal Central Committee of the Georgian Social Democratic Party. The addressee writes “Dear friends!” However, the following letter mentions that this is an appeal to European socialists.
Why is the letter written in Polish? There were cases when Georgians sent a text written in Russian to the military attaché, and then this text was translated into Polish. We have seen some evidence of this both in the Modern Records and during the study of military attaché funds at the Central Military Archive of Poland (Centralne Archiwum Wojskowe). That should have been the case this time as well.
According to the document, on the initiative of the Communist International (Comintern) the Soviet government sent delegations to various European countries; they wanted these delegates to familiarize themselves with the situation in the country and then present everything to the European community. The document says these delegations do not provide the public with reliable information at their return: “The whole world knows that Comintern organizes these groups. It is also no secret that they have a deliberate intention to praise the Bolshevik organizations and leadership. The delegates are received according to an established custom event program. Namely, they are visiting Soviet state and administrative bodies, power plants and hydro-technical structures, railway workshops, a tobacco factory, and the Metekhi prison in Tbilisi. If the delegations arrive in summer, the visits to Kojori and Borjomi, the two well-known resorts of Georgia, are being arranged. Generally speaking, banquets, breakfasts, dinners and other amusements – this is the whole work these delegations do. On their way back they seem to be already quite sure of the situation in Georgia and its internal life. The scheduled program of these events also provides for high-profile speeches by the delegates, always pleasing the authorities: they praise the Soviet establishment and promise to dispel the lies the “bourgeoisie and the Mensheviks” spread.
As evidenced in the letter, the delegations’ program included visits to the political prisoners in Metekhi prison, interviews with them, and reviews of their conditions. The letter emphasizes that the main idea is that these delegations do not provide the public with correct information and beautify the conditions of detention.
When the prisoners met the first delegation from Germany, they told them everything sincerely, which resulted in deterioration in their conditions. The communist press, on its part, portrayed their conversation in a different way and altered it completely.
Then a delegation from Czechoslovakia arrived. Because of the experience gained with the previous commissions, the prisoners refused to talk to them. They agreed to meet with them only after the delegation pledged to describe everything accurately and present it to the public. The meeting lasted eight hours. Unfortunately, the delegation’s members behaved in the same way as their predecessors.
The head of the second German group, a certain Kerber, even said that the prisoners had treated them with oranges and allowed them to meet with their family members ten times a month. According to him, the prisoners even complained to the delegation members that they could no longer hold all the meetings.
Then the prisoners decided to put down their meetings with the delegates in two copies. One would stay with the prisoners, while the delegates would take the other. The letter states that the prisoners “applied this method during the visit of the group of French railway workers, German “freethinkers” and 'English youth”. “Our friends hoped that in this way they would protect the information, but the hope cost them dearly: on October 20, 1926, political prisoners, including five members of the Georgian Independence Committee, had their sentences changed from 10 months to 3 years and then, all of them immediately, without warning, had been relocated to the famous Suzdal prison in Russia”.
The letter's authors emphasize that “such visits cost the Georgian people dearly; as many crackdowns precede each they only contribute to the repressions. Moreover, delegations are surrounded by Chekists and agents so that no one can tell their members the truth. Security officers register suspects for deportation after the delegation departs from Russia”.
The authors of the letter demand that the international organizations have to create the groups of honest and impartial workers who should arrive in Georgia with the program arranged according to their interests and not to one of the Soviet government; they should visit not only the Metekhi fortress, specially prepared for receiving delegations, but other prisons too; Political prisoners should meet such delegations, and the panel has to take the initiative to hold a referendum in Georgia under the auspices of the International Commission.
Description
https://geohistory.humanities.tsu.ge/ge/procedings/83-shromebi/179-shromebi-20.html
ივანე ჯავახიშვილის სახელობის თბილისის სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტის ჰუმანიტარულ მეცნიერებათა ფაკულტეტის საქართველოს ისტორიის ინსტიტუტის შრომები შესულია ERIH PLUS-ში (The European Reference Index for the Humanities and the Social Sciences) / This journal was approved on 23.10.2024 according to ERIH PLUS criteria for inclusion
Keywords
Citation
ივანე ჯავახიშვილის სახელობის თბილისის სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტის საქართველოს ისტორიის ინსტიტუტის შრომები, XX, თბილისი, 2024, გვ. 293-308 / Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University Institute of Georgian History Proceedings, XX, Tbilisi, 2024, p. 293-308