Why did the Social Democracy of Menshevik Type Prevail in Georgia?

• In Event: Popular Contention and Political Activism in the Tsarist Borderlands: Mapping Political Mobilization of the Inter-Revolutionary Decade: 1907-1917

Abstract

Political parties and modern ideologies in Georgia, like in Russia, evolved after the abolishment of serfdom in 1860s. Those political groups had their "mother parties" in Russia, but as Stephen Jones puts it, Georgian Social Democracy was a "Socialism in Georgian Colors". It was quite different from the Russian type of Menshevism for it enjoyed not only a firm support of intellectuals and workers, but of peasantry and petty bourgeoisie. Hence, it became a "national party" with a moderate nationalist inclinations and it had a distinct autonomy from the "center". Georgian Social Democrats won over the nationalists and "expelled" Koba Jughashvili and other prominent Georgian Bolsheviks from the political processes in Georgia; their strong ties with the peasantry did not leave the space for the Socialist Revolutionaries, thus this party while being the most popular one in Russia, never obtained any tangible support in Georgia. Moreover, some of the Social Democrats, like Karlo Chkheidze and Irakli Tsereteli, assumed a leading positions in Petrograd. I shall endeavor to answer to the following questions: how and why did all this happen? What was unique in the Georgian Social Democracy?

Author

• Beka Kobakhidze, Ilia State U (Georgia)