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Video: Whom Stalin called "caroters and ugly", and Why his relations with fellow countrymen were not cordial
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
It is no secret that even during the times of Soviet equality, the standard of living in the republics was somewhat different. If we talk about Georgia, then the local population did not exactly look deprived. It was generally accepted that Tbilisi got the preferences due to its common descent with the leader. But in fairness, one must also remember those times when Stalin's relationship with his fellow countrymen did not look so rosy.
Georgia Mensheviks
With the arrival of the revolution in Russia, Paris became the center of political emigration of the former empire. On cozy Parisian streets, representatives of the tsarist regime met with the White Guards and the Mensheviks with the Makhnovists, who had fought against the tsarist power only yesterday. In the French emigration, the Georgian Mensheviks created a community to fight the Soviet regime. The government in exile flocked to the center, called the Bureau Abroad. In search of funding, it was decided to move from beautiful toasts to action. The first step was to get down to propaganda. Before the peace conference in Genoa, to which representatives of the new Soviet Russia, unrecognized by the world, were invited, the Georgian Mensheviks did their best to create a negative background not in favor of the Russians.
The next step, the Menshevik representatives moved to decisive action in Georgia itself, creating multiple underground cells. And if at the all-Russian level the Mensheviks lost the battle, then in Georgia they managed to form a state that existed until 1921. Despite massive arrests of the Menshevik leadership, an armed uprising broke out again in August 1924. The riots turned into the creation of a provisional government under the patronage of Prince Tsereteli. But the Soviet government quickly suppressed the rebellion, after which the repressions began.
Unbiblical Abel
As part of the USSR, Transcaucasia from the very beginning was a subsidized region. And the Georgians ate from the common cauldron with the Armenians and Azerbaijanis with the largest spoon. There was even a representative office of the Tiflis City Council in Moscow, which openly lobbied for Georgian projects. Representatives of Georgian departments in the best restaurants in the capital were a familiar sight. The only thing that no archival documents can confirm is the direct participation of Joseph Vissarionovich in the solution of important Georgian issues. The go-ahead for all the slippery moments was given by the fancier Abel Yenukidze, the CEC secretary.
Georgia flourished against the all-Union background. Foreign guests came there for wine and barbecue. Mountain landscapes, clean air and Caucasian hospitality created the necessary aura around Russia. Even with the arrival of the collective farm regime in the country, the Georgians felt the innovations weaker than the others, having managed to reorganize in the direction of consumer cooperation. The turning point came in the summer of 1933, partly of a personal nature.
European hopes of Kakabadze
One of the engines of the Georgian cooperation was Kirill Kakabadze, who got into the habit of being sent to Europe on business affairs. For several years, he held positions of responsibility from the chairman of the agricultural bank to the deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Georgia. Line denunciations of fellow executives, he riveted his own comfortable future. In 1933, Kakabadze went on a long trip abroad, from which he decided not to return. Declaring himself a defector and a follower of the bourgeois regime, he even brought a trial in Berlin against the Trade Mission. According to historians, Kakabadze banally played Soviet state finances in shady deals and, having gotten a big steal, decided to hide from potential punishment.
The defector chose the classic Stalinist revelations as his best means. Kakabadze made sensational political revelations before overseas media. He stated that he did not personify himself with the USSR, being only the son of free Georgia. The latter, in his opinion, was forcibly enslaved by the Soviets, and the bloodsucker Stalin is to blame for all the troubles in the Motherland. In the series of "devastating" anti-Stalinist articles published in the Sunday Times, nothing serious about the USSR was disclosed. All the years in power Kakabadze was busy not collecting confidential information. Therefore, all his testimonies concerned the description of Stalin's way of life, his "rough treatment of subordinates" and "orgies on personal estates." The Soviet side did not even need to come up with refutations.
A cruel lesson
Despite the failed attempts at international stir, Stalin took over Georgia personally. First of all, the wave of repressions touched the Moscow and Leningrad lobbyists, whom the leader called revelers and outrages. Then, in a letter to the first Transcaucasian secretary of Beria, Joseph Vissarionovich, threatening the most severe court, urged to eliminate the outrage in the ranks of Georgian economic organizations. Lavrenty Pavlovich took up the performance with his usual zeal. In 1935, a "Kremlin affair" was initiated in Moscow, denouncing anti-Soviet persons in government seats. The largest nest was found among the cadres recommended by the Georgian Yenukidze. Soon, reports about the growing anti-Stalinist and nationalist sentiments in the Communist Party of Georgia began to creep into the capital. Beria reported that slogans like “Georgia for Georgians” and “Armenians have no place in Georgia” are being popularized in Caucasian circles.
By the end of 1936, the Transcaucasian Federation was dissolved, reassigning three separate republics directly to Moscow. Stalin instructed Beria, placed at the Georgian helm, to cleanse the homeland of opposition. For this reason, the repressions of 1937-1938 agitated Georgia almost more than the rest of the republics. Stalin taught the Georgian elite a good lesson, and Beria, who passed the test of loyalty, went for a promotion instead of Yezhov, the chief security officer. Charkviani, who took over the baton, led the Georgians for 14 years, worked quietly and did not stick his head out. And lobbyists-business executives did not hurry to visit Moscow for a long time.
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