PREFACE
The dramatic growth of national movement in the former
USSR is an actual response to the totalitarian system of rule with its policy of rigid
centralization and complete disregard of sovereign rights oi the- republics, that has
brought to naught the provision of the SU Constitution stating that the USSR is a united
state of equal sovereign republics which have delegated part of their rights to the
center.
Discontent choked down by tear and terror for decades, has splashed out being encouraged
by democratization and "glasnost", however, occasionally acquiring an excessive
emotional coloring.
The process of "perestroika" is establishing a new way of social and political
thinking with priority given lo the common human values like in any, other civilized
country. This approach calls for reconsideration of historic processes and events which
will, in turn, encourage researchers to give up old pal terns and dogmas and restore a
full and impartial picture of the past. This will help lo fill in gaps caused by one-sided
class approach to history distorting the historic truth, in particular, that of the
post-October period.
Insinuations are extremely dangerous in relations between nations, especially in such a
multinational republic as Georgia. What with tensions created nowadays in our society, the
slightest looseness in speech or perversion of facts is fraught with ethnic conflicts that
will inevitably strike a fatal blow at the process of democratization of the society.
More than ever, now the peoples inhabit Georgia have to unite in order to achieve the
highest target: an independent statehood of the republic, as it is a reliable guarantee
for national revival and free development of the peoples and nationalities living in
Georgia.
Lately, certain separatist-minded represents lives of the Abkhaz people have been taking
pains both in press and in speeches to convince their people that Abkhazia must be
separated from Georgia. By juggling with facts, they suggest a conclusion that .soon after
the October Revolution Georgia occupied and actually annexed Abkhazia and has been since
forcing assimilation of the Abkhaz people. Those statements are usually based on
anti-Georgian ideas of tsarist generals whose purpose was to restore "united and
inseparable" Russia and on falsification of certain facts from the history of
Georgian- Abkhaz relations in 1918-1921.
Unfortunately, the authors of such statements managed to lead the Supreme Council of the
Abkhaz Autonomous SSR, a representative body of the Autonomous Republic, which issued a
resolution "On Legal Guarantees of Defense of Abkhazia Statehood" and a
"Declaration of Stale Sovereignty of the Abkhaz Soviet Socialist Republic" on 25
August 1990. Both of the documents were based on distorted facts and events of the recent
times. For instance, the Resolution says that the Government of the Georgian Democratic
Republic "having violated the treaty of 11 June 1918 and a previous agreement of 9
February 1918 between the People's Council of Abkhazia and National Council of Geor- gia,
intervened militarily later in the June of 1918 with the aim of forced joining of the
territory of Abkhazia and annihilation of independence of the Abkhaz; people" (The
Sovetskaya Abkhazia, 28 August, 1990). This is far from being true, to say the least, as
there are numerous documents evidencing otherwise and referred to in this book.
The Resolution mentions a policy of cultural genocide of the Abkhaz people by the
government of the Georgian SSR. However, it parses over in silence such important events
in the cultural life of the Autonomous Republic as the opening of the Abkhazian State
University and Abkhazian TV, growth of the publishing business in the Abkhaz language, and
so on, and so forth. Besides, the budget of the Georgian SSR allocated large sums for the
purposes of environmental control in Abkhazia. According to the Georgian Sea-shore
Protection organization 1982-1989 reports, 53,100,000 roubles were spent on the
protection, revival and improvement of Abkhazian sea-side landscapes and 43,000,000
roubles on beach creation.
The Resolution says that "Georgians came to live in Abkhazia in compactly inhabited
settlements only after the Caucasian war". But there are monuments of Georgian
culture in the territory of Abkhazia which date back to antiquity and Middle Ages; there
are originally Georgian place-names and written monuments. Aren't they all a result of
compact settlements of Georgians living in Abkhazia since the most ancient times?
The above mentioned resolution of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia was characterized by the
Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Georgian SSR as a blatant violation of the
constitutions of the Georgian SSR, Abkhaz ASSR and USSR. On 26 August 1990 the said
Presidium announced The Declaration and Resolution null and void and legally invalid.
Undisguised distortion of facts and anti-Georgian Demonstrations in South-Ossetia incurred
damage to the interests of all the people of this multinational republic.
The emotions and feelings expressed outdoors and even in representative bodies of the
autonomous units ought to be counterposed by facts and documents, provided with impartial
assessment.
This work is an attempt to reveal the reasons of ethnic conflicts that occurred in Georgia
in 1918-1921, since a close investigation and analysis of the past, can contribute to a
better understanding of the present and a forecast of the future.
The facts and data used in this work were drawn from the funds of the Central Party
Archives of the Marxism-Leninism Research Institute of the CPSU (CPA MLI-CC CPSU), Central
Historic Archives of Georgian Republic (CSHA GR), Foreign Policy Archives of the USSR (FPA
USSR) and the archives of the Georgian Democratic Republic kept at Harvard University,
USA. Considerable part of these documents have been published and used for the first time.
Avtandil Menteshashvili