Republic of Guria

The Republic of Guria or the Gurian Peasant Republic was the name used by an insurrection that took place in the western Georgian region of Guria (known at the time as the Ozurget Uyezd) against the Russian Empire. Formed out of a revolt over land grazing rights in 1902, the roots of the movement dated back decades and were the culmination of several issues facing the largely peasant population, including taxation, land ownership, and economic factors. It gained further traction through the efforts of Georgian social democrats, and grew further during the 1905 Russian Revolution. The Russian imperial authorities were not able to re-assert control until 1906, when they used overwhelming military force to do so.

During its existence the Gurian Republic was effectively an autonomous region. It had its own system of government, which consisted of assemblies of villagers meeting and discussing issues. A unique form of justice was introduced, which saw attendees vote on sentences. Despite breaking away from imperial administration, the movement was not anti-Russian, and indeed expressed a desire to remain within the Empire. Many of the main leaders of the movement would later play prominent roles in the Democratic Republic of Georgia, which existed from 1918 until 1921.

Background

Guria within the Russian Empire
Guria had been incorporated into the Russian Empire in the early nineteenth century. Formerly the Principality of Guria, it was made a protectorate in 1810 and was autonomous until 1829 when it was formally annexed. The region was re-organised in 1840 into an uyezd (уезд; a secondary administrative division) and renamed the Ozurget Uyezd, after Ozurgeti, the main city in the region; it was added to the Kutais Governorate in 1846. Until the Russo-Turkish War and the annexation of Adjara in 1878, Guria bordered the Ottoman Empire, and the legacy as a borderland was slow to dissipate: many residents retained their arms, and bands of robbers frequented the region.

The 1897 Russian Imperial Census, the only one conducted in the Russian Empire, saw Guria have a population of just under 100,000, while the Kutais Governorate had the second-highest population density in the Caucasus (after the Erivan Governorate). The population of Guria had increased greatly in this era, and by 1913 it had grown a further 35%. Guria was overwhelmingly rural, with Ozurgeti being the largest city with a population of 4,694, with only 26 other villages listed. There were few factories, though some smaller distilleries did exist, with most of the population working in agriculture. In contrast to other parts of Georgia, especially the capital Tiflis, Guria was ethnically homogeneous, with most of the population being ethnic Georgians.

Despite being overwhelmingly a poor peasant region, Guria had high levels of education. There were an estimated 63 schools, with 2,833 students, throughout Guria by 1905. Ozurgeti alone had four schools, including one for girls, and 681 total students. As a result, literacy rates were high throughout the region, and with one student per 20 people, the Ozurget Uyezd had by far the highest proportion of students in Georgia (next was the Zugdidi Uyezd, with 1 per 153 people). This contributed to a reputation of being an educated and literate region. However, there was no real opportunities for further development in Guria, which frustrated the rural intelligentsia.

The development of the Transcaucasus Railway in 1872 had a major effect on Guria. Connecting Tiflis with the port cities of Batumi and Poti, passengers could easily travel across Georgia, and it was possible to go from Ozurgeti to Batumi in 40 minutes. With many Gurians unable to make a living from farming land, they instead became seasonal workers, travelling to Batumi and Poti, or other developing regions across Georgia. Indeed, by 1900 most of the 12,000 workers in Batumi, which was the third-largest industrial centre in the Transcaucasus, were from Guria.

The advent of socialist ideas was also an important factor in Guria. The region was noted by contemporary Bolshevik Grigory Aleksinsky as "a citadel of Menshevism." Indeed, many of the leading Georgian Mensheviks, a faction within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) came from Guria, with nearly 30% of the Georgian delegates at the Fifth Party Congress in 1907 being from the region. Several leading Georgian Bolsheviks, the other main faction within the RSDLP, were also Gurian, though the region was overwhelmingly in support of the Mensheviks. Many of the labourers who went to Batumi and Poti were exposed to socialist ideals, and participated in strikes and other labour actions led by the RSDLP; on their return to Guria they would expose the peasants to these ideas.

Land issues
Underdeveloped and a rather poor part of the Kutais Governorate, Guria had serious land shortages, which were made worse by a drastic increase in population as well as the emancipation of the serfs. Though nominally freed from serfdom, they were not freed from their economic obligations, and thus many peasants in Georgia remained "temporarily obligated" to their former masters and saw no real improvement in their life.

The average peasant household had no more than 1.5 desyatina (one desyatina was roughly one hectare), with half of that land rented. In European Russia this figure was closer to 10 or 11 desyatina per household, while the authorities in Kutaisi estimated at least 4 desyatina were required for a poor family to survive. Estimates by government officials suggested that 70% of Gurian households could not meet these land requirements. Peasants thus farmed their own plots, but as this was not enough to survive on they rented from nobles or worked on the land as labourers. Roughly 60% of the peasants thus rented land, paying anywhere from one-sixth to one-half of the harvest in rent. Thus by the 1880s, Guria had the highest average rent of anywhere in the Transcaucasus.

This was compounded due to the high proportion of nobles in Georgia, where approximately 5.6% of the population were landowning nobles, compared to 1.4% in European Russia. While larger landowners were required to make land available for rent, those who owned less than 11.25 desyatina did not have to do so, which meant some 80% of landowners were exempt, greatly limiting the amount of land available. The nobles were reluctant to sell their land, further increasing tensions.

Compounding the land issue was Guria's high dependence on maize as a cash crop. While other products, notably silk and wine, were major sources of income in the Kutais Governorate, maize was by far the most important. In the 1880s over one-quarter of all Russian maize exports came from the Kutais Governorate, and by 1901 90% of all maize from the Transcaucasus was from there. However 1891 saw a bad harvest in the rest of Russia, so exports were severely curtailed to help alleviate the shortages, which did not recover until 1895. By that time grain from the United States had become popular, and the prices for maize dropped considerably. More recently the years 1902–1903 had seen a poor harvest, which further agitated the peasants in Guria.

History

Formation of the Republic
The incident that led to the creation of the Republic occurred in May 1902 in the village of Nigoiti. A dispute over grazing rights between peasants and the local noble, Prince Machutadze, led to a meeting of peasants, who agreed to stop working on the Prince's land and stop paying rent. Led by former workers from Batumi, approximately 700 peasants met, organised by Grigol Uratadze, a member of the RSDLP. Uradadze sought the support of the RSDLP for the boycott, but they refused due to the inclusion of overt religious overtones of the meeting, including swearing oaths on icons, which went against the ideals of social democracy. They were reluctant to help a peasant movement, seeing social democracy as a worker-led movement, with Nikolay Chkheidze, a Georgian Menshevik active in Batumi at the time saying that they "cannot have a peasant movement under our banners." However two local Mensheviks, Noe Zhordania and Silibistro Jibladze, agreed to help. The peasants' demands varied, and included things like free grazing rights, rent reduction, and an end to the payments made to the clergy.

The movement gained momentum, with meetings occurring on a frequent basis, and by the spring of 1903 half of Guria was involved, and by 1904 20 of the 25 rural societies (analogous to municipal governments) were participating in boycotts of landowners. The boycott was extended in January 1904 to include government institutions and the church, with further calls to seize these lands. The authorities responded by arresting over 300 people, and several, including Zhordania and fellow Menshevik leader Noe Khomeriki were exiled to Siberia, though this only encouraged further participation in the movement. Initially terrorism and acts of violence were used, but this was banned by mid-1903, seen as an "improper evaluation of the revolutionary activity of men." By that time the Georgian Social Democrats decided to support the Gurian Republic, agreeing to at a meeting in May 1903. They established a separate committee for "agricultural workers" that would focus on Guria, with the phrase an attempt to rectify Marxism with the peasant movement. Tsarist officials remained in Guria, though they were boycotted, with Luigi Villari, an Italian traveler who visited Guria in 1905, stating that "no Gurian would think of applying to a Government official for anything."

Organization

System of government

The government for the Gurian Republic was organised form the village level up and was based on the legislation that came from the emancipation of the serfs. Village meetings were vested with supreme authority, and also served as a court. These meetings initially met on an infrequent basis, but by 1905 were assembling weekly. They were forums for a variety of topics, from banning expensive funerals and weddings to setting the curriculum for schools. They became increasingly political and could last for hours, even days, at a time. Linguist Nikolai Marr, who was from Guria, described that while the peasants took an active role in the meetings, though noted that the workers from the cities were largely directing them.

Within a village a "circle" was made, and there were on average 10 circles for 90 households. Each circle would elect a "tensman" (Georgian: ათისთავი, atistavi) who then would select among themselves a "hundredsman" (ასისთავი, asistavi). They would then elect representatives for the rural society, who selected regional their own representatives. All people were expected to contribute money or labour, and Villari reported that "one sometimes saw nobles, priests, peasants, and shopkeepers all manfully doing their turn of work."

These regional representatives would be the ones directly in contact with the Gurian Social Democratic Committee, which was established as a parallel governmental structure by the Social Democrats, who were initially reluctant to have the peasants join their movement. Guria was further divided into five regions, each led by a Committee member, though the village assembly still held ultimate authority. Commissions were further formed to set rent and establish grazing rights on confiscated land. In charge of the committee was Benia Chkhikvishvili, who was variously referred to as the "Gurian President" or the "Gurian King." According to historian Stephen F. Jones, "in all the meetings there was no sign of nationalism or anti-Russian feeling," as Russia was seen as a protector against a possible invasion from the neighbouring Ottoman Empire.

The decision to have two systems like this caused tension between both groups: the Social Democrats did not want to lose focus of their class struggles, while the peasants were angry at being excluded from joining the party. This was endemic of a larger issue in the RSDLP, which would eventually lead to a split of the party into the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions at their Second Congress in August 1903. This would lead to further division within the Georgian Social Democrats, and would not be fully resolved during the existence of the Gurian Republic. Indeed, divisions would lead to a split between Georgian socialists in 1905, with the social democrats declaring themselves Mensheviks and aligning with the RSDLP. Despite this division, factional differences had little impact on the Gurian Republic, with both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks at times being asked to participate in debates.

Starting in 1903 there had been a slow expansion of the ideals of the Gurian Republic outside its borders, and by August 1904 it had firmly taken hold in neighbouring Imereti, which had 600 "circles" of its own by the end of 1905; Mingrelia, another bordering region, also saw similar movements start up. Near the end of 1904 a two-ruble tax was instituted in Guria to purchase arms, leading to fears by the tsarist authorities of an armed peasant uprising. Groups were organised into so-called "Red Detachments," and while nearly every Gurian was armed, they were not a serious force that could have deterred a real military invasion. A contemporary report noted that at most there was 2,000 rifles in the entire region, with not all of them in working order and a shortage of ammunition.

Justice

Justice was conducted in a popular fashion and was held in the village assemblies. As Villari noted, the "corruption and inefficiency of the Russian courts of justice in Georgia was a byword among the people and constituted one of the chief grievances of the inhabitants, who constantly but fruitlessly demanded that they should be reformed." Thus when the movement first began, locals immediately established their own system of justice, ignoring the Russian courts. Set up as they were, the courts were prone to make grave mistakes, with many individuals going for entertainment or to pursue grudges against others. Decisions were made by a majority vote, and women were allowed to participate. Villari witnessed one such trial, writing that about 200 people gathered for the case, an appeal of a merchant who had been convicted of adultery. He had been sentenced to a boycott, and after several weeks was seeking a redress. After making his case there was commentary both for and against him by various individuals, until a motion was put forth to withdraw the boycott, which passed with a simple majority vote.

In terms of punishment, the death penalty was retained, but not used; instead, the most severe form of punishment was a boycott of an individual. This was considered a terrible sentence: one contemporary said that "everyone feared the boycott" as it meant "expulsion from social life, isolation from one's neighbourhood, [and] the people's enmity." In even more extreme cases, the courts could have individuals expelled from their village or town. Other methods were employed as well: Villari notes that one case saw two peasants convicted of adultery forced to ride a donkey naked through the town while proclaiming their guilt and swearing to live a better life. The tsarist police, effectively powerless, were unable to carry out any arrests.

1905 Revolution
On 9 January 1905 soldiers fired upon a crowd of demonstrators in Saint Petersburg, an event that became known as Bloody Sunday, and set off the 1905 Russian Revolution, exacerbated by consistent defeats during the Russo-Japanese War then ongoing. Protests against Tsarist rule broke out across the Russian Empire, and the situation in Guria became much more violent. Terrorist activities became common, with arson a favourite option, with police stations and local administrative offices (which held land records) being the main targets. The few police still stationed in Guria were attacked: of the eight police stationed in Guria at the start of 1905, one was murdered, one wounded, two ran away, and four resigned their post.

At this time the Tsarist authorities responded to the Gurian Republic. The acting governor-general of the Caucasus, Yakov Malama (ru), notified the authorities in Saint Petersburg that "The situation in the Ozurgeti district and surrounding areas is assuming the character of a rebellion" and requested military assistance to handle it. Before a reply was sent Malama ordered Maksud Alikhanov-Avarsky west, with full military authority to handle the situation. Alikhanov-Avarsky, known as a brutal military commander, declared emergency rule in Guria on 18 February and was named the governor of the Kutais Governorate on 27 February; however before he moved west a petition of leading Georgians convinced Malama to call it off and instead use diplomacy to resolve the troubles in Guria.

Tsarist response

On 28 February a new Viceroy of the Caucasus, Illarion Vorontsov-Dashkov, was appointed and given sweeping powers in order to end the rebellions, particularly in Guria. The position of viceroy had been replaced with a governor-general, who held reduced authority, in the 1880s as the imperial government tried to centralise control over the Caucasus. Vorontsov-Dashkov was seen as a moderate and less reactionary than Alikhanov-Avarsky, and rather than use military force sent a sole representative, Sultan Krym-Girei, to tour Guria and hear their grievances. Krym-Girei spent a few weeks in the region attending meetings where he told the Gurians that Vorontsov-Dashkov was willing to make broad concessions and agree to any reasonable request, but as rebellions broke out closer to Tiflis he was recalled on 8 March. Even so, Krym-Girei was able to take in several of the main issues facing the Gurian Republic, which were mainly a mix of political and economic demands, and were clear they wished to remain part of the Russian Empire; as historian David Marshall Lang wrote, the Gurians "merely desired to emerge from their colonial status and enjoy the same rights and privileges as the citizens of European Russia." Krym-Girei later said that the demands of the Gurians were too extreme to seriously consider, and that the Constitution of France would not have been enough to satisfy them. Even so, he did give four recommendations to Vorontsov-Dashkov: replacement of appointed elders by elected individuals; the restoration of libraries; allow the return of those in administrative exile; and the removal of soldiers stationed in Guria, but not from there. The first two recommendations were eventually implemented.

In May Vorontsov-Dashkov appointed Vladimir Staroselski governor of the Kutais Governorate, and tasked him with devising a policy of land reform. An agronomist, Staroselski had previously worked in Georgia to help combat the spread of phylloxera, and was well known to the Georgian intelligentsia as a liberal. He accepted the position with conditions, namely that martial law be ended and the end of "arbitrary behaviour" of officials, including questionable arrests; these demands were met, and within ten days of Staroselski's appointment martial law was lifted and the detainments stopped. Staroselski further enabled the Gurian Republic by attending meetings, reportedly released prisoners, and used trains controlled by the committees. Uratadze later wrote that he was an unusual administrator, "a real nihilist member of the intelligentsia, more of an idealist than an administrator.

End of the Republic
The rebellions continued throughout 1905, and with no end in sight the military was dispatched in August to restore order in eastern Georgia. This only furthered issues across Georgia, and Guria armed itself and cut off all transit between it and the rest of the Caucasus. Things were calmed though with the announcement of the October Manifesto by Tsar Nicholas II, on 17 October: a precursor to the Russian Empire's first Constitution, it would grant freedom of speech, assembly, and the establishment of an elected legislative body, the Duma. The Manifesto was seen by the Caucasus administration as an endorsement of its liberal policies, and a confirmation that using force to re-integrate Guria would only lead to further destabilisation across the Empire. Staroselski went to Guria and met with the leadership there to discuss terms of ending the rebellion; after some debate the Gurian Republic determined that they would only agree to ending the boycott if the provisions of the Manifesto were properly implemented; until that point they would continue their efforts.

Despite these assurances, clashes continued between the peasants and the government. Vorontsov-Dashkov again attempted a military solution, sending a detachment of 100 Cossacks to Guria. They were repulsed in battle by a number of armed Gurians (between 1,000 and 4,000; sources differ) on 20 October at Nasakirali, with fourteen Cossacks being killed. Before further expeditions could be sent, Staroselski and intelligentsia from Tiflis dissuaded Vorontso-Dashkov, who hoped negotiations could continue.

In late November and early December tsarist forces began to re-assert control in both Saint Petersburg and Moscow. With the end of the war with Japan Nicholas felt comfortable enough to use military force to end the uprisings, more so as promises of reform had failed to have any real effect. In response a general strike was called for Tiflis to begin in December, while the railway and telegraph lines were captured in Kutaisi. On 5 December Votontsov-Dashkov named Malama military governor of Tiflis, but quickly replaced him on 26 December with Alikhanov-Avarsky, and tasked him with restoring order to the city by whatever means necessary.  In response the Surami Pass, which had the lone railway link between western and eastern Georgia, was blocked by the Gurians, who prepared for a military invasion. No train was allowed to cross without the permission of the Gurians, effectively cutting western Georgia off from the rest of the Empire.

With the uprisings in Russia ended, orders came in late December to resolve the situation militarily, and have all the revolutionaries arrested. On 6 January 1906, on orders of the Tsar, Staroselski was removed from his position as governor of the Kutais Governorate, and replaced by Alikhanov-Avarsky. Immediately Alikhanov-Avarsky had his predecessor arrested and sent to Tiflis, and began harsh reprisals in an attempt to restore order. An attempted stand at the Surami Pass by the Gurians failed to stop Alikhanov-Avarsky, who reached Kutaisi by the middle of January. He issued a proclamation stating that if order was not restored he would use force to do so, and was willing to kill any who opposed. By mid-February twenty battalions of soldiers, a squadron of Cossacks, and twenty-six cannons were sent to restore government control over Guria. People were forced to publicly swear allegiance to the Tsar, and those who refused were either exiled to Siberia or shot.

By mid-March, the Gurian Republic was effectively abolished, and Guria was once again integrated into the Empire. This came at a terrible cost: hundreds of buildings were destroyed, some 300 people were deported to Siberia, and an unknown number were killed. A report by a Social Democratic newspaper that March said that "It is terrible in Guria today. The town of Ozurgeti no longer exists" and that "in the villages, hundreds of houses are in ashes." The occupation would last several more months, and did not let up: in a speech to the Duma in 1909, Evgeni Gegechkori, who represented Kutaisi, noted that in eight months of occupation in Guria, 80,000 rubles in fines were issued, 381 houses and 400 shops were burnt down. Military courts were established in August 1906, which saw 73 people sentenced to death, 62 for hard labour, and 4 exiled, though these figures do not include court-martial sentences.

Aftermath
Though protests continued sporadically until 1907, the Gurian Republic was over by 1906. The organisers of the movement knew that their ideas could be successful; labour organizer Eric Lee has written that "it turned out to be a harbinger for a much larger experiment in 'revolutionary self-government,'" a reference to the Democratic Republic of Georgia that would be established in 1918 and led by many of the Social Democrats associated with the Gurian Republic.

The repressive measures of Vorontsov-Dashkov and Alikhanov-Avarsky were not forgotten: both were the subject of multiple assassination attempts in the aftermath of the uprisings. Vorontsov-Dashkov was wounded several times but survived all threats on his life; he continued to pursue tolerant policies in the Caucasus in an attempt to pacify the population. He was finally replaced in 1916 by the Tsar's cousin Grand Duke Nicholas in order to lead the Caucasus Campaign of the First World War. Alikhanov-Avarsky was killed on 3 July 1907 in Alexandropol, the target of an Armenian terrorist group.

Legacy
The Gurian Republic has been called "the most effective and organized peasant movement in the [Russian] empire" by Jones. Due to its location on the fringes of the Empire, both geographically and politically, which is why the authorities were slow to respond, Guria was able to sustain its republic for several years. Jones has noted that the "social, economic, and ethnic homogeneity of the region" were important factors in its success, as it was unique across Georgia for being an overwhelmingly peasant, ethnically Georgian region.

Socialism, particularly the social democratic views of the local Georgian intelligentsia, played a major role in the Gurian Republic. Jones has cautioned that the success of the movement "was not due to the strength of Marx’s ideas," noting that they were "religious believers who swore oaths on icons" and peasants who simply wanted to own their own land. However Lee has argued that it should be seen as a serious "test  of Marxism in theory and practice," and that "it can be argued that it was even more important than the Paris Commune."

Lee noted that many of the leading figures of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, which existed from 1918 until 1921 and was led by Georgian Mensheviks, first participated in the movement in Guria, where many of them were from. This is a point that was recognised by the Mensheviks themselves: Akaki Chkhenkeli, who later served in the Georgian government, said in 1908 that the "Gurian movement was the most important stage on the path of Georgian social democracy’s independent self-development ... it forced social democracy to pay attention to the peasantry." It also forced the Georgian Social Democrats to realise the importance of incorporating the peasants into the movement, an idea previously downplayed by leading Social Democrats. This would help solve the dilemma of utilising Marxism (which was traditionally oriented towards the working class) into a rural society (which encompassed much of the Russian Empire). While not fully implemented by the Bolsheviks or Mensheviks, the ideas of the Gurian Republic were a clear indication of how such an issue could be resolved, and was indeed used by the government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia when it was formed in 1918.

References

Notes

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Bibliography

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Category:1904 in Georgia (country)
Category:1905 in Georgia (country)
Category:1905 Russian Revolution
Category:1906 in Georgia (country)
Category:Former republics
Category:Guria
Category:Kutais Governorate
Category:National liberation movements
Category:Peasant revolts
Category:States and territories established in 1905
Category:States and territories disestablished in 1906