On today’s episode we explore the emergence and development of Bolshevism in Georgia, from the Russian Empire-wide revolutionary moments of 1905 and 1917, through the era of Menshevik rule in the Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921), to the establishment and first decade of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic 1921-1931.
In the discussion, we examine the local roots of Bolshevism in Georgia in the years prior to Sovietization in 1921, as well as the role of youth and youth organizations in pre-Soviet revolutionary processes and mobilizations as well as in early Soviet state and nation building in the Georgian SSR.
Our guest is Giorgi Beridze
Giorgi Beridze is a Doctor of Political Science and an invited lecturer at the Department of Political Science at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. His doctoral research examined labour policy-making and the role of business elites in Georgia, with particular attention to transformations in policymaking following the signing of the Association Agreement with the European Union in 2014.
His research interests include the history of the Marxist movement in Georgia, labour history, labour rights, Europeanization theory, biopolitics, and security studies. From 2023 to 2024, he served as Head of the Department for the Study of the Archives of the Democratic Republic and the Recent History of Georgia at the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University Library. During this period, his research focused on the history of Social Democracy and the Marxist movement in Georgia before, during, and after the Russian Revolution.
His work has been published in several peer-reviewed academic journals, including Europe-Asia Studies, TalTech Journal of European Studies, and Revolutionary Russia. He is also the co-author of several books published in Georgian by Tbilisi State University Press, including works on the First Democratic Republic of Georgia, the history of the Marxist movement in Georgia, and the history of youth protest movements at Tbilisi State University.
Georgian Bolsheviks - Josef Dzhughashvili (Stalin), Sasha Tsulukidze, Lado Ketskhoveli
“The younger generation will follow Lenin’s will!” - from the newspaper “Young Pioneer”, 1925
“Our Leader - Karl Liebknecht on the podium”
Below the image is a quote from communist revolutionary turned Soviet diplomat Alexandra Kollontai:
"Liebknecht, Karl Liebknecht - mention this name in every country where the working class is groaning under the yoke of capital, and it will find a bright, compassionate smile."
- from the newspaper “Young Pioneer”, 1925
In the 1920s, in two Georgian Bolshevik newspapers for youth - სპარტაკი (“Spartacus”) and ნორჩი პიონერი (“Young Pioneer”) - Karl Liebknecht was celebrated. As leader of the German Communist Party, Spartacus League and failed Spartacus Uprising in 1919 against the social-democrat controlled Weimar Republic, Liebknecht was executed (along with revolutionary Marxist Rosa Luxemburg) by anti-communist paramilitaries aligned with the governing Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Liebknecht’s memory emboldened Bolshevik criticisms of Menshevik rule in Georgia from 1918-1921 as a period of social-democratic dictatorship hostile to communist revolution. The Georgian Komsomol (all-union Leninist Young Communist League) helped name a square in central Tiflis after Liebknecht. .
