In the hope of achieving their freedom through the overthrow of the Czars the Georgian Socialists took part in the abortive Revolution of 1905. As a result their leaders were either thrown into prison or exiled to Siberia. Then followed a period of terrible repression and reaction. When the Revolution of 1917 came the Georgians helped it, and some of them took office in the Kerensky Ministry.
Kerensky’s magnetic personality and very real gifts of eloquence and idealism could not hold a position difficult enough by reason of the war, but made immeasurably more difficult, in fact impossible, by the disastrous policy of the Allies towards Russia and the unscrupulous machinations of the Bolshevik Party within the country. The mild policy of the Kerensky regime left Lenin and Trotsky, with other leaders of the Bolsheviks, free to subvert the loyalty of the soldiers in burning speeches in the streets of Petrograd. Kerensky fell and fled, and Lenin assumed his position. But not until May of 1918 was the independence of Georgia duly recognized by Russia.
This recognition was always half-hearted and unreal. It was looked upon as a temporary necessity meant to relieve the Bolshevik Government of one complication in their very dangerous international situation. With a cynicism unsurpassed by any Foreign Office of a capitalist country a Bolshevik dignitary in Moscow informed me that neither Azerbaijan nor Georgia must expect to continue independent of the Moscow Government. Russia must have the oil of Baku. It was a necessity of her very existence; and Georgia was too important for Bolshevik policy in the East for them to allow either of these countries permanently to be independent. So long as Georgia remained non-Bolshevik, she was a stumbling-block in the path of that policy. If she became Bolshevik absolute independence became a matter of no importance. She then entered directly into the Workers’ Confederation for the world-wide destruction of the capitalist system, and national boundaries lost their significance in such an enterprise.
The Georgians desire, for economic reasons and for mutual defence, the establishment of a Federation of Caucasian Republics. With the idea of creating this they called three conferences in 1918, 1919 and 1920 respectively, with the sister republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia. The breakdown of the conference in 1918 was due to the Armenians, whose timidity or reluctance to take any definite and independent action could not be overborne. They declined during the second conference to make a definite alliance to prevent the return of the Czars. In 1920 Azerbaijan was intransigeant under the pressure of the Bolsheviks. These conferences were abortive as to their purpose, but useful for preparing the ground for future action. A Treaty of Transit with Armenia was actually signed.
Tchicherine in Moscow, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, invited the Georgians to join in the attack against Denikin. This their policy of strict neutrality forbade. On the same ground they had refused help from both the English and the Germans, the one eager to employ anybody against the Bolsheviks, the other ready to engage anybody against the Allies. The Bolsheviks, angry at this refusal to help them, invaded Georgia from Vladicaucasia on May 17, 1920, but were successfully repulsed. So far so good. But we saw clearly when we were in Georgia, and at every point, that the situation there was anything but stable. From the Kemalists on the one hand and the Bolsheviks on the other, the population was in constant danger. The young general who accompanied our expeditions travelled almost literally with his hand upon his sword, and the statesmen were full of care and anxiety.
The main points in the foreign policy of this young Socialist Government besides that of strict neutrality, which has already been mentioned, and the establishment of normal relations with the Western world, are the recognition of Georgia’s independence by the Allies and the inclusion of Georgia in the League of Nations. They strongly desire federation with the other Caucasian republics. Some of them anticipate with clear intelligence the time when they will be compelled by economic necessities and the development of internationalism in politics to enter one of the large political systems, possibly Russia; but before that happens—and when it happens it must come peacefully—they want to see Russia quit of all her tyrants, Czarist and Bolshevik alike, and established upon a genuine, democratic basis with a representative National Assembly.
CHAPTER XIII
MORE ABOUT GEORGIA
After three interesting and informing days spent in Tiflis, a city beautifully situated upon many hills, we left for a ten days’ excursion into various parts of the country. The first trip was to Kasbec in the Caucasus Mountains.
Eight automobiles, with a complete camera and moving-picture equipment and a couple of newspaper men, drew up in front of our door at 7 o’clock one morning. The rain poured in torrents. The air was hot and sultry. We were advised, none the less, to take with us the warmest wraps we possessed, as we were to climb several thousand feet before the end of the day and sleep in the mountains. I made an entente cordiale with two of the Frenchmen in order to exercise my French, and we three packed ourselves into one of the roomy cars very comfortably; and off we went.
Despite the weather, it was a gay cavalcade which dashed along the great military highway, one of the finest engineering feats in the world. The rain became steadily less persistent after the first half-hour. The clouds began to disperse and the sun to peep out at us. About two hours’ distance from the city we were hailed by a brown shaggy figure standing in the middle of the road. On either side of the road was a group of picturesque peasant folk in their rough, homely garb. The men were on one side, the women on the other. An ancient priest was amongst them. The chief peasant advanced to the first car bareheaded, carrying bread and salt. His companion held a large horn of sour, strong wine. We were invited to break bread, to eat salt and to taste the wine, all of which we did punctiliously. Their faces broadened with happy smiles as they passed from car to car. Huge bunches of grapes followed. The women threw flowers to us. The lips of the bearded priest moved as if in prayer, and his hands were raised to bless. The little children broke from the side of their mothers and clapped their tiny hands. At last the horn sounded, the signal for departure was given, and to the roar of cheers, the waving of hands, the curtsying and the smiling, we left this patriarchal scene full of thoughts of early Bible lessons and the pictures of the shepherds of the East. Some of the young men wore curious yellow wigs of unsewn sheepskin, which looked like a mass of tangled blond curls, contrasting sharply with their laughing black eyes. One young giant, wearing a sheepskin wig and carrying a heavy stick, suggested the traditional Esau tending his herds and flocks.