Authors

David Jishkariani¹;  ¹ Max Weber Network Eastern Europe, Georgia, Georgia

Discussion

The objective of the present study is to demonstrate the manner in which the Soviet Union implemented national policy in the southern border regions of the country, thereby creating a variety of ethno-territorial entities within the federative structure, as well as the potential for cooperation with a view to resolving ethnic tensions among the various ethnic groups. For my study, I chose to focus on the federative unit that existed in the South Caucasus between 1922 and 1936. The Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (TSFSR) was established in 1922, unifying the nations of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan under a single political entity. This was a consequence of mounting pressure from Moscow. Notwithstanding objections from specific political groups at the Republican level, Stalin's and Ordzhonikidze's concept of shaping the South Caucasus became an officially recognized policy in Moscow. The federative structure occupies a superior tier within the power hierarchy, yet it remains subject to the authority of Moscow. This configuration is designed to enable the execution of a primary function. Permanent conflict was observed to be present between local government officials and TSFSR. The range of potential issues is broad, with a wide spectrum of possibilities extending from the railway system to instances of inter-network struggles among NKVD officers. In the course of my research, I have been examining TSFSR documents in the following institutions: the Party Archive, the National Archive and the Archive of the National Academy of Sciences of Georgia. This has led to the suggestion of a discussion on the subject of the nationalism policy, which is a rare example of consensus between the three republics and their leaders. In the 1920s and 1930s, during the Korenizatsia process, the political leaders of three republics collaborated with one another. Despite sharing their respective attitudes, a consensus was maintained and any actions that might be considered transgressing established boundaries in this entites were refrained from. In this presentation, I shall also attempt to demonstrate the different layers of policy-making, how the local challenges in the nation-building process were presented to TSFSR officials, and then how the federative structure presented it to Moscow. The local agency and the Bolsheviks at the local level were endowed with considerable power and autonomy. The processes resulted in the dissolution of the TSFSR in 1936.
David Jishkariani – Researcher, Maw Weber Foundation – Georgian Branch Office, PhD candidate at the Helmut-Schmidt-Universität/Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg