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62-525: The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic , also known as Soviet Georgia , the Georgian SSR , or simply Georgia , was one of the republics of the Soviet Union from its second occupation (by Russia) in 1921 to its independence in 1991 . Coterminous with the present-day republic of Georgia , it was based on the traditional territory of Georgia, which had existed as a series of independent states in

124-697: A federation of republics; the light decentralization reforms during the era of perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (voice-ness, as in freedom of speech) conducted by Mikhail Gorbachev as part of the Helsinki Accords are cited as one of the factors which led to the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 as result of the Cold War and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States . There were two very distinct types of republics in

186-561: A flag , a coat of arms , and, with the exception of Russia until 1990, an anthem . Every republic of the Soviet Union also was awarded with the Order of Lenin . The number of the union republics of the USSR varied from 4 to 16. From 1956 until its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union consisted of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics. (In 1956, the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic, created in 1940,

248-493: A supranational union , it never de facto functioned as one; an example of the ambiguity is that the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1930s officially had its own foreign minister , but that office did not exercise any true sovereignty apart from that of the union. The Constitution of the Soviet Union in its various iterations defined the union as a federation with the right of

310-515: A conservative and generally ineffective Communist who coped poorly with the challenges of perestroika . Towards the end of the late 1980s, increasingly violent clashes occurred between the Communist authorities, the resurgent Georgian nationalist movement and nationalist movements in Georgia's minority-populated regions (notably South Ossetia ). On 9 April 1989, Soviet troops were used to break up

372-432: A new policy of forming a " Soviet people ". The "Soviet people" were said to be a "new historical, social, and international community of people having a common territory, economy, and socialist content; a culture that reflected the particularities of multiple nationalities; a federal state; and a common ultimate goal: the construction of communism." Russian was meant to become the common language of this community, considering

434-589: A peaceful demonstration at the government building in Tbilisi. Twenty Georgians were killed and hundreds wounded. The event radicalised Georgian politics, prompting many—even some Georgian communists—to conclude that independence was preferable to Soviet unity and would provide Georgia with a chance to fully integrate both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, whose peoples were still loyal to the Union. On October 28, 1990, democratic parliamentary elections were held. On November 14

496-498: A reputation as a fighter of corruption and engineered the removal of Vasil Mzhavanadze , the corrupt First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party . Shevardnadze ascended to the post of First Secretary with the blessings of Moscow. He was an effective and able ruler of Georgia from 1972 to 1985, improving the official economy and dismissing hundreds of corrupt officials. In the 1970s Soviet authorities adopted

558-519: A transitional period was declared until the restoration of Georgia's independence and in this regard, the republic changed its name to " Republic of Georgia ". Georgia (excluding Abkhazia) was one of the six republics along with Armenia , Moldova and the Baltic States who boycotted participation in the March 1991 union-wide preservation referendum . On 31 March 1991, a referendum was held on

620-567: A treaty of alliance with the Georgian SSR codifying its status as a treaty republic (Russian: договорная республика). This agreement allowed the formation of an Abkhazia military while also establishing a political and financial union between the two Soviet republics. Thus, through Georgia, Abkhazia joined the TSFSR and was initially on an equal footing with the other republics of the federation. On February 19, 1931, Abkhazia's republican status

682-697: The Axis powers never reached as far as Georgia. The country contributed almost 700,000 fighters (350,000 were killed) to the Red Army, and was a vital source of textiles and munitions. During this period Joseph Stalin , an ethnic Georgian, ordered the deportation of the Chechen , German , Ingush , Karachay , Karapapaks , Meskhetian Turks and Balkarian peoples from the Caucasus ; they were transported to Siberia and Central Asia for alleged collaboration with

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744-776: The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic . The 1919 parliamentary elections saw the Social Democratic Party come to power in Georgia. It tried to establish a moderate left , multi-party system, but faced some internal and external problems. Georgia was dragged into wars against Armenia and remnants of the Ottoman Empire , while the rapid spread of ideas of revolutionary socialism in rural regions accounted for some Soviet-backed peasants' revolts in Racha , Samegrelo and Dusheti . In 1921,

806-710: The Belavezha Accords which agreed that the USSR would be dissolved and replaced with a Commonwealth of Independent States . On 25 December, President Gorbachev announced his resignation and turned all executive powers over to Yeltsin. The next day the Council of Republics voted to dissolve the Union . Since then, the republics have been governed independently with some reconstituting themselves as liberal parliamentary republics and others, particularly in Central Asia , devolving into highly autocratic states under

868-539: The Caucasus prior to the first occupation of annexation in the course of the 19th century. The Georgian SSR was formed in 1921 and subsequently incorporated in the Soviet Union in 1922. Until 1936 it was a part of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic , which existed as a union republic within the USSR. From November 18, 1989, the Georgian SSR declared its sovereignty over Soviet laws. The republic

930-734: The Council of People's Commissars (the government). Mamia Orakhelashvili , a Georgian Bolshevik leader, became the first chairman of the Transcaucasian SFSR's Council of People's Commissars. Tbilisi was the capital of the republic. The republic became a founding member of the Soviet Union on 30 December along with the Russian SFSR , the Ukrainian SSR , and the Byelorussian SSR . In December 1936,

992-757: The Democratic Republic of Georgia —lasted until the end of the Russian Civil War that was being fought across the mountains, when they were invaded by the Red Army and sovietized . Following the proposal by Vladimir Lenin the three now Soviet Republics, the Armenian , Azerbaijani and Georgian SSRs , were united into the Federative Union of Socialist Soviet Republics of Transcaucasia on 12 March 1922. On 13 December that year,

1054-802: The European Court of Human Rights , the United Nations Human Rights Council and the United States . In contrast, the Russian government and state officials maintain that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states was legitimate. Constitutionally, the Soviet Union was a federation . In accordance with provisions present in its Constitution (versions adopted in 1924, 1936 and 1977), each republic retained

1116-461: The Georgian SSR as a "treaty republic" was never clear or well-defined, making its status as a separate republic disputed. The Turkestan Soviet Federative Republic was proclaimed in 1918 but did not survive to the founding of the USSR, becoming the short-lived Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the RSFSR. The Crimean Soviet Socialist Republic (Soviet Socialist Republic of Taurida)

1178-503: The Gulag . Party officials also suffered the purges. Many prominent Georgian Bolsheviks, such as Mikheil Kakhiani , Mamia Orakhelashvili , Sergo Ordzhonikidze , Budu Mdivani , Mikheil Okujava and Samson Mamulia were removed from office and killed. Reaching the Caucasus oilfields was one of the main objectives of Adolf Hitler 's invasion of the USSR in June 1941, but the armies of

1240-508: The Nazis . He also abolished their respective autonomous republics. The Georgian SSR was briefly granted some of their territory until 1957. On March 9, 1956, about a hundred Georgian students were killed when they demonstrated against Nikita Khrushchev 's policy of de-Stalinization that was accompanied by an offhanded remark he made about Georgians at the end of his anti-Stalin speech . The decentralisation program introduced by Khrushchev in

1302-831: The October Revolution , when the provinces of the Caucasus seceded and formed their own state called the Transcaucasian Federation . Competing ethno-national interests and confrontation with the Ottoman Empire in World War I led to the dissolution of the Transcaucasian Federation only two months later, in April 1918. The three successor states—the First Republic of Armenia , the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan , and

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1364-890: The People's Republic of Bulgaria , Todor Zhivkov , suggested in the early 1960s that the country should become a union republic, but the offer was rejected. During the Soviet–Afghan War , the Soviet Union proposed to annex Northern Afghanistan as its 16th union republic in what was to become the Afghan Soviet Socialist Republic . Several of the Union Republics themselves, most notably Russia, were further subdivided into Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSRs). Though administratively part of their respective Union Republics, ASSRs were also established based on ethnic/cultural lines. According to

1426-506: The Russian SFSR . Along with the state administrative hierarchy, there existed a parallel structure of party organizations, which allowed the Politburo to exercise large amounts of control over the republics. State administrative organs took direction from the parallel party organs, and appointments of all party and state officials required approval of the central organs of the party. Each republic had its own unique set of state symbols:

1488-404: The constitution of the USSR , in case of a union republic voting on leaving the Soviet Union, autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts and autonomous okrugs had the right, by means of a referendum , to independently resolve whether they will stay in the USSR or leave with the seceding union republic, as well as to raise the issue of their state-legal status. Starting in the late 1980s, under

1550-693: The First All-Caucasian Congress of Soviets transformed this federation of states into a unified federal state and renamed it into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, though keeping formally the autonomy of its constituent republics. The congress also adopted the constitution, appointed the Central Executive Committee (the highest legislative body between congressional sessions), and

1612-514: The Party lost its control over the State machinery and was banned from operating after an attempted coup d'état . Throughout this period of turmoil, the Soviet government attempted to find a new structure that would reflect the increased authority of the republics. Some autonomous republics, like Tatarstan , Checheno-Ingushetia , Abkhazia , South Ossetia , Crimea , Transnistria , Gagauzia sought

1674-490: The Soviet Union in 1922. The TSFSR was created ostensibly to consolidate the economic situation and Bolshevik control over the region. The TSFSR was dissolved upon the adoption of the 1936 Soviet Constitution and its constituent republics were elevated individually to republics of the Soviet Union. The roots of a Transcaucasian condominium state trace back to the dissolution of the Russian Empire in 1918, following

1736-661: The Soviet Union: The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic , a relic of the Soviet-Finnish War (the Winter War ), became the only union republic to be deprived of its status in 1956. The decision to downgrade Karelia to an autonomous republic within the Russian SFSR was made unilaterally by the central government without consulting its population. The official basis for downgrading the status of

1798-680: The Soviet government and Georgia remained a part of the Soviet Union until its collapse in December 1991. Republics of the Soviet Union The Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Union Republics (Russian: Сою́зные Респу́блики , romanized : Soyúznye Respúbliki ) were national-based administrative units of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The Soviet Union

1860-886: The TSFSR was dissolved and Georgia became the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Lavrentiy Beria became head of the Georgian branch of the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) and was transferred to Moscow in 1938. The exact number of Georgians executed during the Great Purges is not estimated, but some scholars suggest it varies from 30,000 to 60,000. During the purges, many eminent Georgian intellectuals such as Mikheil Javakhishvili , Evgeni Mikeladze , Vakhtang Kotetishvili , Paolo Iashvili , Titsian Tabidze and Dimitri Shevardnadze were executed or sent to

1922-639: The Transcaucasian SFSR was dissolved and divided again among the Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijani SSRs. After the Red Army invasion of Georgia , Abkhazia (an autonomous province within the Democratic Republic of Georgia ) was declared a Soviet Republic. In March 1922, the Abkhaz Revolutionary committee renamed the region the SSR of Abkhazia . Despite the declaration of this new Soviet Republic, its relations with Georgia and Russia had yet to be formally settled. On December 16, 1921, Abkhazia signed

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1984-490: The USSR as a whole) to join the United Nations General Assembly as founding members in 1945. The Soviet currency Soviet ruble banknotes all included writings in national languages of all the 15 union republics. All of the former Republics of the Union are now independent countries, with ten of them (all except the Baltic states , Georgia and Ukraine ) being very loosely organized under

2046-465: The USSR. Article 78 of the Constitution stated that the territory of the union republic cannot be changed without its agreement. Article 81 of the Constitution stated that "the sovereign rights of Union Republics shall be safeguarded by the USSR". In the final decades of its existence, the Soviet Union officially consisted of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs). All of them, with

2108-693: The agreement the northern half with significant Georgian Muslim population would become part of the Soviet Georgia but granted autonomy. Another autonomous republic was established in July 1920 in Nakhchivan , an area bordering Armenia, Turkey and Iran, which was claimed by Armenians and Azerbaijanis. After the occupation of the region by the Red Army , the Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

2170-490: The constitutional guarantee the same year. April 14 was established as a Day of the Georgian Language. In 1981, massive celebrations took place in honour of the republic's 60th anniversary, with a mass event taking place in front of General Secretary Brezhnev on Tbilisi's Constitution Square. Shevardnadze's appointment as Soviet Foreign Minister in 1985 brought his replacement in Georgia by Jumber Patiashvili ,

2232-534: The crisis came to a head. The 11th Red Army invaded Georgia from the south and headed to Tbilisi . On 25 February, after a one-week offence by the Red Army, Tbilisi fell to the Bolsheviks. Georgian Bolsheviks took over the country and proclaimed the establishment of the Georgian SSR. Some small-scale battles between Bolshevik troops and Georgian Army also took place in Western Georgia. In March 1921

2294-655: The exception of the Russian SFSR (until 1990 ), had their own local party chapters of the All-Union Communist Party . In 1944, amendments to the All-Union Constitution allowed for separate branches of the Red Army for each Soviet Republic. They also allowed for Republic-level commissariats for foreign affairs and defense, allowing them to be recognized as de jure independent states in international law. This allowed for two Soviet Republics, Ukraine and Byelorussia , (as well as

2356-624: The government of the Georgian Democratic Republic was forced in exile . On March 2 of the following year the first constitution of Soviet Georgia was accepted. On 13 October 1921 the Treaty of Kars was signed, which established the common borders between Turkey and the three Transcaucasian republics of the Soviet Union. Georgian SSR was forced to cede Georgian-dominated Artvin Okrug to Turkey in exchange for Adjara , which

2418-522: The heading of the Commonwealth of Independent States . The Baltic states assert that their incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1940 (as the Lithuanian , Latvian , and Estonian SSRs ) under the provisions of the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was illegal , and that they therefore remained independent countries under Soviet occupation. Their position is supported by the European Union ,

2480-540: The leadership of the old Party elite. Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic The TSFSR comprised Armenia , Azerbaijan , and Georgia , traditionally known as the " Transcaucasian Republics" as they were separated from Russia by the Caucasus Mountains . The TSFSR was one of the four republics to sign the Treaty on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics establishing

2542-521: The loosening of political restrictions led to fractures within the Communist Party which resulted in a reduced ability to govern the Union effectively. The rise of nationalist and right-wing movements, notably led by Boris Yeltsin in Russia, in the previously homogeneous political system undermined the Union's foundations. With the central role of the Communist Party removed from the constitution,

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2604-423: The mid-1950s was soon exploited by Georgian Communist Party officials to build their own regional power base. A thriving pseudo-capitalist shadow economy emerged alongside the official state-owned economy. While the official growth rate of the economy of the Georgia was among the lowest in the USSR, such indicators as savings level, rates of car and house ownership were the highest in the Union, making Georgia one of

2666-429: The most economically successful Soviet republics. Among all the union republics, Georgia had the highest number of residents with high or special secondary education. Although corruption was hardly unknown in the Soviet Union , it became so widespread and blatant in Georgia that it came to be an embarrassment to the authorities in Moscow. Eduard Shevardnadze , the country's interior minister between 1964 and 1972, gained

2728-417: The political foundation of the Soviet Union was formed by the Soviets (Councils) of People's Deputies. These existed at all levels of the administrative hierarchy, with the former "countries" and other regions brought into the union referred to as soviets during their time as republics and with the Soviet Union as a whole under the nominal control of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR , located in Moscow within

2790-414: The republic was the changes that had occurred in the national composition of its population (about 80% of the inhabitants were Russians , Belarusians and Ukrainians ), as well as the need to reduce the state apparatus, the cost of maintaining which in 1955 amounted to 19.6 million rubles. Chapter 8 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution is titled as the "Soviet Union is a union state". Article 70 stated that

2852-460: The republics to secede . This constitutional status led to the possibility of the parade of sovereignties once the republic with de facto (albeit not de jure) dominance over the other republics, the Russian one , developed a prevailing political notion asserting that it would be better off if it seceded. The de facto dominance of the Russian republic is the reason that various historians (for example, Dmitri Volkogonov and others) have asserted that

2914-418: The restoration of Georgia's independence on the basis of the Independence Act of 26 May 1918. The majority of voters voted in favor of the act. Georgia declared independence on 9 April 1991 under Zviad Gamsakhurdia as one of the republics to secede just four months before the failed coup against Gorbachev in August, which was supported by a declining number of hardliners. However, this was unrecognized by

2976-401: The right to secede from the USSR. Throughout the Cold War , this right was widely considered to be meaningless; however, the corresponding Article 72 of the 1977 Constitution was used in December 1991 to effectively dissolve the Soviet Union, when Russia , Ukraine , and Belarus seceded from the Union. Although the Union was created under an initial ideological appearance of forming

3038-498: The role that Russian was playing for the nations and nationalities of the Soviet Union. However, in 1978, Soviet authorities had to face the opposition of thousands of Georgians, who gathered in downtown Tbilisi to hold mass demonstration after Soviet officials accepted removal of the constitutional status of the Georgian language as Georgia's sole official state language. Bowing to pressure from mass street demonstrations on April 14, 1978, Moscow approved Shevardnadze's reinstatement of

3100-427: The rule of Mikhail Gorbachev , the Soviet government undertook a program of political reforms ( glasnost and perestroika ) intended to liberalise and revitalise the Union. These measures, however, had a number of unintended political and social effects. Political liberalisation allowed the governments of the union republics to openly invoke the principles of democracy and nationalism to gain legitimacy. In addition,

3162-583: The separate republics' issues on October 1. The first issues consisted of some of the stamps of Russia and Armenia overprinted with a star containing the five-letter acronym of the Federation inside the points. Massive inflation having set in, this was followed by an issue of the Federation's own designs, four values of a view of oil fields , and four with a montage of Soviet symbols over mountains and oil derricks , values ranging from 40,000 to 500,000 Transcaucasian rubles . The 40,000 rubles and 75,000 rubles were then surcharged to 700,000 rubles. On October 24,

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3224-414: The south and the Azerbaijan SSR to the south-east. On November 28, 1917, after the October Revolution in Russia , there was a Transcaucasian Commissariat established in Tiflis . On April 22 the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic was formed, though it only lasted for a month before being replaced by three new states: the Georgian Democratic Republic , the First Republic of Armenia and

3286-400: The union statute in the New Union Treaty. Efforts to found a New Union Treaty , however, proved unsuccessful and the republics began to secede from the Union. By 6 September 1991, the Soviet Union's State Council recognized the independence of Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania bringing the number of union republics down to 12. On 8 December 1991, the remaining leaders of the republics signed

3348-403: The union was a unitary state in fact albeit not in law. In practice, the USSR was a highly centralised entity from its creation in 1922 until the mid-1980s when political forces unleashed by reforms undertaken by Mikhail Gorbachev resulted in the loosening of central control and its ultimate dissolution . Under the constitution adopted in 1936 and modified along the way until October 1977,

3410-430: The union was founded on principles "socialist federalism" as a result of free self-determination of nation and volunteer association of equal in rights soviet socialist republics. Article 71 listed all of 15 union republics that united into the Soviet Union. According to Article 76 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution , a Union Republic was a sovereign Soviet socialist state that had united with other Soviet Republics in

3472-468: Was absorbed into the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.) Rather than listing the republics in alphabetical order, the republics were listed in constitutional order (which roughly corresponded to their population and economic power when the republics were formed). However, particularly by the last decades of the Soviet Union, the constitutional order did not correspond to order either by population or economic power. Abkhazia's status in relation to

3534-409: Was also proclaimed in 1918, but did not become a union republic and was made into an autonomous republic of the RSFSR, although the Crimean Tatars had a relative majority until the 1930s or 1940s according to censuses. When the Tuvan People's Republic joined the Soviet Union in 1944, it did not become a union republic, and was instead established as an autonomous republic of the RSFSR. The leader of

3596-411: Was declared with "close ties" to the Azerbaijani SSR. The Treaty of Moscow and the Treaty of Kars established the Nakhchivan region as an autonomous republic under the protection of the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan. Before 1923, Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan each issued their own postage stamps . The Transcaucasian Federation began issuing its own stamps on September 15, 1923, and superseded

3658-429: Was downgraded to that of an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Georgian SSR. The Adjar ASSR was established on July 16, 1921, within the Georgian SSR as a consequence of the Treaty of Kars . The treaty marking the end of the Caucasus Campaign in World War I provided for the division of the former Batum Oblast of the Kutais Governorate of the Russian Empire between Georgia and Turkey. According to

3720-485: Was formed in 1922 by a treaty between the Soviet republics of Byelorussia , Russian SFSR (RSFSR) , Transcaucasian Federation , and Ukraine , by which they became its constituent republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union). For most of its history, the USSR was a one-party state led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . Key functions of the USSR were highly centralized in Moscow until its final years, despite its nominal structure as

3782-440: Was granted political autonomy within Georgian SSR under Soviet rule. In 1922 the Georgian SSR was incorporated into Soviet Union. From March 12, 1922, to December 5, 1936, it was part of the Transcaucasian SFSR together with the Armenian SSR and the Azerbaijan SSR . During this period the province was led by Lavrentiy Beria , the first secretary of the Georgian Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia . In 1936,

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3844-414: Was renamed the Republic of Georgia on November 14, 1990, and subsequently became independent before the dissolution of the Soviet Union on April 9, 1991, whereupon each former SSR became a sovereign state. Geographically, the Georgian SSR was bordered by Turkey to the south-west and the Black Sea to the west. Within the Soviet Union it bordered the Russian SFSR to the north, the Armenian SSR to

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