Georgian Socialist-Federalist Revolutionary Party

The Georgian Socialist-Federalist Revolutionary Party was a bourgeois-nationalist party in Georgia, founded in April 1904. The party demanded national autonomy for Georgia within the framework of the Russian bourgeois-landlord state.[1] Mainly based in the rural areas, the party's membership was almost entirely drawn from the peasantry and the petty gentry.[2] The political profile of the party had an appeal amongst moderately nationalist intellectuals, schoolteachers and students.[3] The party strived that agricultural issues not be decided by central authorities, but by autonomous national institutions.[2] The party published the periodical Sakartvelo (the Georgian term for "Georgia").[4]

According to Boris Souvarine, the party accepted arms from Japan to fight against the Russian state during the Russo-Japanese war. The party was one of very few oppositional groups in the Russian empire to accept such aid.[5] The party conducted a series of robberies in the Caucasus. In April 1906 the party managed to rob the Dusheti treasury, taking a bounty of 315,000 rubles.[6] The bulk of the stolen money stayed with Kereselizde, the organizer of the robbery, who took it with him as he went into exile.[6] In November 1904, the party took part in a conference of oppositional groups in Paris, where the 'Paris agreement' of struggle against autocracy was adopted. The party was represented at the conference by Dekanozov and Gabuniya. Other participating organizations were the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the Polish Socialist Party, the Polish National League, the Finnish Party of Active Resistance, the Latvian Social Democratic Workers Party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the Union of Liberation. The conference adopted a declaration called for the establishment of a democratic regime in Russia (although not specifying if it was to be monarchic or republican), but could not agree on the formation of a joint central bureau for the oppositional forces.[7][8] In April 1905, the Socialist-Federalists, the Socialist Union of White Russia and several of the groups that had participated in the Paris conference (Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Finnish Party of Active Resistance, Latvian Social Democratic Workers Union) met in Geneva and formed the General Fighting Committee, striving to establish constituent assemblies for Russia, Poland and Finland.[9][10]

In the first Duma election, the Socialist-Federalist Iosif Baratov won a seat from Tiflis.[11] The party had formed an electoral bloc ahead of the polls, together with the Georgian Democratic Party and the Radical Party.[12] Later, the party was able to capture the majority seats from Georgia in the Second Duma.[13]

In 1907, the party adopted the policy of extraterritorial national-cultural autonomy, that an individual would enjoy cultural and national autonomy no matter where in the Empire he/she would reside.[14]

After the 1917 October Revolution, the party formed an anti-Soviet bloc along with the Georgian Mensheviks, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation ("Dashnaks") and the Azeri Musavat Party. The bloc received support from Germany and Turkey, and later, by the Anglo-French interventionists.[1] The party later formed the Committee for Independence of Georgia with the National Democrats and Mensheviks, and attempted to launch an armed uprising against Soviet power in October 1923.[15]

References

  1. 1 2 Lenin, V.I.. A Contribution to the History of the National Programme in Austria and in Russia (1914)
  2. 1 2 Luxemburg, Rosa. The National Question (1909)
  3. ↑ Suny, Ronald Grigor. The making of the Georgian nation. Studies of nationalities in the USSR. Bloomington [u.a.]: Indiana Univ. Pr, 1988. p. 165
  4. ↑ National Parliamentary Library of Georgia: Zurab Avalishvili – a famous Georgian scientist, historian, – was reburied in Georgia
  5. ↑ Draper, Hal. The Myth of Lenin’s “Revolutionary Defeatism” (1953/1954)
  6. 1 2 Geifman, Anna. Thou Shalt Kill: Revolutionary Terrorism in Russia, 1894–1917. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993. pp. 159-160
  7. ↑ Lenin, V.I.. The New Senate Interpretation (1906)
  8. ↑ Galaĭ, Shmuėl. The Liberation Movement in Russia, 1900-1905. Soviet and East European studies. Cambridge [Eng.]: University Press, 1973. pp. 216-217
  9. ↑ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9800E7DA163EE733A25754C0A9639C946497D6CF
  10. ↑ http://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2115/8055/1/KJ00000034012.pdf
  11. ↑ Suny, Ronald Grigor. The making of the Georgian nation. Studies of nationalities in the USSR. Bloomington [u.a.]: Indiana Univ. Pr, 1988. p. 173
  12. ↑ Jones, Stephen F. Socialism in Georgian Colors: The European Road to Social Democracy, 1883-1917. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2005. p. 200
  13. ↑ Jones, Stephen F. Socialism in Georgian Colors: The European Road to Social Democracy, 1883-1917. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2005. p. 211
  14. ↑ Suny, Ronald Grigor. The making of the Georgian nation. Studies of nationalities in the USSR. Bloomington [u.a.]: Indiana Univ. Pr, 1988. p. 176
  15. ↑ Struggle of the Georgian people against communist regime
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