98 Ë War, Independence, and Reconquest, 1914–21
preparations against the Georgian government in late 1920. At the Eighth All-Russian
Congress of Soviets held in December 1920 (the last in which the Mensheviks were
allowed to take part), Lenin declared: “You know that a nal peace has been signed
with a number of states bordering on the Western frontiers of Russia that were part
of the former Russian Empire. The Soviet government has unequivocally recognized
their independence and sovereignty, in accordance with the fundamental principles
of our policy.”¹⁰⁷But Lenin omitted mentioning Georgia altogether, a manifest sign of
his scheme against it, which was immediately noticed by the Mensheviks present.¹⁰⁸
By January–February 1921, Moscow, aware that internal subversion in Georgia
was hopeless, had made up its mind to conquer and sovietize it.¹⁰⁹O cially Moscow
displayed a friendly face even on the eve of the Red Army’s invasion of Georgia in
February 1921. On 7 February 1921, a banquet was held in Ti is to celebrate the Geor-
gian state’s de jure recognition by Western powers, which had taken place ten days
earlier, on 27 January,¹¹⁰the day the Bolsheviks secretly decided to invade and con-
quer Georgia.¹¹¹Diplomats from Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Poland, and Russia
attended. The following day, Kirov’s successor, Aron L. Sheinman, insisted that Rus-
sia “wanted to live in peace and friendship with the Georgian republic.”¹¹²Three days
later, peasants of the Borchalo district, an area under dispute with Armenia, staged
a revolt instigated by the Bolsheviks to justify military invasion. Indeed, within days
the Eleventh Red Army had invaded Georgia to “assist the Georgian people.” Simul-
taneously Georgian Bolsheviks, headed by Filipp Makharadze (1868–1941), Mamia
Orakhelashvili (1883–1937), and Shalva Eliava (1893–1937), formed a Revolutionary
Committee, which then proclaimed a Soviet regime. A week of intense battle followed,
with Georgian forces led by G.I. Kvinitadze and supported by the Mountaineer Repub-
lic and Azeri émigrés in Ti is such as Bammat. Three days later, however, Ti is itself
was taken by the Red Army, accompanied by Ordzhonikidze. The Bolshevik Revolu-
tionary Committee formally dissolved the Georgian government and declared the for-
mation of the Georgian Soviet Republic. Most Georgian political and military leaders
(including Zhordania, Ramishvili, and Kvinitadze) left to go abroad, as did other Cau-
casian ghters such as Bammat.¹¹³
107 See V.I. Lenin,Polnoe sobranie sochineniivol. 42 (Moscow: Politizdat, 1970), 131.
108 See David Dallin, “Between the World War and the NEP,” in Leopold Haimson (ed.),The Menshe-
viks(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 236.
109 See Kvashonkin, Khlevniuk, Kosheleva et al., eds.,Bol’shevistskoe rukovodstvo, 173, 175, 177.
110 For the recognition of Georgia and the Baltic states, see AMAE, correspondance politique et com-
merciale 1914-1940, série Z, dossier no. 649. Fol. 128–129.
111 Kvashonkin, Khlevniuk, Kosheleva et al., eds.,Bolshevistskoe rukovodstvo, 177–178.
112 Kazemzadeh,The Struggle for Transcaucasia, 313.
113 Lang,A Modern History of Soviet Georgia, 233–35, and Kazemzadeh,The Struggle for Transcauca-
sia, 314–24.