The Eurasian Triangle. Russia, the Caucasus and Japan, 1904-1945

The Akashi Operations Ë 39

vised by Dekanozishvili with Akashi. In Tiis, an underground bomb factory was to be

built.⁷²(An Italian eyewitness reported at the time that in Tiis, “bomb factories were

being perpetually discovered.”⁷³) The military organization of the Socialist Federalists

also drew up a plan to conduct partisan warfare.⁷⁴

By August 1905 the situation in Tiis was chaotic and menacing. A large number

of Russian soldiers appeared to control the city under martial law. Yet bombs were fre-

quently hurled at them by revolutionaries, and the soldiers were forced to scatter and

patrol in disorder to minimize casualties. By this time, Socialist Federalists in Tiis

had drafted plans to capture the city by arms.⁷⁵Well aware that the Social Democrats

were much more inuential in Georgia than the Socialist Federalists, Dekanozishvili

once again proposed to the former the creation of a united front. Oering to share with

them the weapons to be smuggled into Georgia, Dekanozishvili proposed that the So-

cial Democrats agree to convene a Constituent Assembly in Georgia and gain territorial

autonomy after the model of Poland and Finland. Supporting political centralism in

the Russian Empire, however, the Social Democrats refused the proposal, demanding,

instead, “Give us the money and the sticks [ries], we’ll get the job done.”⁷⁶

The journey of theSiriusencountered its own problems. Once the war ended in the

Far East, the Porte appeared less willing to support the Caucasian operation for armed

rebellions. It was uncertain whether it would allow passage of theSiriusthrough the

Straits (the Bosphorus and Dardanelles) to the Black Sea. At the last moment, in

any case, Dekanozishvili’s comrades in Georgia telegraphed to him that they could

not accept the arms: when the time had come for action, many lost their nerve and

were in a panic because they were convinced the Russian authorities knew about the

shipment and were about to arrest and execute them all.⁷⁷Moreover, on 16 Septem-

ber, Tedo Sakhokia informed Dekanozishvili that, now that the war with Japan had

72 Ibid. (from Kiknadze to Dekanozishvili, 3 August 1905). In this missive, one can detect hints of
the Japanese connections of these clandestine operations, Kiknadze mentioning “Maksimov” (whose
service Akashi and Dekanozishvili discussed using) and “the embassy.”
73 See Villari,Fire and Sword, 127.
74 Laskhishvili,memuarebi, 213.
75 Kiknadze to Dekanozishvili (3 August 1905). Fonds Georges Dekanozichvili, CHAN, boxe 345 AP/1.
76 See Laskhishvili to Dekanozishvili (21 October 1905), Fonds Georges Dekanozishvili, CHAN, boxe
345 AP/1.
77 This fear resulted probably from a massacre that took place in Tiis on 11 September. The Social
Democrats organized a meeting in the city council building to discuss whether to take part in the elec-
tions for the newly introduced zemstvo. Some two thousand people, mainly Georgians, gathered, but
then Cossacks and infantry red at the crowd, kiling approximately one hundred people and injuring
another two hundred. Most of the dead were “buried at the dead of night in a common grave without
any religious ceremony, permission being refused to the relatives to carry the bodies away.” Four days
after the massacre, “when thepanikhidaof the dead was held (a funeral ceremony of the orthodox
Church), nine bombs burst in dierent parts of the town – all in the vicinity of Cossack barracks.” See
Villari,Fire and Sword, 123–25.