The Caucasus and Japan Ë 105
ety of Georgians communicated through Melkhisedek Menabde, a merchant. Gelovani
stated to Soviet authorities that he had worked to inculcate Japanophilic sentiments in
the Georgian colony in Vladivostok. He then sent promising men such as Vasili Kipiani
to the Japanese.¹⁴¹
These Georgians in the Far East, according to Gelovani, maintained contact with
both the Social Democratic government in exile and the Georgian National Democrats.
Yet when a National Democratic organization was created in Harbin, the entire lead-
ership of the Georgian colony joined it, including Khaindarava, Rostomashvili, Mike-
ladze, Giorgi Pitskhelauri (see p. 66), and the “Ordzhonikidze brothers.”¹⁴²
In any event, there is no reason to take at face value the confessions made by
Gelovani and others later in the 1930s under Soviet captivity. What was clear was that
there was a mutual attraction between Japan and the Caucasians in the Far East. Both
sides remembered the cooperation they had forged during the Russo-Japanese War.
Both hoped that the Soviet regime would be short-lived and that the day of Caucasian
autonomy and independence would come sooner or later. The strategists of both sides
understood this very well and acted accordingly. Espionage or not, Soviet suspicions
about the Caucasian-Japanese nexus existed even at the time, only to be colossally
in ated in the 1930s.
141 File of K.O. Gelovani, Archive of the Ministry of Internal Aairs of Georgia (Tbilisi).
142 File of K.O. Gelovani, Archive of the Ministry of Internal Aairs of Georgia (Tbilisi). For Simon
Ordzhonikidze, see p. 66 of the present book.