112 Ë Renewal
litical situation in Chechnia was such that its party secretary declared that the So-
viet government had been replaced by the OGPU.²⁶Uprisings broke out in Azerbai-
jan, Georgia, and elsewhere, only to be brutally crushed.²⁷In Abkhazia, thousands of
peasants met to demand concessions from the party regarding its agricultural policy.
Local party organizations were forced to meet their demands (which Moscow charac-
terized as preparations for armed uprisings). The leader N. Lakoba was denounced
by Moscow as opportunist.²⁸In the Borchalo area of Georgia, the spring of 1931 wit-
nessed a resumption of resistance to the collectivization drive, with peasants staging
guerrilla war. Armed forces from the Red Army and the OGPU were mobilized to crush
the rebellions. Rebels took refuge in mountainous areas, from where they continued
their armed actions. In response, the OGPU took the rebels’ parents as hostages, some
of whom were executed and others exiled to Russia.²⁹
Simultaneously, political repression intensi ed. In western Georgia, for example,
in the spring of 1931, the police uncovered a “counter-revolutionary insurgent organi-
zation” allegedly headed by Georgian Social Democrats, with as many as two thou-
sand members (most of whom were poor and middle-level peasants). This organiza-
tion was formed in response to “systematic hunger and starvation.” Armenian Dash-
naks and Azeri Musavats, as they were called by the Soviet secret police, were likewise
hounded in the Caucasus.³⁰
Turmoil and violence inevitably produced large numbers of refugees eeing to
neighboring countries. In 1930 hundreds of Georgians seeking to cross the border
with Turkey were caught by Turkish authorities and handed back to Soviet authori-
ties. A large number were reportedly shot. Meanwhile, thousands of Azeris and Cen-
tral Asians took refuge in Persia. Fearing political complications, the Persian govern-
ment sent the politically active elements away from the Soviet border areas or extra-
dited them back to the Soviet Union. In 1931, Moscow even dispatched military forces
26 Eliseeva, “Chechnia,”, p. 138.
27 Mamoulia,Les combats indépendandistes des Caucasiens, 126–27, andTsK RKP(b)–VKP(b) i nat-
sional’nyi vopros, 673–75.
28 TsK RKP(b)–VKP(b) i natsional’nyi vopros, 675–80. For more detail of the uprising, see Timothy K.
Blauvelt, “Resistance and Accommodation in the Stalinist Periphery: A Peasant Uprising in Abkhazia.”
Ab Imperio, 2012, no. 3, 78–108.
29 Mamoulia,Les combats indépendandistes des Caucasiens, 132 and Georges Mamoulia, ed.,
Kavkazskaia Konfederatsiia v o tsialnykh deklaratsiiakh, tainoi perepiske i sekrethykh dokumentakh
dvizheniia “Prometei.” Sbornik dokumentov(Moscow: Sotsial’no-polititsheskaia mysl’, 2012), 30.
30 TsK RKP(b)–VKP(b) i natsional’nyi vopros, 667–78, 670. One ought to be careful, however, in evalu-
ating these rebellions. In the case of the “Sheki rebellion” in Azerbaijan in 1930, it may well have been
a provocation organized by a “leader” under the control of the Soviet secret police. See a suggestive
essay by Bruce Grant, “An Average Azeri Village (1930): Remembering Rebellion in the Caucasus Moun-
tains.”Slavic Review, 63, no. 4 (2004), 705–731. For cases of uprisings led by police agents, see Aleksei
Tepliakov, “ ‘Otrabotannyi material’: massovaia likvidatsiia sekretnoi agentury sovetskikh spevsluzhb
v 1920–1930-e gody.”Rossiiskaia istoriia, 2013, no. 4, 110–111.