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Continued
from here
GEORGIA AFTER
STALIN (1954-62)
Beria's brief heyday--The Tbilisi riots--Industry and
construction--Scientific advances--Growing pains of modernization—The housing
crisis--Farming and plantations--Education, medicine and sport--Scholarship
and science--The economic potential of Georgia--Russian nationality policy
today
Beria's brief heyday
WHEN STALIN DIED, Beria stepped into place as one of the
new Soviet triumvirs, sharing power for a few weeks with Malenkov and
Molotov. Beria now moved with speed to repair his political fences in Georgia.
A plenary session of the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party
was held on 14 April 1953, which dismissed the Party Secretariat headed by A.
I. Mgeladze and established a new one under an
official named Mirtskhulava. Beria's old protégé
Valerian Bakradze, whom Mgeladze
had dismissed from government office, now became
Prime Minister of the Georgian
Republic. Several
prominent supporters of Beria whom Mgeladze and his
faction had imprisoned were released and given portfolios in the Bakradze administration. The ousted First Secretary, Mgeladze, made an abject confession, declaring that
charges of nationalist deviationism which he had levelled
against highranking Georgian Bolsheviks were based
on false evidence which he had forged from motives of personal ambition. N. Rukhadze, Georgian Minister of State Security, who had
aided and abetted Mgeladze, was imprisoned. Unlike
some officials hostile to Beria, Rukhadze was not
saved by Beria's fall later in the year; it was announced in November 1955
that he had been executed.
Beria did not long share the sweets of power with Malenkov
and Molotov. A struggle for mastery developed at the summit
of the
Soviet hierarchy. In spite of his powerful position as head of the secret
police, Beria fell, dragging down with him many high officials whose careers
were linked with his, and whose familiarity with secrets of state made their
survival dangerous to the victors. Beria was arrested in July, and his
execution for high treason announced late in December 1953. Among other
prominent Georgians who fell with him were V. G. Dekanozov,
a former Soviet Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Minister of Internal
Affairs in Georgia; B. Z. Kobulov, a former Soviet
Deputy Minister of State Security and later Deputy Minister of Internal
Affairs; and S. A. Goglidze, a former Commissar of
Internal Affairs in Georgia. These persons and others put to death with them
were accused of conspiring with Beria to liquidate the Soviet workers' and peasants'
régime with the aim of restoring capitalism and the power of the bourgeoisie.
While these charges can hardly be taken seriously, little pity need be wasted
on Beria and his accomplices, whose hands had for years been dripping with
innocent blood.
The
elimination of the Beria group in the Georgian government and Party machine
brought little joy to the Stalinists whom Beria had ousted. The post of First
Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party was filled in September 1953 by the
election of a new man, Mr. Vasili P. Mzhavanadze, a former Lieutenant-General in the Red Army.
The Second Secretary is a Russian, P. V. Kovanov.
On 29 October 1953, a forty-oneyear-old engineer
and geologist, Mr. Givi D. Javakhishvili,
was elected Prime Minister of the Georgian
Republic. Under the
benign leadership of these gentlemen, Georgia continues to prosper up
to the present day. The status of Georgia
in the higher counsels of the USSR
has been enhanced by V. P. Mzhavanadze's election
in June 1957 to candidate membership of the Presidium of the Central
Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. The Georgian Communist, Mr. M. P. Georgadze, was in 1958 appointed Secretary of the Supreme
Soviet.
The Tbilisi
riots
The only major upheaval which has been reported under the
present Georgian administration is the serious riot which occurred in Tbilisi on 9 March 1956.
This disturbance arose out of perfectly legal demonstrations held to
commemorate the third anniversary of Stalin's death. Popular sentiment was
apparently inflamed by the violent denunciation of the late Georgian dictator
delivered by N. S. Khrushchev at the 20th Party Congress in the preceding
month. The sarcastic and bitter manner in which Khrushchev ascribed all the
horrors of the purges to the 'genial' leader Stalin, whom, as he ironically
put it, the Georgians so much enjoyed calling 'the great son of the Georgian
nation', must have rankled with the Georgian masses, who had learnt to be
proud of the stupendous role which their Soso Jughashvili had played for long in Soviet and in world
affairs. During the disturbances, traffic in Tbilisi came to a halt. Trams were
overturned and rioters seized private cars and raced through the streets
spreading panic and provoking further incidents. Many university students
took part in the disorders during which, according to the Rector of Tbilisi
University, Mr. Victor Kupradze, 'illegal and
forbidden nationalist slogans' were shouted. Militia and troops soon had the
situation under control. During the disorders and subsequent reprisals, one
hundred and six persons are said to have been killed, over two hundred
wounded, while several hundred more were subsequently deported to labour camps in Siberia.
This isolated incident led foreign observers to draw much
exaggerated conclusions as to the present strength of Georgian nationalist
sentiment. The Georgians, it is true, are legitimately proud of their past
and present achievements in the arts, sciences and letters, and conscious of
their national uniqueness among the peoples of the USSR. It is also true that they
exhibit at times an unreasonably cantankerous attitude towards neighbouring peoples, including the Russians themselves,
from whom they have suffered injury in the past. But this does not mean that
the Georgians are forever hatching plots against the Soviet state, as some
Western writers would have us believe. N. S. Khrushchev himself ridiculed
this idea in 1956, when pouring scorn on Stalin's obsession with a supposed
Georgian nationalist movement planning to take Georgia
out of the Soviet Union and join her to Turkey.
'This is, of course, nonsense. It is impossible to imagine
how such assumptions could enter anyone's mind. Everyone knows how Georgia
has developed economically and culturally under Soviet rule.' 'The industrial
production of the Georgian republic,' Mr. Khrushchev continued, 'is
twenty-seven times greater than it was before the Revolution. . . .
Illiteracy has long since been liquidated, which, in pre-revolutionary Georgia,
included 78% of the population. Could the Georgians, comparing the situation
in their republic with the hard situation of the working masses in Turkey, be aspiring to join Turkey? . . . According to the
available 1950 census, 65% of Turkey's
total population are illiterate, and of the women,
80% are illiterate. Georgia
has nineteen institutions of higher learning, which have about 39,000
students between them. The prosperity of the working people has grown
tremendously in Georgia
under Soviet rule. It is clear that as the economy and culture develop, and
as the Socialist consciousness of the working masses in Georgia grows, the
source from which bourgeois nationalism draws its strength evaporates. . . .'
Industry and construction
The concluding phrase quoted may perhaps contain an
element of wishful thinking. None the less, it is undeniable that the
Georgians are now reaping the benefit of the industrial and agricultural
policies so ruthlessly pursued in the Stalin era. The Soviet government has
over the years invested vast sums of money in Georgia, by building factories,
dams and hydroelectric stations, draining swamps, constructing airports,
schools and other utilities. Between 1913 and 1957, the quantity of
electricity generated rose from 20,000,000 to 2,573,000,000 kilowatt-hours.
Coal production, which ammounted in 1913 to 70,000
tons, reached 2,967,000 tons in 1957. Iron production rose in the two years
between 1955 and 1957 from 436,000 to 640,000 tons, and steel production, totalling only 200 tons in 1940, reached 803,000 in 1957.
The total production of rolled metal, of which 20,000 tons were manufactured
in 1950, amounted by 1957 to 705,000 tons. Cement production rose between
1932 and 1957 from 133,000 to 1,025,000 tons. Other branches of heavy
industry in which production has been appreciably stepped up include machine
tools, lorries and electric locomotives.
The reorganization of management in industry and
construction works carried out in the USSR in 1957 helped to accelerate
the development of the Georgian economy. The country was turned into a single
economic region headed by an Economic Council in charge of more than five
hundred large industrial establishments. Previously, these enterprises had
been under different departments and ministries, many of them based entirely
on Moscow,
where all decisions had to be made. In the comparatively short period of its
working, the Economic Council has demonstrated the advantages of this new
form of industrial administration. Management has been brought close to the
production floor, while the workers themselves are drawn increasingly into
the direction of industry and construction. Workers are encouraged to make
suggestions on possible improvements in work methods and techniques, and
individuals showing special promise sit on technical committees which exist
at the main factories.
Scientific advances
Extensive research has been carried out recently in Georgia
into automation, instrument making, electrical engineering and telemechanics. New scientific institutes have arisen such
as the Institute
of Applied Chemistry
and Electrochemistry, the Research Institute of Automation of Production
Processes, and a big electronic data-processing centre. Georgian scientists
are doing advanced research in nuclear physics, and the physics of low
temperatures and cosmic rays. The nuclear reactor recently installed in Tbilisi enables
scientists there to carry out investigations into the peaceful uses of atomic
energy. The Georgian Academy of Sciences is setting up an Institute of Semi-Conductors
which will contribute to the development of computing techniques, telemechanics and automation. Scientific contacts with
countries abroad are growing more regular and varied. In 1958, for example,
Georgian scientists attended meetings and congresses in Edinburgh,
Leyden, Berlin,
Leipzig, Geneva,
London, Vienna,
Bucarest, Rome and Brussels. The
observatory at Abastumani is studying variable
stars in collaboration with observatories in the United
States, Holland and Ireland.
Growing pains of modernization
This modernization is not without its growing pains. Nor
has the industrial development of Georgia been achieved without
sacrificing something of what we in the West regard as basic facilities and
amenities. In spite of its tourist attractions, Georgia suffers from a chronic
shortage of hotels and restaurants. This applies to the capital itself: the
Tbilisi Intourist hotel on Rustaveli Avenue
to which most visitors are directed is as sepulchral in its dusty décor as
its management is friendly and civil, and most of the rival establishments
which existed prior to the 1917 Revolution have long since been taken over
for other uses. While Tbilisi now has its own efficient television studio and
transmitter, the production and marketing of television and radio sets, as
well as such consumer durables as refrigerators, washing machines and
electric cookers, is far from being equal to the potential demand. In
December 1959, Mr. V. P. Mzhavanadze told the 20th
Congress of the Georgian Communist Party that many industrial and agricultural
enterprises in the republic were not operating satisfactorily and that a
shortage of consumer goods persisted. Plans for building schools and cultural
and medical centres were lagging. 'It is enough to
note that during the past two years only 97 schools have been built instead
of the planned total of 525; only 77 medical centres
instead of 330; only 155 cultural centres instead
of 735; and only 77 bath-houses instead of 555.' If Georgia were to pull its weight
in the new Seven-Year Plan for 1959-65, then severe sanctions would have to
be applied against inferior standards of work and behaviour,
Marxist-Leninist ideological campaigns would have to be intensified, and
anti-religious propaganda vigorously pursued.
The housing crisis
The housing position in Georgia, though leaving much to
be desired, is alleviated somewhat by the fact that the land was not ravaged
by the Nazi Germans, as was European Russia, and also by the ease with which
simple peasant houses can be run up in this temperate climate from wood, mud
and other cheap materials. The rapid growth of Georgia's
urban centres since World War II has led to
overcrowding and some of the picturesque quarters of old Tbilisi have degenerated into slums. Some
90,000 flats have been built since the war by state and municipal enterprise,
and another 40,000 have been put up in Georgia's towns by factory and
office workers on a cooperative basis. During the current Seven-Year Plan,
the rate of housing construction is to increase still faster. The state plans
to build over 100,000 more dwellings by 1965, and people constructing their
own homes will be assisted to erect another 60,000. A personal visit to the
suburbs of Tbilisi
in August 1960 showed many blocks of modern flats in the course of active
construction.
Farming and plantations
Despite the growth of Georgian industry, the country
remains to a large extent a land of agriculture, stock-raising and
plantations. The most striking progress in recent years has been in the realm
of sub-tropical crops and produce. Georgia today has 125,000 acres
of flourishing tea gardens, equipped with the latest tea-picking and
processing machinery. By 1965, Georgia is to deliver 170,000
tons gross of green tea leaf to the state. The citrus fruit plantations are
only now recovering from the disastrous frosts of 1949-50 and 1953-54, and it
will be some time before the 1949 harvest of 710 million fruit is equalled or exceeded. Vineyards are to be extended from
170,000 to 300,000 acres and should yield close on half a million tons of
grapes. Personal inspection of the Tbilisi
brandy factory and the wine cellars at Tsinandali
in Kakheti gives a highly favourable
impression of the present management and future potential of this industry,
which already markets and exports high-quality wine and brandy on an
international scale. The areas under tobacco, olives, sugar beet and maize
are also to be greatly extended.
By 1958, there were 6,250 tractors and 1,500 combine
harvesters at work in the fields of Georgia. However, the extension
of tea and citrus fruit plantations has tended to divert attention away from
the growing of wheat and other crops needed to feed Georgia's expanding population.
Thus, in 1950, Georgia
had to import three-quarters of the bread supply from other Soviet republics
and hardship was experienced by the masses. The changeover from individual
husbandry to collective and state farms, though now virtually universal, is
not yet fully accepted by all members of the peasant class, some of whom fail
to devote the same loving care to collectivized cows and crops as they do to
their own little yards and vegetable plots. It must also be remembered that
peasants are drifting away from the countryside into the new urban factories
or the prosperous state-run tea or wine combines. Compared with the growth of
heavy industry and sub-tropical cultures, the production of basic foodstuffs
in Georgia
appears rather static. The supply of butcher's meat, for instance, increased
between 1950 and 1954 from 51,000 to 84,000 tons; thereafter it rose very
slowly, amounting in 1957 to 86,000 tons, a negligible advance. Milk
production rose between 1950 and 1956 from 293,000 to 415,000 tons, but sank
in the following year to 398,000 tons. Georgia produced in 1950 156 million
eggs, a figure which rose to 232 million in 1954, around which quantity
annual production has since remained very steady. It is interesting to note
that the marketing of eggs remains one of the chief private perquisites of
individual peasants, who bring to market over 210 million of them annually,
or nine-tenths of the total consumption. Sheep raising
in Georgia
is clearly on the decline, production of wool having sunk from 4,352 tons in
1950 to 3,894 tons in 1957. However, as the Soviet Union's internal trading
and communications system becomes further rationalized, it should be easy to
supplement local food production with cheap grain and dairy products from the
Ukraine and elsewhere, leaving Georgian growers free to concentrate on the
more rewarding sub-tropical and specialized crops for which Georgia's climate
is uniquely suited.
Education, medicine and sport
The overall progress in Georgia's economic position is
matched by the advances which have been made in education, public hygiene,
and sport. The 4,500 schools have a total enrolment of 700,000, which means
that one in six of the country's population is attending school. 181 schools
have boarding facilities, of which 7,000 children at present take advantage;
the boarding system is shortly to be further expanded. There are over ninety
technical colleges and similar institutions, with 27,000 students. Eighteen
out of every thousand of the population hold a university degree or training
college diploma. The number of hospital beds in Georgia amounts to only
27,800, but the proportion of qualified medical practitioners to the
comfortably exceeds the ratio for Western Europe. Spas and sanatoria at Abastumani, Borzhomi, Sukhumi and other places annually receive thousands of
visitors from all parts of the Soviet Union.
Before World War II, sports facilities in Georgia
were poor and sparse. Today the republic has 70 stadiums, 1,000 football
fields, 4,500 volleyball and basketball courts, 270 gymnasia and 20 swimming
pools. Georgia's
ten best sportsmen participated as members of Soviet teams in the 16th
Olympic Games at Melbourne, eight of them returning home with Olympic medals.
Scholarship and science
Science, scholarship and higher education are in a
flourishing condition, as the writer was able to verify when visiting Tbilisi as well as from
regular correspondence and personal contacts with Georgian colleagues. The Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR now has
forty-four specialist branches employing over 2,000 scholars and scientists.
There is a separate Academy
of Agricultural Sciences.
Many of the academicians are also professors at the Tbilisi University
and are men of international standing. The physiologist Ivane
Beritashvili, for instance, was elected in 1959 an
honorary member of the New York Academy of Medical Sciences, on the occasion
of his seventy-fifth birthday.
Much attention is given to the study of Georgian language,
literature and history. Since 1950, six volumes of a definitive Georgian
lexicon have appeared, compiled under the direction of Professor Arnold Chikobava, whose criticism of N. Y. Mart's 'Japhetic'
theory led up to Stalin's official repudiation of Marrist
linguistic theory and methods. Professor Simon Qaukhchishvili
has brought out a new edition of the Georgian Annals (Kartlis
tskhovreba), based on all the best manuscripts.
Professors Akaki Shanidze
and Komeli Kekelidze and
their disciples continue their outstanding work on the classics of Old
Georgian literature, the principal monuments of which are now assembled in a
special Institute
of Manuscripts under
the care of Ilia Abuladze.
The Institute of the History of Georgian Literature named after Shota Rustaveli and the
Institute of the History of Georgian Art are only
two of many foundations actively studying Georgia's cultural heritage. The
teaching of European and Oriental languages is energetically pursued. The
principal second language of instruction in Georgian schools and colleges is
Russian, but English, French and German are taught in the main institutions.
The works of Dickens, Thackeray, Defoe and Sir Walter Scott are among the
English classics available in Georgian. Since 1953, one of the main
publishing houses has been issuing the works of Shakespeare in Georgian
translation, several plays in renderings by Prince Ivane
Machabeli ( 1854-98), the
rest translated by Givi Gachechiladze
and other modern scholars.
The economic potential of Georgia
It is sometimes objected that the material and cultural
advances are outweighed by the loss of Georgia's
independence, and the merging of her national destinies into those of the Soviet Union as a whole. There are naturally some
Georgians who would like to cast loose the leading strings of Moscow, while retaining
the concrete benefits which have accrued in recent years. It is doubtful,
however, whether such a development would be either feasible or beneficial,
even assuming that Mr. Khrushchev suddenly encouraged Georgia to take advantage of the
'break away' clause in the 1936 Constitution. Economic and political
integration with Russia
assures Georgia a virtual
monopoly of a huge market for tea, wine, citrus fruits, manganese and a score
of other valuable commodities, as well as such modem amenities as a twice
daily jet plane service to Moscow.
There is little or no unemployment, and Georgia is spared the ruinous
outlay of maintaining a standing army and other burdens which proved so
detrimental both to her kings of old, and to her independent régime of 191
8-21.
Russian nationality policy today
Friends of Georgia will naturally hope that further
de-Stalinization is in store for her, as well as for the Soviet Union as a
whole, and that the monolithic exclusiveness of single-party rule will give
way over the generations to a more truly democratic system. There are indeed
many signs that the present masters of Russia are alive to the danger which
Lenin foresaw when he denounced the oppression of the smaller nations of the
Soviet community by the type of person whom he termed 'that truly Russian
man, the Great Russian chauvinist, who is essentially a scoundrel and an
oppressor', and that Moscow is well aware of the need to avoid flouting the
susceptibilities and traditions of the smaller peoples of the USSR.
The Stalin personality cult received a fresh setback at
the time of the 22nd Party Congress held at Moscow
in October 1961, at which the accusations levelled
at the dead Georgian dictator in secret session in 1956 were repeated in
public with added vehemence, and his embalmed body removed from the famous
mausoleum in Red Square. In Georgia,
Stalin's demotion was received with mixed feelings. Relief was mingled with
bewilderment, while some people suspected that abuse of Stalin was being used
in certain quarters as a pretext for discrediting the Georgians generally.
Stalin's name was deleted from the official designation of Tbilisi University,
and Stalinir, the capital of South
Ossetia, reverted to its old name of Tskhinvali.
At the congress of the Georgian Comsomol or
Communist Youth organization held in Tbilisi
in January 1962, delegates discussed current problems of the day with an
outspoken frankness unthinkable a few years ago.
The case of Georgia illustrates the
achievements, both good and less good, of the radical and drastic methods of
Soviet social engineering when applied to economically backward areas. Not
everyone finds the Soviet system of government sympathetic, especially when
the interests of the Soviet peoples are represented by a Muscovite Big
Brother trying to cow the world by mouthing nuclear menaces. The Georgians
have had much to suffer from that same Big Brother in their time. But when
one contrasts the dynamic economic and industrial system of Georgia with the chronic instability of some
modern countries of the Middle East, or with the deplorable stagnation and
effeteness of others, there is no denying the positive side of Russia's work in Georgia. The Soviet formula for a
federation of European and Asiatic peoples under the domination of Russian
Communists is not a perfect one, especially as it takes absolutely no account
of the personal preferences or political aspirations of each national group.
But at least it ensures that when at last the day comes for Georgia and other
smaller peoples of the Soviet Union to enjoy a larger measure of free speech,
genuine democracy and a wider self-determination, they will do so without
drifting back into a vicious circle of ignorance, poverty and disease, and be
able to stand on their own feet economically and industrially in this
competitive modern age.
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