The Muslim uprising in Ajara and the Stalinist revolution in the periphery

Abstract

In 1929, local officials in the mountainous region of upper Ajara in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) pursued aggressive policies to force women to remove their veils and to close religious schools, provoking the Muslim peasant population to rebellion in one of the largest and most violent of such incidents in Soviet history. The central authorities in Moscow authorized the use of Red Army troops to suppress the uprising, but they also reversed the local initiatives and offered the peasants concessions. Based on Party and secret police files from the Georgian archives in Tbilisi and Batumi, this article will explore the ways in which local cadres interpreted regime policies in this Muslim region of Georgia, and the interaction of the center and periphery in dealing with national identity, Islam, gender, and everyday life in the early Soviet period.

Keywords:

• Georgia
• Adjara
• Islam
• gender
• de-veiling
• Soviet periphery

ORCID

Timothy K. Blauvelt http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3023-1195

Notes

1. Section II of the Archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia (sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), formerly known as the Party Archive of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, or Partarkhiv TsK KPG), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 2.

2. From 1922–1936 the Georgian SSR was subordinated to the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, and the Georgian Party Central Committee to the Transcaucasian Regional Committee (Zakkraikom), previously called the “Kavbiuro.”

3. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 46.

4. For a comprehensive history, see Pelkmans 2006, chapter 4.

5. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 129.

6. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 196, l. 1).

7. On 30 January 1929 a decree on mandatory education was issued by the Ajaristan authorities. Due to confusion on their part about Islamic education, the decree included the closing of both Muslim religious schools (madrasa) and also secular school (mektebe), which contributed to the peasants’ concerns that the Soviet schools were intended as a step towards Christianization. 14.4.301, p. 5.

8. From “Iz rezoliutsii otdela rabotnits i krest'ianok TsK VKP(b) po doklaku otdela rabotnits i krest'ianok StK KP(b) Gruzii,” Izvestiia Tentral'nogo i Tiflisskogo komitetov Kommunisticheskoi partii (bol'sehvikov) Gruzii, October–November 1928, reprinted in Kuznetsova (1979, 160–162).

9. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 190.

10. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 139.

11. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 139.

12. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 168.

13. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 188.

14. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 118.

15. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 121.

16. Archives Administration of the Autonomous Republic of Ajara (ačaris avtonomiuri respublikis mt'avrobis sak'veucqebo dacesebuleba saark'ivo sammart'velo (aarmsdss), f. 1, op. 1, d. 894, l. 25.

17. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 4. A verst is about one kilometer.

18. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 187.

19. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 118.

20. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 191.

21. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 21.

22. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, ll. 22–3.

23. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 23.

24. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 119.

25. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 193.

26. According to an anonymous letter by “a group of Communists” addressed to ZKK First Secretary Krinitsky on 9 December 1929, in the village of Nagvarebi they refused to select delegates for the Congress. Local officials allegedly told them that those who refuse to send women to the Congress will be arrested for six months and fined 100 rubles. “This caused anger in the crowd, and they beat up three Communist officials,” the letter states. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 95.

27. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 188.

28. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 202.

29. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 203.

30. aarmsdss, f. 1, op. 1, d. 894, l. 24.

31. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l 192.

32. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 150.

33. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 131.

34. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 131.

35. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 131. l. 132.

36. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 131, l. 192.

37. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 131. l. 187.

38. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 131. l. 187.

39. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 202.

40. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 25.

41. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, ll. 2 and 21.

42. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 134.

43. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 195; aarmsdss, f. 1, op. 1, d. 894, l. 30.

44. aarmsdss, f. 1, op. 1, d. 894, l. 31.

45. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 196.

46. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 196.

47. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 301.

48. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 196.

49. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 196.

50. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 27.

51. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 27.

52. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 27.

53. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 267.

54. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 6.

55. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 2.

56. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 181.

57. All of the quotations in this paragraph are from sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, ll. 118–21.

58. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 187.

59. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 188.

60. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, ll. 188–9.

61. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 98.

62. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 120.

63. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 211.

64. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 212.

65. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, ll. 129–30.

66. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 132.

67. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 132.

68. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 132.

69. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 197.

70. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 128.

71. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 130.

72. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 1.

73. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 24.

74. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 132.

75. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 265.

76. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, ll. 33–4.

77. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 181.

78. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 176. As Pelkmans (2006) has pointed out, education in Adjara in the pre-Soviet period stressed Turkish and Arabic (p. 105).

79. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 193.

80. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 33.

81. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 132.

82. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 177.

83. This is a reference to Vladimir Platonovich Lyakhov, a Tsarist and later White Army general active on the Caucasus front in the First World War and subsequent Russian Civil War.

84. sak’art’velos šss ark’ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 177.

85. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 183.

86. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 182.

87. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 182.

88. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 176.

89. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 65.

90. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 179.

91. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 182.

92. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 131.

93. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 96.

94. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 26.

95. For a discussion of other cases in the colonized parts of the Arab world where similar phenomena took place, see Edgar (2003, 133, fn. 4).

96. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 133.

97. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, ll. 129–30.

98. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 250.

99. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 250.

100. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 250.

101. Perhaps paradoxically, one of the ways that the peasants expressed their anger in the wake of the uprising was to use official public meetings to demand the reinstatement of Memed Gogiberidze, the Ajaran Sovnarkom chairman who, to the enragement of the Party leadership and the GPU, had publicly addressed the crowd in conciliatory tones while a hostage of the rebels during the uprising (sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, l. 34.

102. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 47.

103. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 14, op. 4, d. 301, ll. 39–40.

104. sak'art'velos šss ark'ivi (II), f. 13, op. 7, d. 62, l. 259.

105. Ibid.