The March 1956 demonstrations (also known as the 1956 Tbilisi riots or 9 March massacre) in the Georgian SSR were a series of protests against Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy, which shocked Georgian supporters of Stalinist ideology. The center of the protests was the republic's capital, Tbilisi, where spontaneous rallies to mark the third anniversary of Stalin's death and to protest Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin commencing on 4 March quickly evolved into an uncontrollable mass demonstration and rioting which paralyzed the city. Soon, political demands such as the change of the central government in Moscow and calls for the independence of Georgia from the Soviet Union appeared.[2]
The local Georgian authorities, confused and demoralized, passed on the responsibility to the Soviet military. Later on 9 March the troops deployed in the city opened fire upon the students picketing the government buildings in what the official Soviet version held was "an act of self-defense".[3] The agitated crowds continued resistance on 10 March but were eventually dispersed by tanks. Estimates of the number of casualties range from several dozens to several hundred.[4][5]
In spite of prompt pacification, the 1956 events marked a turning point after which Georgian loyalty to the Soviet Union was gravely compromised and the nation's consolidation intensified.[5] In the view of the historian Ronald Grigor Suny, "the swift and brutal response from the Soviet government illustrated starkly its inability to resolve the dilemma of how much of the Soviet system to change and how much of Stalin's authoritarianism to preserve. The government's confusion in Tbilisi was a bloody sign that reform was to be limited by the party's determination to preserve its essential monopoly of power."[4]
On 25 February 1956, at a closed session of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev delivered a "secret speech" in which he criticized actions taken by the Stalin regime, particularly the purges of the military and the upper Party echelons, and the development of Stalin's cult of personality, while maintaining support for other ideals of Communism by invoking Vladimir Lenin.
Rumours that Stalin, the "Father of the Nations", who had been established as the principal symbol in early Soviet communism, had been denounced by his successor quickly spread throughout the Soviet Union. Although the details were unknown, it came as a real shock to the Soviet society.[3]
In spite of the communist party's restriction of Georgian nationalism, Khrushchev's policy of de-Stalinization was, paradoxically, a blow to Georgian national pride.[6] The younger generation of Georgians was proud to consider him being a Georgian that ruled over great Russia, and, as believed widely, dominated the world.[6] Now, Stalin's denigration was seen as a symbol for the mistreatment of Georgian national consciousness at the hands of the Russian/Soviet rulers.[4]
Patriotic sentiment mixed with political protest was further inflamed by the sarcastic and bitter manner in which Khrushchev ascribed all horrors of the era to the "genial" leader Stalin, whom, as he ironically put it, the Georgians so much enjoyed calling "the great son of the Georgian nation".[7]Eduard Shevardnadze, then a Komsomol leader in Kutaisi and eventually to become President of post-Soviet Georgia, later recalled that Khrushchev's ironic remark on Georgians at the end of his speech was particularly hurtful to the pride of Georgian youth.[8]
The painful reaction caused by de-Stalinization in Georgia has been variously interpreted. It has been seen by many as a revival of Stalinism and by others as the first open expression of Georgian nationalism since the abortive revolt in 1924.[4]Sergei Arutyunov[ru] of the Russian Academy of Sciences relates:
The shift of loyalty demanded of them at that moment was too enormous to execute easily. For people with a Transcaucasian background, Khrushchev's speech was by no means a revelation. But many Georgians reacted in a rather peculiar way. Consider the peasants in Kardenakhi, the native village of my grandfather, and in many other villages from whom I had learnt the truth about the GULAGs already in the early 1940s. These people never referred to Stalin in other terms than as the "moustached one", or more explicitly, "that moustached beast" (es ulvashiani mkhetsi) even in a circle of trusted people. Now, they promptly displayed portraits of Stalin on the windshields of their tractors and lorries… This was a surprising diametrical shift. However, while among Russians, it was a shift from one sort of conformity to another conformity, in Georgia the shift was from one non-conformist behavior to another kind of non-conformist behavior".[9]
The events in Georgia passed largely unreported in the Soviet press and became a taboo theme for several decades to come. What happened can be reconstructed on the analysis of several, though frequently conflicting, contemporary reports, eyewitnesses' accounts and a few surviving secret Soviet documents.[3]
Demonstrations
According to the special report of Vladimir Janjgava, Georgian SSR Minister of Internal Affairs, the unrest began on 4 March 1956, when groups of students gathered to mark the third anniversary of Stalin's death at the Stalin monument at the Kura embankment in downtown Tbilisi. Indignant at Khrushchev's speech, they were aggressive towards the policemen who had thrown a cordon around the area. Georgian communist Parastishvili climbed the Stalin monument, drank some wine from a bottle, smashed the bottle and said: "Let Stalin's enemies die, like this bottle!".[3][8]
The demonstration gradually grew large, attracting more and more people, who were bringing memorial wreaths to the Stalin monument. The confused local authorities did not actively oppose these activities. The demonstrations in the capital triggered similar protests in other parts of the republic such as Gori, Kutaisi, Rustavi, Sukhumi, and Batumi.[3]
By 6 March the demonstrations in Tbilisi had become more organized and more numerous. That day a closed letter of the CPSU Central Committee, "On the Cult of Personality", a summary of the speech that the General Secretary read on the final day of the Party Congress held last February, was read loud at a special session attended by the Georgian ministers and the local media. News about the surprise session of the Georgian SSR's Ministers Council quickly spread throughout Tbilisi and the situation escalated.[3]
Early on 7 March the students of Tbilisi State University went out onto the streets instead of attending classes, where they were joined by students from other institutes and schoolchildren. The demonstrators went down the main Tbilisi thoroughfare, Rustaveli Avenue, to Lenin Square, stopping at the House of Government and then at the City Hall, chanting the slogan "Long Live Great Stalin! Long Live the Party of Lenin and Stalin! Long Live Soviet Georgia!", accompanied by the cacophony of car sirens and horns. Having overcome the police resistance, the protesters gathered anew at the Stalin monument.[3]
Protesters worked out their demands to authorities: an official holiday day on 18 December (Stalin's birthday), publishing of articles devoted to Stalin's life in all local newspapers, showing of films The Fall of Berlin and The Unforgettable Year 1919 by Mikheil Chiaureli (both films were typical cinematic pieces of Stalin's cult of personality) in cinemas and invitation of the Chinese marshal Zhu De, who was at that time visiting Georgia, to the meeting.[8] By the end of day, the number of demonstrators reached 70,000. The central Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs initially underestimated the scale of the protests, and the information based on the minister Janjghava reached the Central Committee later on 8 March.[3]
By that time, the city had become paralyzed. The meetings were simultaneously held in several places, especially in Lenin Square and at the wreath-covered Stalin monument. The central streets were full of the demonstrators who loudly denounced Khrushchev, demanded that Stalin be rehabilitated and that his anniversary be allowed, and specifically asked Vyacheslav Molotov to defend Stalin's name. Barricades were raised, buses and cars overturned. The crowd directed traffic and in several cases even stopped it. Several clashes broke out with the drivers who resisted and with the police. When several activists were arrested, the demonstrations grew even more massive and the crowd became more aggressive. The Georgian first secretary, Vasil Mzhavanadze, addressed the protesters and the visiting Chinese marshal Zhu De greeted the crowd, but he refused to visit the Stalin monument and the demonstrations did not disperse.[3]
As the demonstrations continued, the local government began to lose control over the situation. Paralyzed by the scale of the protests and the demonstrators' appeal to Georgian patriotism and manifested communist loyalties, the police reacted more and more sluggishly. Early on 9 March the authorities tried to defuse the tensions and allowed the celebration of the anniversary to be held. But the belated attempts at concession did not yield any result. Later that day, at the meeting near the Stalin monument, political demands were read aloud in the presence of several party officials.[3]
According to the controversial testimony of Ruben Kipiani, later tried as an author of this petition, the demands were: first, return of the "closed letter" on Stalin to the CPSU Central Committee; second, removal of Anastas Mikoyan, Nikolai Bulganin, and Nikita Khrushchev from both party and government positions; third, creation of a new government; fourth, release of the Azerbaijan SSR first secretary Mir Jafar Baghirov from prison; fifth, promotion of the Soviet Georgian officials Akaki Mgeladze and Mzhavandze to the Central Committee Presidium; sixth, appointment of Stalin's son Vasily to the Central Committee; seven, institution of an amnesty. It was decided to send approximately ten people to the nearby Communications Building in Rustaveli Avenue in order to send a telegram to Moscow.[3]
A parallel rally at Kolmeurneobis Square grew increasingly anti-Soviet. People were singing the long-suppressed anthem "Dideba" and waving flags of pre-Soviet Georgia. When some persons in civilian dress interfered, fighting broke out. Leaflets appeared next. According to the eyewitness and Georgian-Jewish author Faina Baazova (daughter of David Baazov), the leaflets called for the secession of Georgia from the Soviet Union, a demand not heard previously.[3]
The events that followed are less clear. Later that day, the decision to bring troops of the Transcaucasian Military District, then commanded by Col. Gen. Ivan Fedyuninsky, into the matter was made in Moscow. The predominantly Georgian units stationed in the area were not deployed because of suspected unreliability, however.[10] The Soviet Interior Ministry officials reported that Tbilisi had gone out of control. They[who?] claimed that the demonstrators, many of whom were allegedly drunk and armed, were pillaging the city, contemplated the pogroms of ethnic Russians and Armenians, and planned to seize the government buildings.[3]
The same evening, the authorities broadcast though radio an appeal calling the rallies to cease and announced that the commander of Tbilisi garrison, Major General Gladkov, was introducing a curfew beginning at midnight on 10 March. Many protesters sensed an approaching threat and began to leave the city center. Close to midnight, however, people learned that the delegation sent into the Communications Building had been detained, ostensibly for verification of identity. The crowd rushed to rescue the delegates and a clash with the soldiers guarding the building ensued. The troops started firing into the crowd to prevent the protesters from storming the building. Simultaneously, tanks moved to oust the demonstrators from Lenin Square and at the Stalin monument. The protesters tried to resume rallies on 10 March, but they were again dispersed by the troops. Several dozens, if not hundreds, died in this crackdown. As no official report exists, various estimates put the number of casualties from 106[7] to 800.[11] Hundreds were wounded and injured. Over 200 were arrested in the ensuing reprisals and many were subsequently deported to labor camps in Siberia.[3][4][7]
Consequences
The March 1956 rallies widened rifts within the Georgian Communist Party, as several officials expressed solidarity with the people. In July 1956, the Central Committee in Moscow issued a resolution critical of the Georgian Communist leadership, and in August the second secretary in Tbilisi was replaced by a Russian. Yet, Mzhavanadze was successful in pacifying Georgians by minimizing the number of victims in his interviews and sponsoring a program of lectures to spread the party's new views. For his success, Mzhavanadze was raised to candidate membership in the Central Committee Presidium in June 1957.[4]
Although no apparent attempts at defying the Soviet rule in Georgia were to be made until April 1978, the grudges against the central government in Moscow continued to be held. Many in Georgia held Khrushchev personally responsible for ordering the army to fire on the protesters. The Tbilisi events made Georgia's deviance from the rest of the Soviet Union, with the possible exception of the Baltics, apparent. The loyalty to the Union was compromised and an anti-Soviet sentiment became an essential feature of the reemerging Georgian nationalism.[4][5] As Irakli Khvadagiani, affiliated with the SovLab research laboratory, has argued, the events contributed to self-victimization and nationalism.[12]
It was in the immediate aftermath of the 1956 event that the first Georgian underground groups calling for an outright secession from the Soviet Union appeared. They were typically small and weak and the Soviet authorities were able to quickly neutralize them. However, they gave origin to a new generation of dissidents, such as Merab Kostava and Zviad Gamsakhurdia, both teenage participants of the March 1956 rally, who would lead Georgia into its struggle for independence in the 1980s.[5]
In Georgia, groups such as SovLab lead commemoration ceremonies for the victims of Stalinism, also in an effort to address the legacy of the strong pro-Stalin sentiment in the country.[13]
Stalinism is the totalitarian means of governing and Marxist–Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1924 to 1953 by dictator Joseph Stalin and in Soviet satellite states between 1944 and 1953. Stalin had previously made a career as a gangster and robber, working to fund revolutionary activities, before eventually becoming General Secretary of the Soviet Union. Stalinism included the creation of a one man totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory of socialism in one country, forced collectivization of agriculture, intensification of class conflict, a cult of personality, and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which Stalinism deemed the leading vanguard party of communist revolution at the time. After Stalin's death and the Khrushchev Thaw, a period of de-Stalinization began in the 1950s and 1960s, which caused the influence of Stalin's ideology to begin to wane in the USSR.
In the USSR, during the eleven-year period from the death of Joseph Stalin (1953) to the political ouster of Nikita Khrushchev (1964), the national politics were dominated by the Cold War, including the U.S.–USSR struggle for the global spread of their respective socio-economic systems and ideology, and the defense of hegemonic spheres of influence. Since the mid-1950s, despite the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) having disowned Stalinism, the political culture of Stalinism — a very powerful General Secretary of the CPSU—remained in place, albeit weakened.
Eduard Son of Ambrosi Shevardnadze was a Soviet and Georgian politician and diplomat who governed Georgia for several non-consecutive periods from 1972 until his resignation in 2003 and also served as the final Soviet minister of foreign affairs from 1985 to 1990.
The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Georgia, the Georgian SSR, or simply Georgia, was one of the republics of the Soviet Union from its second occupation in 1921 to its independence in 1991. Coterminous with the present-day republic of Georgia, it was based on the traditional territory of Georgia, which had existed as a series of independent states in the Caucasus prior to the first occupation of annexation in the course of the 19th century. The Georgian SSR was formed in 1921 and subsequently incorporated in the Soviet Union in 1922. Until 1936 it was a part of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, which existed as a union republic within the USSR. From November 18, 1989, the Georgian SSR declared its sovereignty over Soviet laws. The republic was renamed the Republic of Georgia on November 14, 1990, and subsequently became independent before the dissolution of the Soviet Union on April 9, 1991, whereupon each former SSR became a sovereign state.
Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan was a Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the head of state of the Soviet Union. A member of the Communist Party's Central Committee from 1923 to 1976, he was the only Soviet figure who managed to remain at the highest levels of power from the days of Lenin, through the eras of Stalin and Khrushchev, to his retirement under Brezhnev. His legacy is that of a survivor, often described with the famous quote “from Ilyich [Vladimir Ilyich Lenin] to Ilyich [Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev] without a heart attack or paralysis".
Vasil Pavlovich Mzhavanadze was a Georgian Soviet politician who served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Georgian SSR from September 1953 to September 28, 1972 and a member of the CPSU's Politburo from June 29, 1957 to December 18, 1972. Dismissed after a corruption scandal, he was replaced by Eduard Shevardnadze.
The history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was generally perceived as covering that of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from which it evolved. In 1912, the party formally split, and the predecessor to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union became a distinct entity. Its history since then can roughly be divided into the following periods:
April 9 Tragedy refers to the events in Tbilisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, on April 9, 1989, when an anti-Soviet, pro-independence demonstration was crushed by the Soviet Army, resulting in 21 deaths and hundreds of injuries. April 9 is now remembered as the National Unity Day, an annual public holiday.
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The 1956 Poznań protests, also known as Poznań June, were the first of several massive protests against the communist government of the Polish People's Republic. Demonstrations by workers demanding better working conditions began on 28 June 1956 at Poznań's Cegielski Factories and were met with violent repression.
Freedom Square or Liberty Square is located in the center of Tbilisi, Georgia, at the eastern end of Rustaveli Avenue.
On 14 April 1978, demonstrations in Tbilisi, capital of the Georgian SSR, took place in response to an attempt by the Soviet government to change the constitutional status of languages in Georgia. After a new Soviet Constitution was adopted in October 1977, the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR considered a draft constitution in which, in contrast to the Constitution of 1936, Georgian was no longer declared to be the sole state language. A series of indoor and outdoor actions of protest ensued and implied with near-certainty there would be a clash between several thousands of demonstrators and the Soviet government, but Georgian Communist Party chief Eduard Shevardnadze negotiated with the central authorities in Moscow and managed to obtain permission to retain the previous status of the Georgian language.
The Polish October, also known as the Polish thaw or Gomułka's thaw, also "small stabilization" was a change in the politics of the Polish People's Republic that occurred in October 1956. Władysław Gomułka was appointed First Secretary of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) marking the end of Stalinism in Poland.
The Georgian affair of 1922 was a political conflict within the Soviet leadership about the way in which social and political transformation was to be achieved in the Georgian SSR. The dispute over Georgia, which arose shortly after the forcible Sovietization of the country and peaked in the latter part of 1922, involved local Georgian Bolshevik leaders, led by Filipp Makharadze and Budu Mdivani, on one hand, and their de facto superiors from the Russian SFSR, particularly Joseph Stalin and Grigol Ordzhonikidze, on the other hand. The content of this dispute was complex, involving the Georgians' desire to preserve autonomy from Moscow and the differing interpretations of Bolshevik nationality policies, and especially those specific to Georgia. One of the main points at issue was Moscow's decision to amalgamate Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan into Transcaucasian SFSR, a move that was staunchly opposed by the Georgian leaders who urged for their republic a full-member status within the Soviet Union.
The Stalin Monument was a statue of Joseph Stalin in Budapest, Hungary. Completed in December 1951 as a "gift to Joseph Stalin from the Hungarians on his seventieth birthday", it was torn down on October 23, 1956, by enraged anti-Soviet crowds during Hungary's October Revolution.
The Sukhumi riot was a riot in Sukhumi, Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, in July 1989, triggered by an increasing inter-ethnic tensions between the Abkhaz and Georgian communities and followed by several days of street fighting and civil unrest in Sukhumi and throughout Abkhazia.
Joseph Stalin's cult of personality became a prominent feature of Soviet popular culture. Historian Archie Brown sets the celebration of Stalin's 50th birthday on 21 December 1929 as the starting point for his cult of personality. For the rest of Stalin's rule, the Soviet propaganda presented Stalin as an all-powerful, all-knowing leader, with Stalin's name and image displayed all over the country.
The Khrushchev Thaw is the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were relaxed due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and peaceful coexistence with other nations. The term was coined after Ilya Ehrenburg's 1954 novel The Thaw ("Оттепель"), sensational for its time.
On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, popularly known as the Secret Speech, was a report by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956. Khrushchev's speech was sharply critical of the rule of the deceased General Secretary and Premier Joseph Stalin, particularly with respect to the purges which had especially marked the last years of the 1930s. Khrushchev charged Stalin with having fostered a leadership cult of personality despite ostensibly maintaining support for the ideals of communism. The speech was leaked to the West by the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet, which received it from the Polish-Jewish journalist Wiktor Grajewski.
De-Stalinization comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension of Nikita Khrushchev to power, and his 1956 secret speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", which denounced Stalin's cult of personality and the Stalinist political system.
↑ Nahaylo, Bohdan; Swoboda, Victor (1990), Soviet disunion: a history of the nationalities problem in the USSR, p. 120. Free Press, ISBN0-02-922401-2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Kozlov, Vladimir A (transl. by MacKinnon, Elaine McClarnand; 2002), Mass Uprisings in the USSR: Protest and Rebellion in the Post-Stalin Years, pp. 112–136. M.E. Sharpe, ISBN0-7656-0668-2
1 2 Tarkhan-Mouravi, George, From Independence to Independence: 70 Years of Soviet Georgia, chapter in: Awde, Nicholas; Wright, John (ed., 1998), The Georgians: A Handbook. Curzon Press, ISBN0-7007-0640-2 (draft text)
1 2 3 Lang, David Marshall (1962), A Modern History of Georgia, pp. 264–265. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
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