Table Of ContentSOCIAL DEMOCRACY
AND THE WARS OF INTERVENTION
IN RUSSIA
Social Democracy
and the Wars of Intervention
in Russia
1918-1921
(BETWEEN RED AND WHITE)
NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS
Published by New Park Publications Ltd.,
186a Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UG
First published in 1922 as
Mezhdu Imperializmom i Revolyutsiei
by the State Publishing House, Moscow
Foreword and glossary
Copyright©New Park Publications Ltd.,
1975
Set up, Printed and Bound
by Trade Union Labour
Distributed in the United States by:
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New York 10011
ISBN 0 902030 70 l
Printed in Great Britain by
Plough Press Ltd. (T.U.)
r/o 180 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UG
Contents
Dedication xv
Introduction I
I Myth and reality 11
II Strict neutrality 26
III The internal regime 39
IV The period of caution 50
V Georgia and Wrangel 53
VI Denouement 60
VII The Georgian Gironde as a political type 70
VIII Democracy and the Soviet system 77
IX Self-determination and the revolution 89
X 'Public Opinion', Social Democracy, Communism 99
Appendix 111
Glossary of names and events 117
Foreword
Written while he was Commissar for War and leader of the Red
Army, this book by Trotsky is a masterly instance of Marxist polemic.
Out of print for many years, it deserves to be restored to its place in the
revolutionary's armoury, especially because of its relevance to the task
of building a new leadership against the Mensheviks and Labourites
of today.
The occasion for the work was the campaign of international Social
Democracy-headed by the former Pope of Marxism, Karl Kautsky,
and the British labour leaders - against the establishment of the
Soviet power in Georgia. But as Trotsky proceeds, his angle of fire
widens to take in the whole question of the prostration of the Second
International to imperialism and the hypocrisy behind its attack on
the Soviet government.
At the very time the first workers' state was fighting for its life
against the combined armies of world imperialism, the Social Democ
rats were doing everything they could to undermine and destroy it,
and halt the wave of solidarity actions by the international working
class.
Although this book is more than a defence of Bolshevik policy in
Georgia, the reader needs to appreciate the conditions prevailing there
between 1917 and 1921. The geographical position of Caucasia, of
which it is a part, made it vulnerable to foreign intervention after the
overthrow of Tsardom. Besides possessing valuable mineral resources
and ports on the Black Sea, Georgia held a strategic position in the
railway system of the region. However, despite some advanced
centres it was mainly agricultural with about 75 per cent of the
population consisting of peasants.
IX
X BElWEEN RED AND WHITE
While the local capitalist class was small, made up mainly of mer
chants, Georgia had, as Trotsky points out, a relatively numerous
petty-bourgeois intelligentsia with political experience and ambi
tions. This was the social basis for the Mensheviks, who also found
support from the labour aristocracy, notably the railway workers. The
Mensheviks formed a government after the overthrow ofTsardom. It
collaborated with the German forces which occupied the country in
June 1918, taking over the railways and policing the frontiers. After
the Germans and their Turkish allies withdrew from Caucasia British
troops moved in and the country became a base for the operations of
the White armies in the civil war raging in Russia. A new Menshevik
government was formed and in February 1919 Noi Zhordania was
elected President by the National Assembly.
This government banned the Communist Party and repressed its
activities. Strongly nationalist, the Georgian Mensheviks were
involved in a series of border incidents with Armenia and Azerbaijan
and also carried out an oppressive policy against the national minority
peoples, the Ossetians, the Abkhazians and the Adzhars. In May 1919
the White general Denikin moved into the region, which became a
main base for operations against the Red Army. The Mensheviks
rejected Soviet proposals for joint struggle against the Whites, Zhor
dania declaring categorically, 'I prefer the imperialists of the West to
the fanatics of the East'. When the troops of the hard-pressed White
general Wrangel were penned up in the Crimea, Georgia assisted him
in trans-shipping men and supplying vital war materials. As Trotsky
says, 'If there had been no Georgia, there would not have been a
Wrangel army'.
For reasons of expediency, the Soviet Republic did not take action
against Georgia in 1919 despite its hostile activities. The defeat of
Wrangel, however, made Georgia still more important to the capitalist
powers. It also meant that it became a refuge for various defeated
White Guard elements. Nevertheless in May 1920 the Soviet Republic
recognized the independence of Georgia, the government undertak
ing to legalize the Communist Party, which it never did.
The question of military intervention came up early in the following
year when the Georgians, Ordzhonikidze and Stalin, were impatient
for action. Lenin at first hesitated, mainly from uncertainty about the
attitude of the population and the likely effects abroad. There was also
some doubt about the ability of the army to carry through the opera
tion successfully. Finally it was agreed that the Georgian Communist
FOREWORD XI
Party would organize an uprising and that the Red Army would move
in. Trotsky was not in Moscow at the time and only learned about the
decision later, so that he had no direct responsibility for it.
Writing much later Trotsky said, 'There was no unanimity as to the
movement and methods of sovietization. I stood for a certain pre
paratory work inside Georgia, in order to develop the uprising and
later to come to its aid. I felt that after the peace with Poland and the
defeat of Wrangel there was no direct danger from Georgia and the
denouement could be postponed. Ordzhonikidze, supported by Sta
lin, insisted the Red Army should immediately invade Georgia, where
the uprising had presumably ripened. Lenin was inclined to side with
the more cautious members of the Central Committee. The question
in the Politburo was decided on the 19 February 1921 when I was in
the Ukraine.' (Stalin, p. 268)
The hesitations and doubts of Lenin and Trotsky were to some
extent confirmed by the handling of internal problems in Georgia
after the overthrow of the Zhordania regime. The way in which
Ordzhonikidze and Stalin rode roughshod over the national suscep
tibilities of the Georgians and acted in the spirit of Great-Russian
chauvinism enraged Lenin and contributed to his decision to break off
relations with Stalin.
But Trotsky did not for one moment allow the inner-party conflict
over the issue to stand in the way of the defence of the Soviet Union.
Whatever the errors of those who executed the occupation, it had
become a life-or-death question for Soviet Russia to liquidate the
Menshevik regime in Georgia, which was now a base for counter
revolution.
The leaders of the parties of the Second International, who had
betrayed the working class in the First World War and were bitterly
hostile towards the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet state,
acclaimed Menshevik Georgia as their own. Karl Kautsky wrote an
enthusiastic book after a brief visit, and Mrs. Snowden and others did
likewise. They saw in it an opportunity to cover up for their own past,
and even more, a way in which to strike another blow at the Bol
sheviks.
The essence of Trotsky's book is contained in the magnificent way
in which he compares the methods of the Bolsheviks in organizing the
revolution, establishing the Soviet state and warding off successfully
the attacks of imperialism, with those of the Georgian Mensheviks
and their foreign friends.
