1921 Svanetian Uprising
Encyclopedia
The Svanetian Uprising of 1921 was an unsuccessful rebellion against the recently established Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

 regime in Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

.

The uprising broke out in Svaneti
Svaneti
Svaneti is a historic province in Georgia, in the northwestern part of the country. It is inhabited by the Svans, a geographic subgroup of the Georgians.- Geography :...

, a highland western Georgian province, almost immediately after the Red Army invasion of Georgia
Red Army invasion of Georgia
The Red Army invasion of Georgia also known as the Soviet–Georgian War or the Soviet invasion of Georgia was a military campaign by the Soviet Russian Red Army against the Democratic Republic of Georgia aimed at overthrowing the Social-Democratic government and installing the Bolshevik regime...

 and the establishment of the Georgian SSR (February-March 1921). The first disturbances among the local peasants appeared already in May 1921, and quickly developed into an armed revolt against the highly unpopular Revolutionary Committee of Georgia (Revkom), an acting Bolshevik government in the transitional period. The guerrilla detachments led by Mosostr Dadeshkeliani, Nestor Gardapkhadze and Bidzina Pirveli, disarmed the Svaneti-based Red Army units in September, and launched preparations for the march on Kutaisi
Kutaisi
Kutaisi is Georgia's second largest city and the capital of the western region of Imereti. It is 221 km to the west of Tbilisi.-Geography:...

, the second largest city of Georgia. The Georgian Revkom, which faced the distinct prospect of a nation-wide insurrection and civil war, ordered, on October 7, 1921, the formation of special punitive detachments to fight the insurgents who were denounced as "political bandits". On November 15, 1921, Soviet officials reported that the number of Svanetian rebels amounted to 1,600, and their actions were coordinated by the National-Democratic Party of Georgia, which maintained contacts with a Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

-based Menshevik
Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party
200px|thumb|Menshevik Flag of Georgia, created by Iakob NikoladzeThe Social Democratic Labour Party of Georgia was a political party in Georgia. It was founded as the Georgian branch of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party separated itself from the Russian mother-party.The party dominated...

 organization.

The fighting in Svaneti continued for six months, but the Soviet troops managed to curb the spread of uprising into neighboring regions. By late December 1921, the fresh Red Army reinforcements finally crushed the revolt. The chief rebels were executed and severe repressive measures were established in the area. The defeat of the Svanetian rebellion forced major Georgian opposition parties to seek closer cooperation, which would later conclude with the generalization of an anti-Soviet uprising in August 1924.
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