IN THE CLAWS OF IMPERIALISM.
(On the issue of South Ossetia)
The militant imperialism of the newly emerging "democratic republics" of Transcaucasia is especially characteristic and bright. But the social-democratic chauvinism of the Georgian Mensheviks broke the record in this matter.
It would seem that “in a country where the gains of the revolution have survived,” where the issue of national self-determination plays a dominant role, there can be no national oppression, oppression of the worst and the cruellest form. But, obviously, the revolution is a good cover for the most disgraceful crimes against the people and against socialism.
The hypocrisy with which the “zoological" type of Georgian Mensheviks — Chkhenkeli speaks at the Amsterdam and Bernese socialist congresses about “strengthening” the gains of the revolution in Georgia, about the land that they allegedly took from the landlords and transferred to the peasants, about national self-determination, about nationalization, or rather, “ Georgianization "of all institutions and public services, this hypocrisy (obviously) makes one recall all the ordeals that Ossetian representatives had to and have to endure in the "democratic "Georgia, all the "gains "of the revolution that the Georgian social democracy" strengthened " for the hundred thousand Ossetian peasantry. There is a third year of revolution and a second — since the proclamation of the democratic republic of Georgia, but the Ossetian peasantry not only did not gain any conquests, but lost a lot.
The land was taken off from the landlords... But the Ossetian peasantry not only did not receive land, but cannot even rent it as before the revolution, and is doomed to starvation, because their bread in the mountains is barely enough for two months a year.
The ruling circles, when asked why the peasants do not receive land, answer: “We, ourselves, have not enough ...”
This means that the land belongs to the Georgian landowners and only Georgians - peasants should receive it (if they can).
The princes Machabeli and Eristavi, who oppressed both the Ossetian and Georgian peasants equally, never made this distinction. But on the other hand, it is made by the social democracy of Georgia, and such a policy is, obviously, the result of its "international" essence.
For the second year not a single school has been functioning in all of South Ossetia, this is because the enlightenment is not in the hands of the People’s Council, which is prosecuted for “separatism,” but in the hands of the Georgian Ministry of Education, which has no means for this and there is no sufficient staff of teachers who can teach the state language ... Georgian .. Schools are closed, teachers are in poverty.
The third year of the revolution is already underway, and now South Ossetia cannot receive the zemstvo institutions (harmless democratic zemstvo). This is explained by the fact that the leaders of the revolution in Georgia — the Georgian Social Democrats — have the Ossetian question here, as there were Polish, Finnish questions for pre-revolutionary Russia.
Ossetians live in 4 districts: Dusheti, Gori, Shoropansky and Rachinsky and their modest desire is that South Ossetia be united into one county, which territorially seems to be very possible and convenient.
But for Ramishvili, this also means separatism, “rebellion against Georgian democracy, “counterrevolutionary venture of the Ossetian reactionaries,” and, of course, until now this harmless demand of the Ossetian peasantry by “iron and blood” is being suppressed. The Ossetian peasantry, together with the Georgian, appreciates the noble Menshevik government of Georgia. It was fighting t for its rights by the Dushet and Tskhinval uprisings in the spring of 1918, when the “Red Guard” of Dzhugheli was more fiercely fighting against the red banner of the peasants than it now is doing against the black reaction by Denikin.
The government of Georgia is well aware of the revolutionary mood of the Ossetian peasantry and is all the more embittered in fighting using punitive detachments against it.
In May of this year, the South Ossetian National Council was dispersed by the detachments of General Prince Karalov and the district commissar Kartsivadze, in pursuance of the order to arrest the presidium of the Council for the fact that the National Council announced four-member elections to the People’s Council of South Ossetia. Two times a delegation from the National Council came to Tiflis with a detailed report on the issue of the Ossetian district - and both times the delegation had to leave with nothing.
For the last time, the Social-Democratic government of Georgia allegedly agreed to separate the South Ossetian district and proposed its own project with the inclusion of only 4 communities of the South Ossetian region out of 10 purely Ossetian, not to mention mixed with the Georgian population; except for 4 societies, the rest are declared "controversial".
At the same time, the delegation was requested to hang over “deserters” as a condition that the government considered necessary for the recognition of the special district project.
The delegation considered this a mockery, filed a corresponding memorandum and left.
This is how national self-determination is being carried out in a country where the gains of the revolution have been preserved.
Until recently, the punitive detachment of Prince Karalov was in Ossetia, where it committed atrocities against the “rebellious” population.
At the insistence of the delegation and protests from all over Ossetia, the government, finally, in order not to cause an armed conflict, to which it was actually going, was forced to withdraw the troops from Ossetia, which, in accordance with official implementation, had fulfilled their mission of establishing order and calm, and strengthening the revolution. "
Of course, one cannot speak of any anarchy in Ossetia, and Prince Karalov or Kartsivadze did not restore any order there.
But revolutionary Ossetia must be punished, bent to a democratic "rule of law" - into a "ram’s horn." It is necessary to punish for the Tskhinvalevents, for the defeat of the "red" guard of Dzhugheli by Easter 1918. It is necessary to take the recruitment to the national guard from Ossetia. It is necessary to dissolve small nations in the sovereign oppression of the Georgian nation, or rather, Georgian social democracy.
The situation of the 100 thousandth peasantry of South Ossetia is by now the most desperate. At a time when the democratic gendarmes send their punitive expeditions to the starving population from the south, it’s from the north under the constant threat of the invasion of Denikin’s “wolf squadrons” - who have already tried not to let a single grain through the passes.
The South Ossetian peasantry cannot exist without northern bread and carries it not even on horses and mules, but on its shoulders through passes. The democratic government of Georgia cannot or does not want to give bread, and South Ossetia is in a state of hunger blockade.
The denikins want the Ossetian peasantry to come over to their side. It can only be when this peasantry is gone, and there will be only one right-wing Social Revolutionaries, of which there is a very small group, and who are not averse to provoking the population to such a disastrous step.
Georgian social chauvinists want Ossetia to dissolve in Georgia. But this will only happen when one Ossetian section of Georgian Social Democracy remains from Ossetia.
What can the Ossetian peasantry, the destitute, hungry mountain population, under the blows of imperialism of large and small caliber be able to do? We definitely know that: neither Denikin nor Ramishvili will find a place in Ossetia, despite any kind of hungry blockades. "
The leader of the Ossetian peasantry, Dzhatiev and the peasantry appreciate them all at their true worth.
We can become witnesses of the desperate heroic struggle of the Ossetian peasantry against these rapists from the north and from the south.
They have no other choice. They will not be able to submit and will accept death better than the shame of oppression.
And this will be in the “country where the gains of the revolution have been preserved. It will be in a country where there is a “socialist government.
Artsu Tokhov.
Newspaper "Молот"
No. 23, August 5, 1919
From the book "The struggle of the working people of South Ossetia for Soviet power" (1917-1921). Documents and materials. Compiled by I.N. Tskhovrebov.
