RUSSIA AND GEORGIA: POST-SOVIET METAMORPHOSES OF MUTUAL RELATIONS
Abstract
The post-Soviet relations between Russia and Georgia are best described as complicated and contradictory. Indeed, the less than two decades of post-Soviet history include several different but logically connected periods. This means that anyone wishing to better understand the nature of the relations between the two countries and the meaning of their current stage should grasp their logic. Put in a nutshell it means that Russia still hopes to preserve the tools of its influence on Georgia, while Georgia is seeking a civilized model of relations with Russia. Georgian officials describe it as respect for Russia’s “legal interests "in the region and protection of Georgia’s nation-al and state interests.
Georgia’s official position expounded be-low, with which the present author agrees, is open for discussion.
By the late 1980s the national-liberation movement had created a context in which it became clear that Georgia should restore its state independence; this meant that Moscow was expected to recognize the fact of occupation and annexation of Georgia and that the international community should help Georgia overcome their negative repercussions.
During Gorbachev’s perestroika, when the Soviet regime became slightly more liberal than before, the Georgians awakened to their past. The Georgian Democratic Republic (1918-1921) was the object of numerous publications in Georgian non-official periodicals that stirred up the idea of restored in-dependence; on many occasions the public agreed on the nature of a future independent Georgian state.
Under the agreement of 7 May, 1920 the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic recognized the independence of the Georgian Democratic Republic. Some time later the Red Army attacked Georgia, occupied the country after a short war in February-March 1921, and established Soviet pow-er. Later Soviet Georgia was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Much has been already written about these events.1 Georgia tried to restore its independence through talks with Russia on the strength of the developments of 1920-1921. It was expected that Russia would recognize the fact of Georgia’s occupation and annexation by the Red Army and of Georgia’s incorporation into the Soviet Union against its will. This recognition should have been accompanied by liquidation of the results of ag-gression and restoration of Georgia’s state independence.
The victory of Zviad Gamsakhurdia’s Round Table—Free Georgia Bloc at the parliamentary elections of 28 October, 1990 shifted the idea into the sphere of practical policy: after coming to pow-er the new president officially announced that the country had entered a period of transition toward restored independence.2
Moscow never responded to Tbilisi’s demands to recognize the facts of occupation and annexation; the Soviet government, which refused to recognize Georgia’s independence in principle, was building up tension in the country.3 The Decision of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. on the referendum on the Soviet Union’s continued existence scheduled for17 March, 1991 quenched the hopes that the Soviet leaders would admit the facts of aggression and annexation.
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L. Toidze’s definitive work I interventsia, i okkupatsia, i nasil’stvennaia sovetizatsia, i fakticheskaia anneksia. K otsenke voyny fevralia-marta 1921 goda mezhdu Gruziey i Rossiey, Tbilisi, 1991 deserves special mention.
On 14 November, 1990 Zviad Gamsakhurdia said at a Supreme Soviet of Georgia session: “After Soviet Russia occupied and annexed Georgia,” the government of the Georgian Democratic Republic did not sign an act of capitulation,which means that “legally the independent state of Georgia and its Constitution still exist.” “Georgia is an annexed coun-try that began liquidating the results of annexation and is restoring its independent statehood.” “There is another question:
eorgia should be recognized as an occupied country, which means that the Soviet army is the army of a foreign country.
e should raise the question at the international legal level of withdrawal of the Soviet occupation forces from Georgia. We should start negotiations with the Center and the Western countries” (Politika, No. 2, 1990, p. 11).
See: History of Georgia. 20th Century. Textbook for Department of History Students, Tbilisi, 2003, p. 231 (in Georgian).
In his memoirs Eduard Shevardnadze writes about “the undeclared war with Russia” and cites numerous facts of Russia’s direct aggression. He wrote: “The war with Russia in Abkhazia was one of the dirtiest, cruelest, and most inhu-man wars, during which people were tortured and killed because of their ethnic origin, their houses were burned down, their property taken away from them, and they were forced to leave Abkhazia” (E. Shevardnadze, Pondering Over the Past and Future. Memoirs, Tbilisi, 2006, p. 430, in Georgian).
On this score the former Georgian president has written: “The situation was hopeless. Russia accomplished its dirty plans—the country was on the verge of disaster. There was no alternative. I was forced to accept a compromise:
eorgia had to become a member of the Russia-controlled ‘Commonwealth of Independent States” (E. Shevardnadze,op. cit., pp. 432-433). From the very beginning the Georgian public accused Eduard Shevardnadze of serving Russia’s in-terests and bringing the country to defeat in order to return it to the RF’s orbit. Leader of the Popular Front N. Natadze ac-cused Shevardnadze of acting on Russia’s orders, and “together with Ardzinba, he deliberately organized a war and just as deliberately brought it to defeat” (N. Natadze, What I Know, Tbilisi, 2002, p. 298, in Georgian).
See: E. Shevardnadze, op. cit., pp. 434-453.
In October 1995 well-known Georgian public figure Akakiy Bakradze pointed out that the CIS “is an attempt to return to Russia everything that it lost as a result of the Soviet Union’s disintegration. It is an attempt to restore the large Russian empire under the new conditions” (A. Bakradze, Works, Vol. 7, Tbilisi, 2005, p. 638, in Georgian). He also said:
We all know only too well that there were no Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-Osset conflicts. There were Russia’s interests in Georgia, which it promoted by occupying these territories. It naturally capitalized on certain sentiments that existed among the Abkhazians and Ossets and channeled them against the Georgians. It was Russia that supervised the process for the sake of its political aims” (ibid., p. 640).
See: History of Georgian Diplomacy, Tbilisi, 2003, pp. 632-633 (in Georgian).
E. Shevardnadze, op. cit., p. 451. Eduard Shevardnadze recalls his conversation over the phone with Boris Yeltsin the day after the failed assassination on 9 February, 1998, during which the president of Russia insisted that Georgia reject the project designed to move Caspian fuels across its territory. “Yeltsin used the tone of a first secretary of the C.C. com-munist party as if he were instructing a secretary of a republican communist party,” writes Shevardnadze. His demand was left unheeded: “No matter how great Russia’s threat was, I could not betray the interests of Georgia, go against my word to Aliev, or turn away from Turkey and the United States that supported us” (pp. 455-456).
A. Chikvaidze, Political Chess Games, Tbilisi, 2004 (in Georgian). According to the author, “during the last five years Shevardnadze ‘changed’ his political priorities all the time. The inverted commas mean that the dangerous game be-tween Russia and America, the never-ending stream of lies from one side or the other, and the hilariously wide amplitudes never fit into the priorities range… Naturally enough Moscow and Washington finally abandoned their unreliable and hardly determined partner” (p. 318).
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