Polikarp "Budu" Mdivani (Georgian: პოლიკარპე [ბუდუ] მდივანი; Russian: Поликарп Гургенович [Буду] Мдивани, Polikarp Gurgenovich [Budu] Mdivani) (1877 – July 19, 1937) was a veteran Georgian Bolshevik and Soviet government official energetically involved in the Russian revolutions and the Civil War. In the 1920s, he played an important role in Sovietization of the Caucasus, but later led Georgian Communist opposition to Joseph Stalin's centralizing policy during the Georgian Affair of 1922. In the 1930s, he was persecuted for his support to the Trotskyite opposition and executed during the Great Purge. 1877 (MDCCCLXXVII) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... is the 200th day of the year (201st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Bolshevik Party Meeting. ... Soviet redirects here. ... Russian Revolution can refer to the following events in the history of Russia: The Russian Revolution of 1905 was a series of strikes and anti-government violence against Tsar Nicholas II The Russian Revolution of 1917, which included: February Revolution, which resulted in the abdication of Nicholas II of Russia... The Russian Civil War (1917-1922) began immediately after the collapse of the Russian provisional government and the Bolshevik takeover of Petrograd, rapidly intensifying after the dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly and signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. ... This article is about the political term. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Caucasus Mountains. ... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ... Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Georgian: , Ioseb Besarionis Dze Jughashvili; Russian: , Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili) (December 18 [O.S. December 6] 1878[1] – March 5, 1953), better known by his adopted name, Joseph Stalin (alternatively transliterated Josef Stalin), was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Unions Central Committee from... 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... Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. ... The Great Purge (Russian: , transliterated Bolshaya chistka) is the name given to campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin during the late 1930s. ...

Revolution and Civil War

Mdivani joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903 and engaged in revolutionary activities in Tbilisi, Baku, Batumi, and other industrial centers of the Caucasus. A close associate of Joseph Stalin, he quickly emerged as one of the leading Bolsheviks in the region and gained a reputation of a brilliant orator. The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, or RSDLP (Росси́йская Социа́л-Демократи́ческая Рабо́чая Па́ртия = РСДРП), also known as the Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party and the Russian Social-Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party. ... Location of Tbilisi in Georgia Coordinates: , Country Georgia Established c. ... Coordinates: , Country Azerbaijan Government  - Mayor Hajibala Abutalybov Area  - City 260 km²  (100. ... A general view of Batumi Batumi Batumi (Georgian: , formerly Batum or Batoum) is a seaside city on the Black Sea coast and capital of Adjara, an autonomous republic in southwest Georgia. ...

During the Russian Civil War, that followed the Russian Revolution of 1917, he was commissioned to the Caucasus Front where he worked for the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party and served as a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army. In 1920, he was instrumental in the occupation of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan. Later that year, he was sent as a special envoy to Turkey in an effort to mediate a peace deal between the Turkish government and the Democratic Republic of Armenia. The Russian Civil War (1917-1922) began immediately after the collapse of the Russian provisional government and the Bolshevik takeover of Petrograd, rapidly intensifying after the dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly and signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... Caucasian Front may have one of the following meanings Caucasian Front (Russian Civil War) Soviet Caucasian Front during World War II Caucasian Front (Chechen War), a front announced by Chechen guerilla in 2005 This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... The 11th Army of the Workers and Peasants Red Army (RKKA) was a unit of the then newly created Russian Red Army. ... Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan) is a country in the Caucasus, at the crossroads of Europe and Southwest Asia, with an eastern coast on the Caspian Sea. ... National motto: n/a Language Armenian (official) Capital Yerevan Independence From Imperial Russia, 1918 Currency Armenian dram National anthem Mer Hayrenik The Democratic Republic of Armenia (DRA; Armenian: Դեմոկրատական Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն, Demokratakan Hayastani Hanrapetutyun; also known as the First Republic of Armenia), 1918–1922, was the first modern establishment of a Republic of...

Early in 1921, Mdivani, along with Stalin and Sergo Ordzhonikidze, played an important role in engineering the Red Army invasion of Georgia which toppled down the local Menshevik-dominated government in favor of the Bolshevik regime. However, with the establishment of the Georgian SSR, Mdivani emerged as one of the leading proponents of the republic’s sovereignty from Moscow. He protested against a series of territorial rearrangements in Transcaucasia that dispossessed Georgia of several of its former districts and advocated more tolerance towards political opposition to ensure the survival of the highly unpopular Bolshevik government. Grigoriy Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze (Russian:Григорий Константинович Орджоникидзе), generally known as Sergo Ordzhonikidze (Серго) (October 12, 1886 - February 18, 1937) was a member of the Politburo, and close friend to Stalin. ... Combatants •  Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic •  Republic of Turkey •  Georgian SSR •  Democratic Republic of Georgia Commanders •  Anatoli Gekker • Mikhail Velikanov • Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze •  Kazım Karabekir • Giorgi Kvinitadze • Giorgi Mazniashvili • Valiko Jugheli Strength ~50,000 (Red Army) ~35,000 Casualties Unknown, dead estimated at 5,500 Soviet soldiers Unknown, dead estimated... Leaders of the Menshevik Party at Norra Bantorget in Stockholm, Sweden, May 1917. ... State motto: პროლეტარ ყველა ქვეყნისა, შეერთდით! Official language Georgian since 1978 Capital Tbilisi Chairman of the Supreme Council Zviad Gamsakhurdia (at independence) Established In the USSR:  - Since  - Until February 25, 1921 December 30, 1922 April 9, 1991 Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 10th in former Soviet Union 69,700 km² -- Population  - Total (1989)  - Density Ranked... Moscow (Moskva) (Russian: , romanised: Moskva, IPA: see also other names) is the capital of Russia and the countrys economic, financial, educational, and transportation centre. ... Transcaucasia is the name given to a region south of the Caucasus Mountains that covers Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. ...

The Georgian Affair

On July 7, 1921, Filipp Makharadze, a moderate Georgian Communist leader, was removed from his position of the chairman of the Georgian Revolutionary Committee (Revkom) and replaced with Mdivani. During his tenure, Mdivani entered in a bitter conflict with Stalin and Ordzhonikidze who pursued hardliner, centralizing policy towards Georgia. This dispute known as the Georgian Affair peaked in 1922, when Mdivani and his comrades – Makharadze, Mikhail Okudzhava, Sergey Kavtaradze, and Shalva Eliava – were denounced by Stalin as "national deviationists". The Mdivani group, in their turn, accused their opponents of "Great Russian chauvinism" and tried to secure Lenin’s support, but without any success. The "deviationists"’ failure to prevent the Georgian SSR from being amalgamated with the Armenian and Azerbaijan republics into the Transcaucasian SFSR resulted in the final victory of the Stalin-Ordzhonikidze line and the removal of Mdivani from his post in January 1923. Prime Minister of Georgian SSR: 1923-1928 President of Georgian SSR: 1938-1941 Categories: Georgia (country) geography stubs | Soviet Union stubs ... For other uses, see Revolutionary committee (disambiguation). ... 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... Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ( Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин  listen?), original surname Ulyanov (Улья́нов) ( April 22 (April 10 ( O.S.)), 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a... The Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic was a short-lived (1922-1936) Soviet republic, consisting of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, which were traditionally known as the Transcaucasian Republics in the Soviet Union. ...

The "national deviationists" were not actively persecuted until the late 1920s, however. Once Lenin had been incapacitated by a series of strokes, Stalin used his increasing power to remove Mdivani and other oppositionists to diplomatic posts. Mdivani served as the Soviet trade representative to France from 1924 until being excluded, in 1928, from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during Stalin’s crackdown on the Left Opposition. Reinstated three years later, he worked in various government positions, including as chairman of the Supreme Sovnarkhoz, People’s Commissar of Light Industry and first deputy chairman of the Georgian Council of People’s Commissars between 1931 and 1936.^[1] He remained an outspoken critic of Stalin’s Transcaucasian enterprise and was famous for his sarcastic comments on the Soviet leader. According to the modern historian Ami Knight, Mdivani liked to tell a joke about how Georgian workers urged Lavrentiy Beria to set up an armed guard around the house of Stalin’s mother, Ekaterina Geladze, in Tbilisi so as she would not give birth to another Stalin.^[2] The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Russian: Коммунисти́ческая Па́ртия Сове́тского Сою́за = КПСС) was the name used by the successors of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party from 1952 to 1991, but the wording Communist Party was present in the partys name since 1918 when the Bolsheviks became the Russian... The Left Opposition was a faction within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1923-1927. ... Sovnarkhoz, (Совнархоз, Совет Народного Хозяйства, Sovet Narodnogo Hozyaistva, Council of National Economy), usually translated as Regional Economic Council, is an organization of... Lavrenty Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (Georgian: ლავრენტი ბერია, Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria; Russian: Лаврентий Павлович Берия; 29 March 1899–23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician and chief of the Soviet security and police apparatus. ... Ekaterina Geladze (familiarly known as Keke ) was the mother of Joseph Stalin. ...

Repression

Stalin could not forgive his former comrade for his defiance and Mdivani became one of the first victims of the Great Purges. He was removed from his post and excluded from the party in late 1936. In May 1937, Mdivani was accused by Beria of having founded the "Trotskyite Centre for Espionage, Sabotage and Terrorism" with the aim to kill Beria and bring down the Soviet government. In July he was arrested and tried by the NKVD troika. During the interrogations at the Metekhi prison in Tbilisi, Mdivani repeatedly refused to "confess". He is quoted to have said to the troika members: The Great Purge is the name given to campaigns of repression in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s which included a purge of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. ... What does it mean? The Russian word troika (threesome, triumvirate) denoted commissions of three persons as an additional instrument of extrajudicial punishment (внесудебная расправа, внесудебное преследование) introduced to supplement the legal system with a means for quick punishment of anti-Soviet elements. ... The Metekhi Church and the equestrian statue of King Vakhtang Gorgasal Metekhi (Metechi; Georgian: მეტეხი) is a historical cliff located in Tbilisi, Georgia. ...

"Being shot is not enough punishment for me; I need to be quartered! It was me who brought the 11th Army here [in Tbilisi]; I betrayed my people and helped Stalin and Beria, these degenerates, enslave Georgia and bring Lenin’s party to its knees."^[3]

On July 11, 1937, the Soviet newspaper Zaria vostoka, with the headline of "Death to Enemies of the People", announced that the Georgian Supreme Court found Mdivani, Okudzhava and several of their colleagues guilty of treason and other counterrevolutionary crimes all categorized under Article 58 of the Criminal Code.^[2] On July 19, Mdivani was executed at Tbilisi. His wife and sons, including the notable tennis player Archil Mdivani (1911-1937), were also shot. The term enemy of the people (Russian language: враг народа, vrag naroda) was a fluid designation under the Bolsheviks rule in regards to their real or suspected political or class opponents, sometimes including former allies. ... Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on February 25, 1927 to arrest those suspected guilty of counter-revolutionary activities. ...

References

April 23 is the 113th day of the year (114th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... The Princeton University Press is a publishing house, a division of Princeton University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. ... Nassau Street, Princetons main street. ... April 23 is the 113th day of the year (114th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ...