Question by Samian: Why isn’t Joseph Stalin seen as a traitor in his native Georgia?
Let me get this straight: In 1921, Georgia had been liberated from the Russian Empire and was a democratic country headed by the Mensheviks.
But then comes Stalin, Ordzhonikidze, and Beria with Red Army troops from Moscow, and they conquer Georgia to bring it into the Soviet Union. And when the Georgian people led the August Uprising of 1924, Stalin and his Caucasian Clique ruthlessly suppressed it.
After all of this, why isn’t Stalin seen as a traitor and a Russified sell-out to Georgians today?
@Russ: They have a freaking Stalin MUSEUM in Gori, Georgia!
Answers and Views:
Answer by Russ in NOVA
I am confused. Are you saying that they treat Stalin as a hero in Georgia? Because that doesn’t seem to be the case. No one else in the former Soviet Union treats him like a hero. He is as reviled in Georgia as anywhere.
Answer by Jango
Just because after that Stalin built powerful country called USSR with large industry, advanced science, nuclear weapon and stable society.
Some time ago this so called Georgian president Saakashvili ordered to demolish Stalins monument in Gori. It was done to find a favor in eyes of US…
Read all the answers in the comments.
What do you think?
General Drozdovsky says
You raised quite an interesting question related to the Soviet national policy and its perception by the Soviet population including the Georgians.
You write “Stalin seen as a traitor and a Russified sell-out to Georgians today…” The problem is that the Soviets DID NOT represent Russians. That is, the Bolsheviks were not seen by the Georgian population as Russians. They were NOT seen as the Russian or “Moscow” as you say, power. Look, you are writing about the 1920s. Take the list of the Lenin’s – early Stalin’s government to see WHO were the people to take decisions. You will hardly find any Russians on the list.
The talks about “Russian occupation” of Georgia is a new invention, a part of a new Georgian political mythology constructed to justify contemporary Georgian policy.
P.S. I recommend you V. Kozlov’s collection of archival documents “Mass Uprisings in the USSR Under Khrushchev and Brezhnev: Protest and Rebellion in the Post-Stalin Years” http://www.powells.com/biblio/9780765606679 to see how the ordinary Georgians reacted to the de-Stalinization initiated by Nikita Khrushchev. There were mass demonstrations, revolts etc. because the Georgians saw Stalin as “their own” who became a victim of the Russian de-communization.
In general, the Georgians are more nostalgic about the USSR than any other people of the former Soviet Union. Why? Because the Georgians had a privileged position within the USSR. For example, the private entrepreneurial activity was strictly banned in the USSR. Thousands of the ethnic Russians were sentenced to serve prison terms for an attempt to have kind of a private business. Nonetheless many Georgians were involved in private businesses because the KGB and police turned their blind eye to this stuff. That is why living standards in Georgia were much higher than in Russia. One more example, during the USSR it was banned to built two-storied “dachas”, countryside houses in Russia. But only in Russia not in Georgia where people were allowed to build any houses they wanted. One more example, do you know that starting from December 1943 Stalin banned conscription to the army ANY peoples but ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians? It was only these peoples who were worth dying fighting the Nazis.
Do you still have any questions?