Episode 4: The First Republic with Stephen F. Jones

Reimagining Soviet Georgia

During the Russian Civil War, between May 1918 and February 1921, the Democratic Republic of Georgia – known as the First Republic - was a nominally independent state controlled by social democrats. These Georgian social democrats were Mensheviks. Formally, Menshevism and Bolshevism were two distinct wings of the empire wide Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. In the decades leading up to 1918, Menshevism and Bolshevism in Georgia had more politically in common than not.

Over time strategic and political differences set them apart. Georgian Menshevism, led by Noe Zhordania and others, blended a particular vision of Georgian nationhood and national liberation with their Marxist politics. In 1921, as Bolsheviks began consolidating power around Georgia, the Red Army invaded with the help of local Georgian Bolsheviks, and the First Republic was no more.

In Georgia today the First Republic exists as an important reference point of Georgian independence and sovereignty and the only example of modern Georgian nationhood. However, the Marxist politics of its founders and the intimate political upbringing they shared with Bolsheviks is often either ignored or disregarded. So what does the First republic really mean for Georgia today? How should it be remembered and understood?

In this episode, Bryan Gigantino and Sopo Japaridze discuss all this and more with Stephen Jones.

Stephen Jones is a historian and political scientist, and a self- described socialist, who has been studying and writing on Georgia since the 1970s. He is an expert on Georgia’s First Republic authoring the now classic 2005 study on the topic Socialism in Georgian Colors: The European Road to Social Democracy as well as an excellent study on post-Soviet Georgia entitled Georgia: A Political History Since Independence.