Page:Karl Kautsky - Georgia - tr. Henry James Stenning (1921).pdf/102

 In order to be able to deny the invasion of Russian troops, it was first stated that some villages on the Georgian frontier had revolted, embittered by the tyranny of the Georgians. Some Armenians on the southern border had given the signal, and then the rebellion spread, to Signakh, which lies in the east of Georgia, towards Azerbaijan. Simultaneously, Abkhasia had risen in the extreme north-west, close to the Russian border.

It is a remarkable fact that the rebellions broke out precisely in those places, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Abkhasia, where large and constantly increasing masses of Russian troops had been quartered since November.

The inhabitants of some Armenian border villages are supposed to have insisted on advancing towards Tiflis. The Russian Government stated it had endeavoured, out of love of peace and benevolence, to help the threatened Georgian régime, and offered its mediation between the Georgians and the Armenians. It could not help it if Georgia contemptuously rejected this mediation.

But scarcely was Tiflis captured than the picture immediately changed. The Armenians had discharged their debt, the Armenians could go. No further mention was made in the Russian telegrams of Armenian rebellions, but now it suddenly appears that Communists had captured Tiflis and overthrown the Menshevists.

"Pravda" (in Moscow) congratulates the Georgian comrades, and says that "Menshevist Georgia has become the last refuge for the counter-revolution."

No. further references to the Armenian rebellions or to the peace mediations. Can any reasonable man hold it to be possible that Moscow would have offered its helpful mediation to a Menshevist Government which was threatened by Communists?

The later Russian telegrams about events in Georgia brand the first news as lies. They more closely approach the truth, but do not quite touch it. They admit that Tiflis was captured by Communists, and not by