The Georgian republic stands at a crossroads. It will either resume its path towards a liberal, democratic and independent state – or, like Belarus, it will become a client state of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Which course it follows depends upon the hundreds of thousands of Georgian citizens demonstrating every day in the streets and on the increasingly violent repression carried out by the current government in response.
But it also depends on us. Because Britain and the West must remain engaged – and we must learn the lessons of history.
In 1920, Ramsay MacDonald participated in an international socialist delegation to independent Georgia. Georgia was then ruled by a Social Democratic Party that was attempting to create a humane, democratic alternative to what the Bolsheviks were doing in Russia. Upon his return to Britain, MacDonald told journalists that Georgia was “a happy country under a Socialistic regime.”
But not long after MacDonald and his fellow socialist delegates left Georgia, the Red Army invaded, forcing the elected government to flee into exile, and incorporating the country into the newly-formed Soviet Union.
In August 1924, Georgia erupted in an armed rebellion against Soviet rule, which was swiftly suppressed. Thousands of innocent people, including many hostages, were shot by the Soviet secret police, the Cheka.
By this time, Labour was in power and MacDonald was prime minister. The initial reaction of the Labour government to the news of the 1924 uprising and its bloody suppression was to call upon the League of Nations to act. But after just a few days, it became clear that Soviet rule in Georgia was not under threat. The British government was keen to make a trade deal with the Soviets. Realpolitik kicked in.
In a Commons debate a few weeks later, it fell to Tory MPs to ask the government to say something about Georgia. One of them mentioned that 9,000 people had been slaughtered by the Soviets. A Labour MP responded saying that “there have been no massacres” in Georgia. It was not Labour’s finest hour.
A century has now passed. Georgia declared its independence in 1991 and began the long journey to becoming a modern, liberal, democratic state. The “Rose Revolution” two decades ago seemed to put the country on a path toward what was called Georgia’s “European future”.
But all that has begun to unravel in recent months. The increasingly authoritarian and pro-Russian government, controlled by the secretive billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, had grown more and more unpopular. Thousands of Georgians had been regularly protesting against the regime and elections at the end of October were expected to result in a broad coalition of opposition parties coming to power.
Instead the elections resulted in a clear victory for Ivanishvili’s “Georgian Dream”. The opposition parties – and most foreign observers – cried foul. Mass demonstrations took place. But after a few weeks, an exhausted opposition began to fade away.
That was the moment when the “Georgian Dream” government decided to announce that the promised “European future” wasn’t going to happen any time soon. This was a serious miscalculation by the government, triggering the biggest protests, which now were no longer confined to the capital. And this was followed by the regime’s decision to have its rump parliament, in which no opposition members have taken their seats, elect a new president. They chose a former footballer, Mikheil Kavelashvili, though few recognise him as the legitimate president of the country. Salome Zourabishvili, who currently serves as president, has refused to recognise Kavelashvili.
The Labour government in the UK had been weak in its initial response to the crisis in Georgia. A British diplomat called “on the Georgian authorities to transparently investigate reported irregularities, including those raised by local observers.”
But of course the Georgian authorities could not be relied upon to “transparently investigate” anything, as the last few weeks have shown. It took nearly six weeks for the British government to speak out firmly, saying that “we call on the Georgian authorities to listen, de-escalate this situation, and reverse their harmful trajectory away from European values.”
More recently, David Lammy announced that “the UK will immediately suspend all programme support to the Georgian government, restrict defence cooperation, and limit engagement with representatives of Georgian Dream government until there is a halt to this move away from European democratic norms and freedoms.”
In a joint statement Britain signed with other OSCE members, it demanded that Georgia “stop the use of repressive, excessively violent tactics by law enforcement agencies” and “immediately release protestors, members of the media, opposition figures, and others detained for peacefully exercising their rights”. The statement also stated that “individuals responsible for the unlawful use of force must also be held accountable”.
These are positive steps and most welcome. They should be followed by more steps, including sanctioning Georgian officials involved in violent attacks on peaceful protestors. Britain needs to increasingly coordinate its response with allies, including the United States and the EU.
Back in 1924, the first Labour government did not keep its promise to the Georgian people. A century later, it is good to see an increased understanding of the importance of supporting the Georgians as they risk everything to choose their own future. Their fight is our fight and they deserve our solidarity.
If you enjoyed this piece, click here to read another blog post on Britain’s responsibility to preserving social democracy abroad.
-
Eric is the founding editor of LabourStart, an online news service for the international trade union movement. He is also the author of The Labour Movement and the Internet: The New Internationalism (Pluto Press, 1996) and several other books.
View all posts