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Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, Vol. 2 No. 2, May–June 1978, p. 7.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
One of the most significant signs of political opposition for many years took place in the Georgian capital, Tiflis (Tbilisi) on Friday 14 April 1978. According to a number of Western sources in Moscow, later confirmed by travellers passing through Tiflis at the time, a mass demonstration was staged against the Kremlin’s policy of Russification in the non-Russian Republics of the USSR.
On Friday, 14 April, the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party met to approve the final text of a new constitution for the Republic. Following the adoption last October of the ‘Brezhnev’ constitution to replace the Stalin constitution of 1936, the Georgian republic was preparing to change its own local constitution. But the new draft contained an important change in the status of the Georgian language. Whereas both the 1921 and the 1937 Georgian constitutions had declared Georgian to be the official language of the republic, the new draft removed this provision and gave Russian an equal linguistic status in republican affairs. The Central Committee meeting on 14 April was the last occasion on which changes to the new draft could realistically take place. On the following day the Georgian Supreme Soviet was due to ratify the final text.
But on the morning of the Central Committee meeting a large crowd assembled at Tiflis University and marched to the Government building, arriving there at 2 p.m. The demonstrators, said by the BBC to number ‘thousands’, then stood in front of the building demanding the maintenance of Georgian as the official language of the Republic.
The Georgian Party Secretary, Eduard Shevardnadze, reportedly spoke to the crowd twice during the afternoon. On the first occasion he apparently tried to argue with the demonstrators, before retiring into the building. He then reappeared later and assured the demonstrators that “the Georgian language would be preserved”. The crowd then dispersed. On Sunday 16 April, the Moscow paper Zarya Vostoka (Star of the East) then carried the full text of the approved constitution, and sure enough the provision promised by Shevardnadze restoring Georgian as the official language was included. The implication is unmistakeable: a popular demonstration had successfully ensured that the authorities would retreat on this important constitutional issue.
Since the 1960s, the national question has emerged as an issue of first rate importance in Soviet politics, and the most explosive aspect of it has been the conscious policy of the regime to press forward with a policy of linguistic Russification. It is often forgotten in the West that Russians make up barely 50% of the Soviet population. At the same time the Party apparatus and the state administration in the USSR is overwhelmingly dominated by Russians or thoroughly Russified members of other Soviet nationalities. Ever since the forced collectivization of agriculture in the early 1930s there has been a profound gulf between the stated equality of Soviet nationalities and the actual dominance of Russians in virtually every sphere of Soviet life. In the 1960s there was a renewed drive by the authorities to extend the Russification of the USSR and gradually eliminate non-Russian languages from Soviet life. This policy was rationalized with a theory of the gradual replacement of ethnic differences in the USSR by a new, unitary ‘Soviet nationality’ – that is, a Russian nationality.
There has been bitter resistance to the Russification drive, especially in the Ukraine, the Baltic republics and the Caucuses. In Georgia this opposition has undoubtedly penetrated into the official organizations themselves. In the 8th Congress of the Georgian Writers’ Union in April 1976, one writer, R.A. Dzhaparidze made an impassioned attack on Russification, mentioning in particular the introduction of Russian as the language of instruction in various courses at Tiflis University. His speech was apparently received with great enthusiasm by those present. Another symptom of the extreme bitterness provoked by Russification was the rash of bombings that took place in Georgia in 1975 and 1976. In April 1977 V.G. Zhvaniya was sentenced to death for these bomb attacks, and according to dissident sources in Georgia he had been motivated by opposition to the Russification drive.
The success of the April demonstration will no doubt strengthen the movement against Russification in Georgia. It can also be expected to have a powerful influence on opponents of Russification in other republics. The national question will be one of the major problems that succeeding the present Brezhnev leadership will have to grapple with.
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