BATUMI DISTRICT IN THE HEAVIEST 1920-1921 YEARS

Abstract

The Mensheviks had no less influence on the Batumi proletariat than the Bolsheviks, who outnumbered the Bolsheviks several times /5000, 500/. That is why the hope of coming to power for the Bolsheviks was not the Batumi proletariate, but the Russian Red Army, which at that time was engaged in the fight against the counter-revolution inside Russia and the war with Georgia. Therefore, without the help of the Red Army, the Bolsheviks and their supporters could not prevent the troops of the Democratic Republic of Georgia from entering Batumi on July 7, 1920. Batumi proletariat did not solve this issue alone. At that time, the national liberation struggle reached its zenith in Adjara, which was headed by the "Liberation Committee of Muslim Georgia" and the Batumi District Mejlis /Parliament/ under the leadership of Memed Abashidze, who met the units of the Georgian forces in Bartskhana, a suburb of Batumi, and addressed them with a welcoming speech.

The units of the Georgian army were met in Bartskhana together with the commander of the British occupying troops in Batumi district, the governor-general of Batumi district, 40-year-old Irishman Cooke-Collis, who a week earlier on July 1 officially announced the transfer of all Batumi district to the Democratic Republic of Georgia.

Keywords: Mensheviks; Mejlis; power; Russia-Turkey negotiations; coalition government; Military-Revolutionary Committee; National Guard of Georgia;