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Meanwhile, the Georgians equipped their units. Besides the native troops that had been transformed from the European theatre, the Georgians depended on the well-disciplined Menshevik Red Guard, which, under the command of the Valiko Jugheli, patrolled the streets and held the great arsenal of Tiflis. It was not difficult to secure arms for the Georgian troops. In December, General Przhevalsky had also authorised the formation of the Georgian Corps, which was assigned the defence of a relatively short front from the Black Sea west of Trabizond to a district north of Erzinjan. General Gabaev (Gabaishvili) commanded the ten-thousand-man Corps, while General Odishelidze, another Georgian, served in Erzurum as the Caucasus Army Commander, as distinct from the post held by Przhevalsky, that of Chief Commander of the Caucasus Front. 48
In the political arena, the Georgians were the last to feel the need for a national council, perhaps because the will of that people had been expressed for two decades by the Menshevik party. Thus, only at the end of November, 1917, did the Georgian National Assembly convene. Zhordania, having chosen to preside, reviewed the stirring events of that year, explained the functions of the Commissariat, and revealed plans for the establishment of a representative regional legislature, the Transcaucasian Seim. He added, however, that the Georgian people should organise internally and create a standing body to deal specifically with national affairs. The Menshevik swing to the right was manifest as the fiery-tongued orator, who several weeks earlier had dominated those who favoured coalition, now hailed collaboration with the Georgian Social Federalists, Social Revolutionaries, and the very national and very antisocialist National Democrats. Nevertheless, by winning most places on the newly created National Council, Zhordania and his comrades guaranteed that in Transcaucasia the terms "Menshevik" and "Georgian" would remain almost synonymous. 49
Bolsheviks favoured the formation of neither national councils nor national military units. These were instruments of counterrevolutionaries, who attempted to disrupt the proletariat and to wrench the masses away from the Russian Republic. Soldiers were urged to resist induction into companies based on nationality and to defend the principle of an international army. Indeed, the Bolshevik logic was not foreign to many soldiers who crammed the Communist papers with resolution and letters protesting the attempts to separate them from their comrades of other nationalities. 50 But most of the Russian troops, whose major concern was to get home, did not care what kind of army replaced them. Having failed to prevent the formation of Armenian, Georgian, and Moslem corps, the Bolshevik Caucasus Regional Committee then advised all units to leave the front, taking precaution against the possibility of another "Shamkhor Massacre." 51 Echoing Trotsky's "no war, no peace" tactic, Shahoumian informed the soldiers in mid-February that peace was near and that demobilisation had already been ordered by the Sovnarkom. He urged that the ratings of the bourgeois "defensist" journals be ignored. "There is no war and there will no longer be any war. Return to your homes and busy yourselves with the creation of a new life in that land." 52 In such statements there was not an inkling of the suggested accord between Shahoumian and the Dashnakists, but it is significant that, while showering Mensheviks and Musavatists with insult and derision, the Bolshevik Central Committee member and Extraordinary Commissar for the Caucasus made no mention of his Armenian political opponents. This could scarcely have been an oversight. 53
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48) W. E. D. Allen and Paul Muratoff, "Caucasian Battlefields: A History of the Wars on the Turco-Caucasian Border, 1828-1921" (Cambridge, 1953), p. 462; E. K. Sargsian, "Ekspansionistskaia politika Osmanskoi imperii v Zakavkaz'e nakanune I v gody pervoi mirovoi voiny" (Yerevan, 1962), p. 338.
49) G. I. Uratadze, "Obrazovanie i konsolidatsiia Gruzinskoi Demokraticheskoi Respubliki" (Munich, 1956), pp. 37-40; N. Zhordania, "Za dva goda" (Tbilisi, 1919), pp. 52-54; P. G. La Chesnais, "Les peoples de la Transcaucasie pendant la guerre et devant la paix" (Paris, 1921), pp. 39-43.
50) Bol'sheviki v bor'be za pobedu sotsialisticheskoi revoliutsii v Azerbaidzhane: Dokumenty I materialy 1917-1918 g.g.", ed. By Z. I. Ibragimov and M. S. Iskenderov (Baku, 1957), pp. 236-238; G. B. Gharibdjanian, "Hayastani komunistakan kazmakerpoutyounnere sovetakan ishkhanoutian haghtanaki hamar mghatz paikaroum" [The Communist Organisation of Armenia in the Struggle for Victory of the Soviet Order] (Yerevan, 1955), pp. 176-182; E. K. Sargsian, "Ekspansionistskaia politika Osmanskoi imperii v Zakavkaz'e nakanune I v gody pervoi mirovoi voiny" (Yerevan, 1962), pp. 328-332; H. N. Karapetian, "Hayastani Komeritmiutian tznounde" [The Birth of the Communist Youth Union of Armenia] (Yerevan, 1956), pp. 70-73.
51) "Revoliutsion kotcher yev troutsikner, 1902-1921" [Revolutionary Appeals and Circulars, 1902-1921], compiled by the Institute of Party History of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia and the Armenian Filial of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism (Yerevan, 1960), p. 445; "Velikaia Oktiabr'skaia sotsialisticheskaia revoliutsiia I pobeda sovetskoi vlasti v Armenii: Sbornik dokumentov", ed. By A. N. Mnatskanian, A. M. Akopian, and G. M. Dallakian (Yerevan, 1957), pp. 174-176; Hoktemberian sotsialistakan metz revoliutsian yev sovetakan ishkhanoutian haghtanake Hayastanoum: Pastatghteri yev niuteri zhoghovatzou" [The Great October Socialist Revolution and the Victory of the Soviet Order in Armenia: Collection of Documents and Materials], ed. by A. N. Mnatskanian, "et al." (Yerevan, 1960), pp. 180-181.
52) St. Shahoumian, "Yerker" [Works], III (Yerevan, 1958), III, 94-95; "Revoliutsion kotcher yev troutsikner, 1902-1921" [Revolutionary Appeals and Circulars, 1902-1921], compiled by the Institute of the Armenian Filial of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism (Yerevan, 1960), p. 447; Hoktemberian sotsialistakan metz revoliutsian yev sovetakan ishkhanoutian haghtanake Hayastanoum: Pastatghteri yev niuteri zhoghovatzou" [The Great October Socialist Revolution and the Victory of the Soviet Order in Armenia: Collection of Documents and Materials], ed. by A. N. Mnatskanian, "et al." (Yerevan, 1960), p. 182.
53) On many other occasions, Shahoumian cursed the Menshevik "lords" and Musavat "beks" but, when referring to his Armenian opponents, avoided the term "Dashnaktsoutyoun," by using such phrases as "nationalists," "bourgeois," and so on.
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