Four days later, membership of the interim body, the Commissariat, was announced. Gegechkori served concurrently as President and as Commissar for Labour and for Foreign Affairs, while his Menshevik colleague, Akaky Chkhenkeli, assumed the strategic post of Internal Affairs. Appropriately, the Social Revolutionary Donskoi was named Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, but only after heated SR-Menshevik debates concerning agrarian policies did A. V. Neruchev of the former party emerge as Commissar for Agriculture. Portfolios of Trade and Industry, Roads and Communications, and State Control were distributed among the three Moslems on the eleven-man board. Armenians Khatchatour Karjikian, Hamazasp (Hamo) Ohandjanian (Dashnaktsoutiun), and Ghazar Ter Ghazarian (SD) acted as commissars for Finance, Public Welfare, and Provisions, respectively. 6 The appointment of cabinet positions elicited Armenian criticism of Dashnaktsoutiun for permitting Georgian supremacy. That the Mensheviks should lead, however, was quite natural. They had accepted commanding roles in the Russian soviets, and had even participated in the Provisional Government. The influence and fame of a Zhordania, Gegechkori, Tsereteli, or Chkheidze far surpassed that of the nationality, religiously, or territorially restricted leaders of Dashnaktsoutiun and Musavat. Since the March Revolution, Menshevik views had shaped Transcaucasian policies; there was no reason for alteration after November. On the contrary, the flight or expulsion of many Georgian leaders from central Russia augmented Menshevik power beyond the Caucasus Mountains.
Publishing its first declaration on December 1, the Commissariat accounted for its own creation and revealed an ambitious program, which ranged from bolstering the economy and reinforcing the military front to abolishing class privileges, introducing the zemstvo, reorganising the judicial system, and seeking a workable solution to the nationality question. 7 Actually, the Commissariat did none of these. Perhaps with premonition, Gegechkori's cabinet explained that it would rule until the convocation of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly. "If, however, the gathering of the latter becomes impossible because of circumstances in Russia, then it [the Commissariat] will retain authority until the Constituent Assembly members from Transcaucasia ad the Caucasus front have conferred." 8
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