The Events of 1978 in Abkhazia, by Beslan Argun
Translated by AbkhazWorld
Abstract
Even during Stalin’s time, some Abkhazians protested against Tbilisi’s anti-Abkhazian policies, such as renaming places and closing Abkhaz schools. In 1947, Giorgi Dzidzaria, Bagrat Shinkuba, and Konstantin Shakryl sent a complaint letter to Moscow and were later persecuted. Over the following decades, Abkhazia saw repeated unrest (1957, 1967, 1978) over Georgian rule. In 1977, 130 Abkhaz intellectuals petitioned the Kremlin to remove Abkhazia from Georgian control, leading to job losses and mass protests. Eduard Shevardnadze was sent to calm tensions, promising reforms such as a university and limited Abkhaz-language broadcasts. However, while the establishment of Abkhazian State University seemed a victory, it ultimately increased Georgian presence in Abkhazia.
(Published in: Abkhazovedenie: Istoriya, arkheologiya, etnologiya. Vypusk II. Sukhum, 2003, pp. 151–158.)
Forty years after the adoption of the USSR Constitution of 1936, the international standing of the USSR had changed, as had, for that matter, the entire socio-political landscape of the world. The Soviet Union’s authority had grown. Such profound changes had taken place throughout Soviet society that it became necessary to summarise them in a new Fundamental Law of the country.
The procedure for adopting the new Constitution was outwardly democratic in nature. After the draft Constitution was reviewed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the May (1977) Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, it was published for nationwide discussion, which lasted for almost four months. In the course of this discussion, approximately 400,000 proposals for amendments to individual articles of the draft Constitution were received. The final study and evaluation of the proposals were carried out by the Constitutional Commission (1). However, as the analysis of the Constitutional Commission’s work shows, the majority of letters and proposals from the working people were ignored. Only a small fraction of amendments, which were mainly editorial in nature, were taken into account. The draft Constitution was discussed twice at Plenums of the Party’s Central Committee (the May 1977 and October 1977 Plenums) and was approved on 7 October 1977 by an extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (see the USSR Constitution of 1977). Following the adoption of the USSR Constitution on 7 October 1977, the union and autonomous republics began work on their own new Constitutions. Here, it is necessary to dwell on some issues related to the last Constitution of the Abkhazian ASSR of 1978.
A major problem was the division of national statehood into distinct hierarchical categories (union republic, autonomous republic, etc.). The political and economic position of each autonomy depended on this. Autonomous republics did not have equal representation in the USSR alongside the union republics. The participation of autonomous republics in resolving the affairs of the corresponding union republics was clearly insufficient. The Supreme Soviets of the latter were unicameral, and special representation for autonomous republics within them was not envisaged (2). Representatives of the autonomous republics were not included in the composition of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR or the Councils of Ministers of other union republics. This substantially infringed upon the right to self-determination of the indigenous peoples of the autonomous republics and other autonomous formations, and in subsequent years led to a series of constitutional conflicts and inter-ethnic wars (Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Chechnya, etc.).
Many difficulties in national relations are a consequence of Stalin’s policies, rigid centralisation, denationalisation, and a subjective, voluntarist approach to the destiny of peoples. Already at the end of 1977, a collective letter was sent to the Union bodies by 130 representatives of the intelligentsia and prominent public figures of Abkhazia. The main question raised was the secession of Abkhazia from Georgia and the constitutional entrenchment of this right (3).
The letter described the aggravated situation in Abkhazia and expressed grievances against the leadership of Georgia. Under the guise of economic development of the Abkhazian ASSR, the migration of non-Abkhazian, predominantly Georgian, population into the republic was carried out, and the real economic and administrative autonomy of the region was undermined. Infringement of the rights of Abkhazians in cadre policy was permitted, the needs for the development of Abkhazian culture, the printing base, television were ignored, and the history of the Abkhazians was distorted in academic publications and textbooks, etc. (4).
The Central Committee of Georgia intercepted the letters and forwarded to the Abkhazian Regional Party Committee (Obkom). At the demand of the leadership of the Central Committee of Georgia, this issue was brought up for discussion by the Bureau of the Obkom on 22 February 1978 under the title: “On incorrect views and slanderous fabrications contained in the collective letter of 10 December 1977” (5).
The reaction of the Abkhazian Obkom was unambiguous: punish the authors of the letter and expel the Communist Party members who wrote it from the Party. The signatories of the Abkhazian “Letter of the 130”—Alexei Dzheniya, Yuri Argun, and Iosif Akhiba—were expelled from the Party and dismissed from their jobs. The need for such measures was justified very simply: the views expressed in the letter were detrimental to the friendship of the Abkhazian and Georgian peoples, and all the peoples inhabiting the autonomous republic.
+ Letter of despair, by Badrak Avidzba
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The decision of the Abkhazian Obkom provoked mass protests, spontaneous gatherings, and meetings. The Party Obkom saw only one thing in these events: the weakening of ideological work, and it completely equated the raising of national demands with the incitement of ethnic hatred.
Before moving on to references to the documents I use in my work, I would like to say a few words about them for clarity. This is the former Party Archive of the Abkhazian Communist Party Obkom. After the expulsion of the aggressors from Abkhazia, the historian B. Sagariya appealed to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Abkhazia, S. Dzhindzholia, in February 1994 with a request to preserve the remaining archive of the former Abkhazian Regional Committee. At that time, the archive was located in the building of the former Party Obkom. However, in early June 1996, the archive disappeared. Long and persistent searches led B. Ye. Sagariya to the Sukhum railway station. The archive was found in a large freight carriage. The archive had been sold to builders as waste paper. With great difficulty, the archive was moved to the premises previously occupied by ASU on Chochua Street. A large and the best part of the archive was destroyed, and some of the most valuable documents were removed.
Despite this, interesting materials remained. Among these documents, the most interesting for this work are the protocols of the popular assemblies of 1978, as well as “Statements received during the discussion of the draft Constitution of the Abkhazian ASSR from citizens of Abkhazia in 1978” to the Constitutional Commission of Abkhazia. These documents have never been published before; they were hidden from the people.
The protocol of the assembly of residents of the village of Bzyb and nearby settlements in the zone of the town of Gagra and Gudauta district from 29 March 1978 has been preserved. More than a thousand people took part in the assembly. Present were a member of the Bureau of the Abkhazian Party Obkom, Secretary of the Obkom, L. V. Marshania, the First Secretary of the Gagra Town Party Committee, T. Sh. Kvantaliani, the Second Secretary of the Gagra Town Party Committee, N. V. Voronov, and others.
The item on the agenda was: “Discussion of the letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU signed by 130 people”. Many questions were asked: why are the toponymic names in Abkhazia still being distorted? How many people from the eastern districts of Georgia will be resettled now? Why has there been no First Secretary of Abkhazian nationality in the town of Gagra for 40 years? Where is the television? How many members of the Bureau of the Abkhazian Obkom speak the Abkhazian language? Not a single note submitted to L. V. Marshania was answered, and he gave evasive answers to oral questions.
The assembly of residents of the village of Bzyb and nearby settlements in the zone of the town of Gagra and Gudauta district from 29 March 1978 resolved:
Approve the letter written to the Central Committee of the CPSU signed by 130 people on 10 December 1977.
Request the Central Committee of the CPSU to create a commission for a comprehensive study of the letter.
Request the Regional Party Committee to reinstate Dzheniya, Argun, and Akhiba in their jobs (6).
The initial state of the archive, i.e., the remaining parts, was deplorable, and there was no systematisation or classification. It was impossible to begin studying the materials*.
At popular gatherings and strikes in the towns of Sukhum, Tquarchal, Gagra, and in the villages of Lykhny, Pokuash, and Bzyb, the Abkhazian people demanded the inclusion of a special article in the draft Abkhazian Constitution on the right to freely secede from Georgia.
Despite the uniqueness of the various national-territorial conflicts, they also have many common features: the aggravation of economic problems, contradictions in the legal status of different national-territorial formations, the absence of political mechanisms for making decisions in extraordinary circumstances, and finally, ideological unpreparedness for open ethnic confrontation. All these points indicate a crisis in the old practice of regulating national processes. It became clear that resolving inter-ethnic contradictions by routine methods was impossible, and every specific case of worsening national relations raised fundamental questions of socio-economic and political development.
+ On the Demographic Expansion of Abkhazia (1937 - Mid-1950s), by Adgur E. Agrba
*A. Studenikin and I, being Junior Research Fellows at the Abkhazian Institute of Humanitarian Studies (AbIGI), were able to describe and categorise them by district, but the archive staff are still working on it.
The Communist Party was the main force carrying out national policy in Soviet society. Almost every mass national movement began with a collective appeal to the Central Committee of the CPSU with a request to intervene in the situation. Ignoring the Centre gave rise to conflicts with the Party apparatus.
The Party leadership of many republics was unprepared to function in conditions of aggravated inter-ethnic conflicts. This was primarily reflected in the methods of work: the inability to conduct a dialogue with representatives of national movements, to assess the validity of the demands put forward, or to consider the problem on its merits. The national relations constructed in numerous official documents had few points of contact with the real state of affairs. The established dogmas in the field of national policy did not immediately allow them to comprehend the aggravated situation and take effective measures.
Life shows how important it is to harmonise international and national values, not to oppose one to the other. Without a clear definition of what constitutes nationalism, accusations of nationalism can be extended to any manifestation of the national. The unwillingness to draw a clear dividing line between the growth of national self-awareness and nationalism led to a struggle against the national intelligentsia, i.e., against those who defended the national values of their people. Spontaneous gatherings and assemblies were characterised as “anti-people manifestations”. However, the assessments began to change somewhat over time. In November 1978, B. V. Adleyba, appointed First Secretary of the Abkhazian Party Obkom, acknowledged “that the form of demonstration of public opinion uncharacteristic of our society and public relations” led to a disbelief in the possibility of solving protracted problems through official channels (7). (CPA IMYa, sh. 83) .
First, a resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia was adopted, followed by a resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU on accelerating the socio-economic and cultural development of the Abkhazian ASSR. This included “On Measures for the Further Development of the Economy and Culture of the Abkhazian ASSR” (dated 25 April 1978) by the CC of the Communist Party of Georgia , and “On the Further Development of the Economy and Culture in the Abkhazian ASSR” (dated 1 June 1978) by the CC of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
The Council of Ministers of the Georgian SSR was recommended to expand the range of issues of economic and cultural life subject to decision by the autonomous republic’s government and to review the departmental subordination of certain institutions and organisations. A decision was also made to reorganise the Sukhum Pedagogical Institute into a State University and to organise television in the autonomous republic (8).
The resolutions confirmed that there were real grounds for public discontent. But the distrust of the policy pursued up to that point was so deep that the slightest pretext was enough for new outbreaks. This is what happened in September 1978, when the appointment of a new Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the republic, who was sent from Tbilisi, led to protests, including strikes at industrial and transport enterprises and educational institutions (9).
On 21 May 1978, a meeting of the active members of the Abkhazian Communist Party Obkom took place. The meeting considered the question “On the progress of the nationwide discussion of the draft of the new Constitution of the Abkhazian ASSR”. The report on this issue was delivered by the Chairman of the Constitutional Commission of the Abkhazian ASSR, First Secretary of the Abkhazian Obkom, B. V. Adleyba.
V. Kapitonov, Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, participated in the meeting and gave a major speech. In his speech, I. V. Kapitonov, in particular, noted that “all comrades who put forward or support the idea of Abkhazia transferring from one union republic to another will understand the illegitimacy of their position and will not insist on it”. “The future development, the further flourishing of Soviet Abkhazia, should not be sought in this,” he stated. “This will bring no benefit to the Abkhazians or to the people of other nationalities inhabiting your republic”. “I must inform you that this proposal was most carefully and comprehensively considered in the central bodies”. “The interests of the Abkhazian people and national interests were taken into account, and internal and external political circumstances were considered”. “*Based on this, it was deemed inappropriate to resolve this issue in any form that goes beyond the framework of the Constitution of the Georgian SSR“. “Everything concerning the national-state structure of the USSR is clearly and definitively settled in the new Soviet Constitution”. “And it would be wrong if the Constitutions of the autonomous republics contained provisions inconsistent with the Fundamental Law of the country” (10).
Commenting on the speech by the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, I. V. Kapitonov, it must be noted that the question of the secession of the Abkhazian ASSR from the Georgian SSR was perceived as categorically impossible. The approach was one-sided; the Centre did not want to change the existing state of affairs. Abkhazia was part of Georgia and there could be no other outcome. At the same time, the opinion of the indigenous Abkhazian people was not taken into account. Officials of the apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU considered the issue of Abkhazia’s secession from the Georgian SSR to be “fundamentally contradictory to Lenin’s national policy and the Communist Party of the country”. Yet, the demand of the Abkhazian people did not contradict the Laws of the Soviet state or international law (the right of nations to self-determination). In fact, it was the presence of Abkhazia within the unitary state of Georgia that was “fundamentally contradictory to Lenin’s national policy”.
In the history of national-state construction, there are known instances of an ASSR seceding from one union republic and joining another, or of autonomous republics being transformed into union republics, or vice versa. This testifies that the right to self-determination serves as a specific guarantee of the sovereignty of the ASSR (11).
In June 1978, the XI Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia took place, dedicated to national relations, particularly the Abkhazian events. E. A. Shevardnadze, who spoke at the Plenum, called upon the Communists of the republic for the unswerving implementation of Lenin’s national policy and emphasised the need for the most careful attitude of the more numerous people towards the national institutions of the less numerous people. He remarked that even the slightest mistake, a hasty decision, or an ill-considered statement is enough to reawaken suspicion and reopen the wound (12). But these were the words of the main cynic of our era, as subsequent events proved.
Notes
Kukushkin Yu. S., Chistyakov O. I. Essays on the History of the Soviet Constitution. Moscow, 1987, p. 192.
Constitution of the Georgian SSR. 1978, pp. 25-26.
On the Threshold of Crisis: The Accumulation of Stagnation Phenomena in the Party and Society. Ed. Zhuravlev. Moscow, 1990, p. 146.
Abkhazian Letters. (1947–1989). Collected Documents. Vol. 1. Comp. I. Marukhba. Sukhum, 1994, p. 187.
Ibid., pp. 227-258.
Archive of the Abkhazian Institute of Humanitarian Studies. Sukhum.
CPA IMYa, p. 83.
The Communist Party of Georgia in the Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences, and Plenums of the Central Committee. Vol. 4. Tbilisi, 1981, p. 795.
On the Threshold of Crisis: The Accumulation of Stagnation Phenomena in the Party and Society. 1990. Ed. Zhuravlev. Moscow, p. 368.
“Sovetskaya Abkhazia“. 1978, 23 May.
Shapsugov D. Yu. Questions of Sovereignty and the State-Legal Nature of the Autonomous Republic. Rostov-on-Don, 1971, p. 12.
CPA IML. pp. 16-21.
First published on AbkhazWorld