To the Editor of the Manchester Guardian
Sir, – I have lately received a good deal of information about the condition of Georgia under the Russian domination, which has unhappily been restored since the invasion by Russian and Armenian troops last March. I am unable to give the names of my informants, because some of them are still in their own country, to which they returned after the Russian Revolution, having been long in exile while the Tsardom lasted. All are Socialists and we must remember that at least 2,000 Georgian Socialists – “Mensheviks,” Social Revolutionaries, and other opponents of the centralised Russian Government – are now in prison for defending the liberties of their country.
My information shows that the present treatment of Georgia is much the same as under the Tsars. Except that it affects the great body of the country people more intimately. It is militarist and imperialist. Government is maintained by a close bureaucracy of Russians and Armenians. Many of the officials are the same “hooligans” who served as spies and secret police under the Tsar, but now call themselves Bolsheviks. Georgians are everywhere dismissed. All centres along the railway line from Batoum to Baku are held by Russian soldiers. The officials mock at Georgian claims to nationality and independence. There is nothing new in this; it has always been the Russian way of governing subjugated nations, as all who travelled in Russian territory knew in the past. And after the Georgian attempt to regain freedom in 1905-6 I myself saw the greater part of Western Georgia burnt and devastated by the Tsar’s troops with the usual military abominations. What is new is the deliberate pillage of the whole country. Russian soldiers roam from village to village devouring all that the peasants have produced; and Georgia besides being the most beautiful country I have seen, is by nature one of the most fertile.
All forms of wealth, from locomotives down to medicines and paper, are plundered and carried to Russia by way of Baku and the Caspian. The chief exceptions appear to be the valuable carpets and rugs (chiefly Persian) which are purchased by German and Italian speculators for scraps of food; but these sharks have got a good deal of jewellery by the same bargain. All Georgian books are destroyed. No one is allowed to keep more than 300 books of any kind; and the Georgians are an intellectual and highly-educated people.
But food is now the question of all others. It sounds ridiculous to give the current prices for Russian money as we know is worth nothing. One estimate I had last month from Georgia gave the exchange for the English £1 at 110,000 roubles (a nominal value before the war of £11.000). At that time one pound of bread was sold for 2,110 roubles, and one pound of bacon for 10,000 roubles; butter for 12,000 roubles the pound. My latest information this week shows such an incredible rise that the figures are not worth quoting; for values cannot be calculated on those terms, and, in fact, the people have ceased to carry about rouble notes in portmanteaus, and are returning to primitive barter. As in Russia, daily rations are supposed to be issued to the various classes according to their work. But, except the officials and the Russian soldiers, the whole population appears to be starving, and the first thought even of ardent patriots, is no longer freedom but a crust.
The Georgians themselves believe that their future, indeed their very existence, depends upon the attitude of our country towards Germany and Central Europe. If we admit Central Europe again into the fold of Western civilisation they may hope. If not, they foresee violent reaction in Germany, followed by violent reaction (perhaps clerical) in Russia, a powerful alliance between the two and the absolute annihilation of Georgia and other small races. For, indeed, it would be an easy job to destroy the Georgian people utterly, so far as numbers go, and the present Russian governors do not care about the country one way or other, except for its fertility and mineral wealth. All their attention is fixed, as I am told, upon far larger aims, to the south and east, as my friend, Mr. Arthur Ransome has been saying in your columns.—Yours, &e.,
HENRY W. NEVINSON.
4, Downside Crescent, N.W.3. July 20.
