This is an interesting volume, which complicates our understanding of the relationship between nationalism and Soviet power in the post-war period. The book, despite its broad title, focuses on the March 1956 demonstrations in Georgia. Some of the contributions bring readers to the collapse of the USSR, but the majority of the authors try to illustrate the connection between what happened in 1956 and the national movements that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s in the Georgian union republic. The editors make the bold claim that the public demonstrations in 1956, ostensibly against the Soviet leadership's decision to cancel celebrations for Iosif Stalin's birthday, threw Georgian nationalism “into an altogether different relationship to Soviet power (3).” In the conclusion, Jeremy Smith argues the bloody repressions of 1956 (21 Georgians were killed by Soviet troops during the protests) created a generation of Georgians, in the party as well as outside it, who later had a significant impact on the national liberation movement of the 1980s and 1990s (148–51). The authors point out that 1956 was a watershed for Abkhazians and South Ossetians, as well as for Georgians. In subsequent decades, the Abkhazians and South Ossetians intensified their own secessionist nationalisms.
The articles vary in approach: Timothy Blauvelt focuses on the theoretical understandings of resistance under Soviet power and wonders where the events of 1956, which were pro-Stalinist rather than anti-Soviet, fit into the spectrum. Claire Kaiser extends her analysis to the non-Georgian nations within Georgia, and ponders the relationship between Georgian national identity, loyalty to Stalin, and membership in the USSR, exploring the strange compatibility of all three. Oleg Khlevniuk analyzes elite struggles within Georgia before the events of 1956, notably the “Mingrelian Affair,” and the role of Beria both before and after his arrest. Levan Avalishvili approaches 1956 through the eyes of witnesses, providing an “oral history” of the demonstrations and illuminating the complex motivations of the participants. Together with other contributions, the book creates multiple layers of analysis around the 1956 demonstration, such as the effect of Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech, the driving force of Georgian identity, the role of youth and party members, center-periphery relations in the USSR, and Georgians' relations with their own minorities, with Russians, and with their own history.
The focus on 1956, paradoxically, illustrates both the success and failure of Soviet nationality policy. The young demonstrators in March 1956 focused on the defense of Stalin, not on political nationalism or independence. The demands and goals of the demonstration showed how successfully Stalinist discourse had been imbibed by Georgian youth. Yet, Khrushchev's secret speech, in places plainly derogatory to Georgians, foolishly triggered the Georgians' sense of national pride, and reanimated Georgian ethno-nationalist ideas, including a particular resentment of Anastas Mikoian, an Armenian member of the Soviet leadership, who had joined Khrushchev in condemning the cult of Stalin's personality.
A unifying feature of the book is the extensive use by all authors of the Archival Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The material has barely been used by western or Georgian scholars, and a number of documents from witnesses, local political leaders, and KGB officers are printed in the appendices in English translation. The archives do not necessarily reveal accurate descriptions of what happened; it is not the authenticity of “facts” that these archives give us, but a glance into the state of mind of party officials and ordinary citizens. This is why they are useful. Some of the authors in this volume overate the weight of these official sources. In many cases, as other former secret police archives have shown, the archives can supplement our understanding, but they can also mislead us. Reports of individuals' anti-Russian statements are not enough to suggest anti-Russian attitudes increased dramatically, or that there was a resurgence of Georgian nationalism, as the book suggests (146). Most Georgians during these demonstrations, especially in rural areas, kept their heads down.
There are some weaknesses in the book. The editing of certain articles is poor; there is insufficient connection to the international situation—decolonization and emerging trouble in eastern Europe—or to the internal situation in the USSR (the thaw, the internal leadership struggle), and there is a tendency to exaggerate the significance of 1956 for the Georgian national movement of the 1980s. The legacy of 1956 was important, but the crisis generated in the 1980s in Georgia can be better explained by the failing Soviet state and Mikhail Gorbachev's dismantling of communist ideology.
This book is an important contribution to our understanding of Soviet life in the periphery of the USSR in the 1950s and 1960s. It is pioneering archival research, and reveals the complexity of national minority politics in the USSR. What impact did March 1956 have on other national movements within Georgia and elsewhere in the Union? Was March 1956 an early sign of the growing contradictions in Soviet nationality policy? What were the connections between the events of 1956 and the 1980s in Georgia? Whatever significance we give to 1956 for Georgia and the USSR, this book explores a barely researched story that has a lot of room for further investigation.
