DANGEROUS THRESHOLD!

The end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century are full of events that could have severe consequences for the peoples of the former Soviet Union. Undoubtedly, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a tragedy for tens of millions of people who had to radically change their usual living conditions, become refugees, victims of national conflicts, and lose loved ones and relatives. I will not discuss whether the collapse of such a huge and powerful country was objectively conditioned. I don’t know, maybe the union republics needed to become independent. After all, they had the right to do so. But why couldn’t it be done civilly, culturally, maintaining the honor and dignity of the peoples, respecting each other? After all, we built this country together, with great effort. We shed blood together, defending the country and bringing liberation from fascism to the peoples of Eastern Europe. There is not a single nationality, not a single people who lived in the former Soviet countries whose sons did not lie on the battlefield defending the honor and dignity of our Motherland. Respecting the blood shed together by the older generation of our peoples, it was necessary to preserve friendship and mutual respect among the citizens of the former great country. But where has the friendship of the peoples of the USSR gone, the source of our victories and power? Why today, instead of the friendship of peoples, is there national discord, enmity, hatred, bloody conflicts? In the worst nightmare, a normal Soviet person could not have imagined a time when a Georgian would shoot at a Russian and vice versa! That Slavic brothers, Ukrainians, would shoot down Russian planes over the Caucasus with missiles. I’m not even talking about the Georgian-Ossetian conflict. Where did all this come from? How did we get to the point where in Georgia, in Tbilisi, they created a museum of Russian occupation of Georgia! It turns out Russia occupied Georgia for 200 years. This does not fit in my head. I am Ossetian, grew up in Tbilisi. I finished a Georgian school and then a university in Tbilisi, the faculty of history. Well, as a historian, I still read and know the conditions under which Georgia joined Russia. Who was the initiator of this act. I would still recommend those who organized this so-called museum to reread the history of Georgia and especially carefully consider the position of Georgia in the second half of the 18th century. It would not be amiss for these “patriots” to remember what happened in Tbilisi in 1795 and what Aga Mohammad Khan did there and in what position the whole of Eastern Georgia was. Tbilisi was burned and destroyed. The same fate befell the whole of Eastern Georgia. King Erekle II hid in the mountains. It would not be superfluous for these gentlemen to remember who saved Georgia from complete destruction by the wild horde of Omar Khan in 1800. A small Russian army under the command of General Lazarev completely defeated Omar Khan’s 20,000-strong detachment heading for the destruction of Tbilisi. In 1803, the queen of Georgia stabbed General Lazarev, the savior of Georgia, with a dagger. Maybe these patriots will remember who shed blood so that the beautiful region of Adjara returned to Georgia. Maybe the Americans, whom the Georgian elite now loves so much? No, it was the Russian soldier who returned Adjara to Georgia. I had to serve in Adjara. A very interesting fact, the surnames of the Adjarians are Georgian and the names are Muslim. The population is half Christian and half Muslim. So, if Russia had not taken Georgia under its protectorate, it is unlikely that Georgia would have remained Georgia. Those who govern the country need to know at least the history of this country and make the right conclusions from history. Of course, it cannot be said that everything went smoothly and without any excesses… There were those dissatisfied with the transition to subordination to tsarist Russia. Without pain, such a complex process could not have passed. But the main thing was done, the people with a rich culture that gave the world Shota Rustaveli, Jacob Tsurtaveli, Sulhan Saba Orbeliani, Akaki Tsereteli, Vakhtang Chabukiani, and generally made a worthy contribution to world culture, were preserved.

As for the “occupation” of Georgia by Russia. Our country, unfortunately, knows too well what occupation is. Therefore, to throw such terms at Russia is both offensive to Russia and shows that the person using such a term has never experienced what occupation is. In addition, he absolutely does not know the history of Russia. Russia, throughout its existence, has never occupied any country. But Russia has had to liberate other countries from foreign occupation more than once.

Being an officer of the Soviet Army, I had to visit different parts of our vast country and saw with my own eyes where and how our Soviet people live. I served in Tiksi, Krasnoyarsk, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and so on. I remember very well that in Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, by the end of the 60s, it was quite difficult with meat products. Since 1970, I served in the Moscow region and saw how the whole of central Russia went to Moscow for meat products. Once on service, I went to Borovskoye, Kaluga region. I went into a store and there was one sprat in tomato sauce. That’s all the food products. At that time, I regularly went on vacation to relatives in Tbilisi every year. A completely different picture, as many meat products as you want. At the same time, for a Georgian in Tbilisi, buying frozen meat was considered bad form. Meat only fresh and from Russia. After all, Georgia has never provided itself with food. Meat, dairy products, cereals, everything from Russia. Amazing! What kind of “occupiers” are those who take away from their population and send to the “occupied”? It would be nice to have more such “occupiers”. Now there are no “occupiers” there. Others came, “kind uncles” Americans. What do we see? My relatives, pensioners, have a pension of 75-80 lari. That’s about 35-40 dollars. A kilogram of meat is 13-14 lari. Undoubtedly, one thing is certain that in Soviet times, Georgians, especially Georgian peasants, lived 10 times better and richer than a peasant from the Tambov region. In 1989, I had to be at a wedding in the family of a Georgian peasant. Hardly any Russian peasant would have covered such a table.

And still, where does such malice and enmity towards everything Russian in Georgia come from, and unfortunately, practice shows that not only in Georgia? One of the main reasons for such a state of affairs, in my opinion, lies in the fact that during the Soviet era, not enough attention was paid to the national question. We convinced ourselves too strongly that we have an unbreakable friendship of peoples. We stopped thinking that each people possesses some special qualities inherent only to this people, developed by the history of this people. We generally began to say that in the era of “developed socialism,” the national question lost its relevance. We are all Soviet people, and our nationality is one—Soviet. That’s the absurdity we reached in our patriotic slogans and political reports, speeches. And in reality, this political blindness in national issues had severe consequences. I give an example from Georgia. In February 1956, the famous 20th Congress of the CPSU took place, where Khrushchev denounced the cult of personality of Stalin, March 5, practically immediately after the congress, the day of Stalin’s death. The Central Committee of the CPSU, without much thought, sent instructions to all republics that the population was prohibited from visiting Stalin’s monuments on the day of his death and laying flowers. Such an instruction was sent to all educational institutions, enterprises, and institutions in Georgia. It would be hard to come up with a more foolish and more provocative instruction for Georgia. Well, somewhere in the Vologda region, such a document could be perceived more or less neutrally, but to send such a document to Georgia was equivalent to the explosion of an atomic bomb.

I don’t know, maybe no one even intended to visit Stalin’s monument on the day of his death, but this document caused an uproar in Georgia, in Tbilisi. On March 5th, the entire population of Tbilisi, young and old, with flowers and wreaths, headed to Stalin’s monument on the banks of the Kura River. An impromptu rally formed. Banners with anti-Russian and anti-Soviet slogans appeared. The crowd surged up Rustaveli Avenue to take over the central telegraph and radio. From among the activists of the rally, a “Business Committee” was formed. At the rally, the “Business Committee” proclaimed its main demands to the Soviet Government:

1. Abolish the Communist Party of Georgia
2. Georgia withdraws from the Soviet Union
3. Withdraw Soviet Armed Forces from the territory of Georgia
4. Georgia becomes an allied state with Turkey
5. Georgia joins NATO.

They say the Kura River turned red from these demands. My Georgian friends told me all about this when I came for a regular vacation in 1956 and advised me not to walk around in military uniform. One of the active members of this “Business Committee” was the son of the famous Georgian writer Konstantin Gamsakhurdia, 17-year-old Zviad Gamsakhurdia. A man who pathologically hated everything Soviet, Russian, and Ossetian. In the 60s, he became a human rights activist, which at that time was synonymous with anti-Sovietism. In the 70s, for active anti-Soviet activities, he was imprisoned but released early under pressure from the Georgian creative community. I listened to his speech on central television where he admitted his political delusions and promised that he would no longer engage in anti-Soviet activities. The wolf swore it would not drag sheep anymore. In April 1989, it was he who organized an anti-Soviet rally in Tbilisi. When the rally was dispersed, the participants trampled 18 women, and then a commission led by the “democrat” Sobchak blamed our soldiers for this tragedy. I served in our army for 31 years, and I know our soldiers. I will never believe that our soldier could beat a woman with a shovel. If they were to hit, they would hit those who attacked them and mocked them. But the soldiers did not respond to the provocative antics of the Georgians. In August 1989, I went to Tbilisi to visit relatives. Having some free time, I decided to take a walk around Tbilisi. Near Rustaveli Avenue, there is a small park. The entire park was plastered with “dazibao” in the Georgian language. When I started reading these proclamations, my hair stood on end. I am a political officer by profession, and the goals and tasks of those who composed and pasted these papers were quite clear to me. But I was surprised that these anti-Soviet, anti-Russian papers were hanging so freely all over Tbilisi, and no one was removing them. And what about the papers? I read the Georgian press. The entire press, both official and tabloid, was thoroughly imbued with an anti-Soviet and anti-Russian spirit. And yet, there was still Soviet power and the Soviet Union! The fact is that by 1989, all actual power in Georgia was in the hands of Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Officially, he did not hold any state position, but all state bodies carried out his orders. And his main task, as we have already seen in 1956, was to tear Georgia away from Russia, to withdraw from the Soviet Union. All anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda in the press was built on a false, perverted presentation of the events of April 9th, the organizer of which was he himself. Using the fact of the death of 18 women during the dispersal of the rally on April 9th, Gamsakhurdia organized an election campaign and in 1990 became the first president of the long-suffering Georgia. He became president, but besides cursing everything Soviet, he was not able to do anything else. It so happened that in 1990 and 1991, my wife and I went to Tskhaltubo for the waters, and I had the opportunity to observe the political events in Georgia. Well, who was Gamsakhurdia? A philologist. Did he know anything about how to govern a state, especially in such a difficult period? Of course not. Did he have a justified economic program for further developing Georgia? No. And he replaced his illiteracy in state management issues with “patriotic” slogans. Someone said that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels. This was precisely the case. Hitler, having come to power, declared Jews a second-class people after two years. Gamsakhurdia did not wait so long. He immediately divided the population of Georgia into those deprived of any civil and political rights. Russians and Ossetians were the first to fall into the category of “non-Georgians.” Upon ascending to the throne, Gamsakhurdia first abolished the South Ossetian Autonomous Region by his decree in 1990, still under Soviet power. Already in November 1989, Gamsakhurdia organized a march of Georgian nationalists on Tskhinvali with 50,000 people. In front of the city, they were blocked by units of the Soviet Armed Forces and Ossetian militia. They were not let through. It is even scary to imagine what would have happened in Tskhinvali if a 50,000-strong frenzied crowd of fanatics had entered the city, the entire population of which barely reached 40,000 at the time. I have a document in my hands. This document was born when the crowd of Georgian fanatics could not break through to Tskhinvali. The document is called: “Appeal of the National Security Staff of Georgia to the Ossetians living in Tskhinvali.” Naturally, it was signed by Gamsakhurdia. It would be hard to compose something more disgusting and offensive to the Ossetian people than this “appeal.” The trouble is that this ideology of Georgian fascism, expressed in this appeal, finds quite broad support among the ruling elite of Georgia and gradually begins to penetrate all layers of Georgian society. I will allow myself to quote an excerpt from this “appeal…” to the Ossetians, residents of Tskhinvali. “You should appreciate the kindness of the Georgians. You do not live in Ossetia but in Shida Kartli. There is only one Ossetia in the world, and it is located beyond the Caucasian ridge. Do not believe the illusions created by the Bolsheviks that there is a so-called South Ossetian Autonomous Region. Look ahead, assess your future. Live today so that you have the right to live in Shida Kartli tomorrow. You must condemn and expel Ossetian separatists from Georgia, abolish ‘Adamon Nykhas.’ Why do you need this organization that supposedly protects you from Georgians? Have Georgians ever offended you? On the contrary, you have repeatedly had the audacity to try to offend Georgians, but in the end, you were punished, and quite rightly so. Remember history and be convinced that the audacity of Ossetians in Georgia has always ended tragically for Ossetians. And now it will be the same because we Georgians have always been right before you, and now we are right, and therefore God is with us.”

What can one say here, a conversation of a lord with a serf. If you don’t behave as I want, I will whip and expel you. This happened when there was still Soviet power, and Georgia was part of the Soviet Union. What happened to Ossetia after the collapse of the Soviet Union and what is happening now, we have seen and are seeing. If not for Great Russia, there simply would be no South Ossetia. Let’s remember August 2008, and that says it all.

Perhaps I dwelled in detail on the events in Georgia, in South Ossetia. I wanted to show what happens to peoples when a state does not have a proper national policy. Why have some former union republics become so unfriendly towards Russia? In my view, primarily because they identify Soviet power with Russia and attribute all the sins of Soviet power to Russia. But no one bothers to say that this is not the case. Has anyone analyzed the damage Soviet power specifically inflicted on Russia? No. Has anyone thought about how difficult it was to feed a number of republics almost for free? Of course not. And how much effort has Russia put into the economic, industrial, and cultural development of the union republics? There is no answer. Our scientists, historians, economists, and political scientists should analyze the enormous contribution Russia has made to the development and preservation of the peoples living in the territory of the former Russian Empire. Maybe then, in these republics, there will not be a museum of Russian occupation but a museum of how Russia helped them live and develop. By the way, isn’t it time to organize a museum in Russian cities about how Russia helped the peoples of the Soviet Union! Perhaps it is necessary to introduce special programs on central television channels that objectively cover the history of the peoples of the former USSR and their relationship with Russia. We are indeed at a dangerous juncture now. Through the efforts of short-sighted politicians, or rather those hostile to Russia, historical ties between Russia and the peoples for whom Russia was a friendly and fraternal country are being destroyed.

To be fair, it must also be said that sometimes the leaders of our country also behave, to put it mildly, not quite competently and not quite respectfully towards the leaders of other peoples, and we get the corresponding result. I remember very well how many times Dudayev appealed to Yeltsin to invite Dudayev for negotiations. The Chechen people were not for leaving the Russian Federation. If respectful treatment had been shown to the leadership of Chechnya, the Chechen people, there would not have been this bloody war. There would not have been hundreds of thousands of victims and terrible destruction. And yet, we elected Yeltsin as president again. And during his first presidential term, he drank and squandered the country under the influence, and during the second term, he was treated while the country was left to fate.

We are still pursuing the wrong policy with our neighbors. Well, we have cut off all ties with Georgia! To whom have we given Georgia? America? Western Europe? That’s exactly what they need. But we should give every opportunity for the Georgian peasant to sell his goods in our market. We need to create as many joint ventures as possible. Let diplomats wage their war, but peoples should communicate with each other. Then our influence will increase. The task of diplomacy is to turn enemies into friends, but we do the opposite. The danger is that the younger generation of our neighbors is being raised in a spirit of enmity and hatred towards us, towards Russia. What fruits such upbringing will yield in 50 or 100 years can only be guessed. The current leaders of the countries of the former Soviet Union must think about this. Yes, we are now experiencing a very responsible and dangerous historical juncture. While those who created a great and powerful country with their labor are still alive. While those who defended our great Motherland in a bloody fight against fascism are still alive, while the memory of those who defended the freedom and independence of a great country at the cost of their lives is still alive, there is still a chance to revive and strengthen friendship between the republics of the former Soviet Union. And if we miss this opportunity now, I fear that Russia will find itself surrounded not just by unfriendly countries! And the symptoms are there: the Baltics, Moldova, Georgia, some republics of Central Asia, and even our allied country Belarus are not very satisfied with us. Unfortunately, we do not attach importance to the fact that in some former union republics, youth are being raised in the spirit of fascism, chauvinism. They will come to govern their countries tomorrow. Tomorrow they will be the defense ministers of their republics, and where they will direct the barrels of their guns with such upbringing is a big question. All this personally causes me serious concern. I personally will not live to see such a situation, but I have grandchildren. Great-grandchildren, and with what neighbors they will have to live, that is what concerns me.

Retired Colonel Chigoev, Sh.A.