Karl Kautsky

“ Still more important was the fact that Georgia was once more able to enter into relations with Europe. But the representatives of European civilisation were practically confined to Russian officials, generals and aristocrats, who brought from Europe what they themselves had assimilated, the external gloss which did not always sufficiently hide Asiatic barbarism. The feudal oppression and exploitation was not lightened, but even made heavier by the military and bureaucratic regime. ”

“ Georgia lost more and more the capacity to make; good the consequences of the. everlasting state of war. Its civilisation, its prosperity, and even its population rapidly diminished. The only thing that persisted throughout the perpetual feuds on its soil was the feudal exploitation of the masses of peasants by numerous petty princes; an exploitation which became more oppressive in the degree that the peasant became poorer.
The consolidation of Russia brought about a change. ”

“ Thus the Menshevists were soon eclipsed in Russia, but not in Georgia. In that country there were no Cadets, and no Bolshevists of importance. The majority of the Socialists of Georgia, supported by Jordania, had been unfriendly to the Coalition policy, and demanded a purely Socialist ministry. The Revolution brought the Social-Democracy of Georgia, as a compact and resolute party, to a dominant position, which was not seriously contested from any quarter in the country. ”

“ But as is so often the case in history when great and irreconcilable oppositions come into conflict, those who worked for the final result which was given by the parallelogram of forces were paralysed by the clash of the antagonisms, and only after the strength of the two extremes had been exhausted was this object of the middle party to be finally attained. ”

“ In the same year the Socialist organisations of Georgia joined up with the Social-Democratic Party of Russia, which was formed at that time.
The Georgian Socialists did not desire that local particularism should cut them off from the mass of the struggling proletariat of Russia. From the very first they attached importance to the ideal of international solidarity as opposed to Georgian nationalism. ”

“ The economic development created in the Russian Empire revolutionary sections, which eventually became strong enough to give battle to Absolutism, although, at first, only by means of underground warfare. ”

“ Those holding the first conception remained true to the Marxian method, which they consistently employed in spite of all the difficulties which arose from the economic and political backwardness of the country ”