Valiko Jugheli

Valiko Jugheli
Valiko Jugheli
Native name	ვალიკო ჯუღელი
Born	1 January 1887; Sviri, Kutaisi Governorate, Russian Empire ; (now Georgia)
Died	30 August 1924 (aged 37)
Allegiance	Transcaucasian Federation (1918); Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918–1921); Committee for the Independence of Georgia (1922–1924)
Service years	1917–1921
Conflicts	Abkhazia conflict (1918); Sochi conflict; Armeno-Georgian War; Georgian–Ossetian conflict; Red Army invasion of Georgia

Valerian “Valiko” Jugheli (Georgian: ვალიკო ჯუღელი) (January 1, 1887 – 30 August 1924^[1]) was a Georgian politician and military commander.

He was involved in the Marxist movement in Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire) at the beginning of the 20th century. After the split within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, to which he was a member, Jugheli sided with the Bolsheviks, but later defected to the Menshevik faction and became an influential member. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, he organized the Red Guard detachment which was later renamed into the People's Guard of Georgia. On November 29, 1917, he successfully commanded a raid on the Tiflis military arsenal guarded by the pro-Bolshevik Russian soldiers led by Stepan Shahumyan, the ethnic Armenian Bolshevik. In May 1918, he was reluctant to support the proclamation of Georgia's independence, but still retained his post. As a commander of the People's Guard, he was commonly assigned to retain an internal order in the country. During his tenure, he gained a reputation of a ruthless suppressor of Bolshevik^[2] uprisings in Ossetian-populated regions of Georgia.

Valerian "Valiko" Jugheli and his family were evacuated from Sokhumi to Kutaisi, after the First World War broke out due to the fear of an inevitable Ottoman invasion. Valiko Jugheli successfully completed his work called "Heavy Cross",^[3] where his life in the Democratic Republic of Georgia is more informative than before.^[4] After the Soviet occupation of Georgia in 1921, Jugheli went to the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr for military education. After this event, he returned to Soviet-occupied Georgia and joined an unsuccessful rebellion against Soviet occupation forces. 36 years old, Jugheli was soon arrested and executed by the Soviet Cheka on 30 August 1924.^[5]^[6]

References

^ Valiko Jugheli, Gürcistan Savunma Bakanlığı web sitesinde (Georgian)
^ Jones, Stephen (2014). The Making of Modern Georgia, 1918-2012: The First Georgian Republic and its Successors. Routledge. p. 208. ISBN 9781317815938. In South Ossetia, violent conflict was linked to class and revolutionary struggles focused primarily on issues of taxation and land distribution, but unlike Abkhazia, Bolshevism was absent from South Ossetia in the first months after the February Revolution. Ossetian Bolsheviks based in Tbilisi admitted themselves that they exerted no influence on the South Ossetian peasantry throughout 1917.11 Nonetheless, Bolsheviks could appeal to a radicalized peasantry keen for land reform. Demobilized soldiers returning from the front added to the local volatility. Before the October Revolution, a predominantly Ossetian Union of Revolutionary Peasantry was formed in South Ossetia to fight local landowning gentry, which included Georgians and Ossetians, and inevitably clashed with the "counterrevolutionary power" of the Transcaucasian government which was trying to regulate reform.12 Armed bands, many associated with the Union, resisted efforts at tax collection and attacked—or on occasion killed—members of the local gentry and seized their property. To establish order, in February 1918, Transcaucasian officials appointed a Tskhinvali commissar for the region and dispatched the Georgian National Guard to arrest local peasants, wanted for the murder of a landowner who had previously killed some of their comrades in a tax dispute.13 By this time, the revolutionary movement in South Ossetia attracted a number of Bolshevik activists, and in March 1918 the movement became an armed uprising against Tbilisi's authority. Its leaders insisted that the Transcaucasian authorities had betrayed the peasantry by allowing landowners to retain their lands. They demanded that peasant payment of rents and taxes to landowners stop, and a rapid redistribution of land begin along with the eviction of noble families and a number of local officials, including commissar (and ethnic Ossetian) Kosta Kazishvili. At a public meeting in March, the Transcaucasian authorities, including Giorgi Machabeli (a member of a powerful local Georgian noble family), and prominent Social Democrat Sandro Ketskhoveli, agreed to all the rebels' demands except the eviction of the nobility. Further negotiations broke down, and the rebels killed Kazishvili, Machabeli, and Ketskhoveli. Several hundred National Guardsmen were taken hostage.14 Tskhinvali was plundered, the "district was cleared of Menshevik troops, and revolutionary order fully established,"15 but after five days, the National Guard retook Tskhinvali, arrested the leader of the peasant union, and forced the rebels into hiding. When the TDFR declared its independence, South Ossetian Bolsheviks did not have an effective local organization like their counterparts in Abkhazia, but the new Transcaucasian government, stymied by incompatible demands from among its coalition members, set the stage for resistance because of its own inactivity and moderation. Ossetian Social Democrats, who had supported crushing the revolt, "no longer enjoyed the trust" of the South Ossetian peasantry.16 The Bolsheviks, who labeled the local Social Democrats rich peasants (kulaks), petty nobility, and wayward intellectuals, saw an opening. Intensifying their activities in the region, the Bolsheviks dominated the political scene for much of 1918.17
^ "Heavy Cross (მძიმე ჯვარი)".
^ "Valiko Jugheli, 135th birthday".
^ Suny, Ronald Grigor (1994), The Making of the Georgian Nation, pp. 223-4. Indiana University Press, ISBN 0-253-20915-3
^ "ვალიკო ჯუღელის დაბადების 135-ე წლისთავი". archive.ge (in Georgian). Retrieved 2022-10-13.

External links

[1] Valiko Jugheli, Gürcistan Savunma Bakanlığı web sitesinde (Georgian)

[2] Jones, Stephen (2014). The Making of Modern Georgia, 1918-2012: The First Georgian Republic and its Successors. Routledge. p. 208. ISBN 9781317815938. In South Ossetia, violent conflict was linked to class and revolutionary struggles focused primarily on issues of taxation and land distribution, but unlike Abkhazia, Bolshevism was absent from South Ossetia in the first months after the February Revolution. Ossetian Bolsheviks based in Tbilisi admitted themselves that they exerted no influence on the South Ossetian peasantry throughout 1917.11 Nonetheless, Bolsheviks could appeal to a radicalized peasantry keen for land reform. Demobilized soldiers returning from the front added to the local volatility. Before the October Revolution, a predominantly Ossetian Union of Revolutionary Peasantry was formed in South Ossetia to fight local landowning gentry, which included Georgians and Ossetians, and inevitably clashed with the "counterrevolutionary power" of the Transcaucasian government which was trying to regulate reform.12 Armed bands, many associated with the Union, resisted efforts at tax collection and attacked—or on occasion killed—members of the local gentry and seized their property. To establish order, in February 1918, Transcaucasian officials appointed a Tskhinvali commissar for the region and dispatched the Georgian National Guard to arrest local peasants, wanted for the murder of a landowner who had previously killed some of their comrades in a tax dispute.13 By this time, the revolutionary movement in South Ossetia attracted a number of Bolshevik activists, and in March 1918 the movement became an armed uprising against Tbilisi's authority. Its leaders insisted that the Transcaucasian authorities had betrayed the peasantry by allowing landowners to retain their lands. They demanded that peasant payment of rents and taxes to landowners stop, and a rapid redistribution of land begin along with the eviction of noble families and a number of local officials, including commissar (and ethnic Ossetian) Kosta Kazishvili. At a public meeting in March, the Transcaucasian authorities, including Giorgi Machabeli (a member of a powerful local Georgian noble family), and prominent Social Democrat Sandro Ketskhoveli, agreed to all the rebels' demands except the eviction of the nobility. Further negotiations broke down, and the rebels killed Kazishvili, Machabeli, and Ketskhoveli. Several hundred National Guardsmen were taken hostage.14 Tskhinvali was plundered, the "district was cleared of Menshevik troops, and revolutionary order fully established,"15 but after five days, the National Guard retook Tskhinvali, arrested the leader of the peasant union, and forced the rebels into hiding. When the TDFR declared its independence, South Ossetian Bolsheviks did not have an effective local organization like their counterparts in Abkhazia, but the new Transcaucasian government, stymied by incompatible demands from among its coalition members, set the stage for resistance because of its own inactivity and moderation. Ossetian Social Democrats, who had supported crushing the revolt, "no longer enjoyed the trust" of the South Ossetian peasantry.16 The Bolsheviks, who labeled the local Social Democrats rich peasants (kulaks), petty nobility, and wayward intellectuals, saw an opening. Intensifying their activities in the region, the Bolsheviks dominated the political scene for much of 1918.17

[3] "Heavy Cross (მძიმე ჯვარი)".

[4] "Valiko Jugheli, 135th birthday".

[Suny-5] Suny, Ronald Grigor (1994), The Making of the Georgian Nation, pp. 223-4. Indiana University Press, ISBN 0-253-20915-3

[6] "ვალიკო ჯუღელის დაბადების 135-ე წლისთავი". archive.ge (in Georgian). Retrieved 2022-10-13.

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