Gaioz Devdariani

Gaioz Devdariani (Georgian: გაიოზ დევდარიანი) ( October 2, 1901–1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, intellectual, Soviet politician and a victim of the Great Purge. Devdariani was born in the village of Kharagauli, Western Georgia into a large middle class family. In 1919, Devdariani was arrested by the Menshevik Government of Georgia for alleged plotting and masterminding an insurrection against the government. He was imprisoned in Metekhi and managed to escape from the prison in 1920. During the same year, under the instructions of the Bolshevik party, Devdariani was sent to South Ossetia to quell the rebellion. Between 1921 and 1923, Devdariani worked in various communist ministries in Georgian SSR. Devdariani was one of the most highly educated intellectuals in the Georgian Bolshevik circles. Due to his academic and educational background he became the first Minister of Education of Georgian SSR in 1931. After only a year as a Minister, he was promoted to the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Georgian SSR. However, soon after his appointment, Lavrentiy Beria (Communist Party Secretary of Transcaucasia) started agitations and provocations against Gaioz.

Brothers of Devdariani, George Devdariani (commanding officer of Soviet Division in Transcaucasus) and Shalva Devdariani held important positions in Georgian SSR and the communist party. They became the first targets of Beria and Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze. In 1933, George Devdariani was shot by one of the deserters from his division. It has been alleged that Beria plotted the desertion and instructed the soldier to kill his commanding officer. In 1934 Shalva Devdariani was arrested in Tbilisi and was said to have been personally executed by Beria. After learning of his brother’s arrest and execution, Devdariani resigned from his position and moved to Zaporizhia, Ukraine. There he became the head of military aviation factory. Under the pressure from Beria, Stalin gave an order to arrest Devdariani and indict him with charges of plotting to assassinate Lavrentiy Beria and of having links with exiled Leon Trotsky. Devdariani was declared an "enemy of the people" and was denounced for Trotskyism. While the charges against Devdariani were entirely false, Beria, a master provocateur, persuaded Stalin to grant him an approval for Devdariani's liquidation.

Before the arrest and murder of his brothers, based on his personal letters and diaries, Devdariani lost any belief in communism and confessed to his family members of being intolerant to the totalitarian regime of Stalin, Beria and the Bolsheviks. Before his final days in Tbilisi prison cell, he hoped for the chance to emigrate to Laville France where he would join the Menshevik government of Noe Zhordania in exile. However, he was condemned to death by NKVD troika and executed in 1938. His son, Spartak Devdariani was sent to the Eastern Front in Penal military unit (being charged under Article 58 of counter-revolutionary activities) where he was killed during the Prague Offensive. His second son David Devdariani was imprisoned for being the “the son of the enemy of the people” (Russian language: "сын врага народа"). He later became a political dissident and activist for independent Georgia. He was finally released by the order of Nikita Khrushchev.

Devdariani published numerous books and articles about Communism and Georgia, of which the most popular one was The History of Communism in Georgia.

See also

• Democratic Republic of Georgia
• Great Purge
• Purge of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
• David Devdariani
• List of Georgian people associated with the Democratic Republic of Georgia

References

• Bolshevism - The Road to Revolution, Alan Woods, Well Red Publications (June 1999), ISBN 1-900007-05-3

• Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938, Cambridge University Press