Transcaucasia on the road to secession

The reaction of the rest of Transcaucasia to the Bolshevik coup contrasted sharply with the predominant attitude in Baku. In Tiflis, the Menshevik-dominated Regional Center of the Soviets, the actual locus of power beyond the Caucasus, lost no time in denouncing the Bolsheviks as helping the cause of the counterrevolution, no matter whether they were to succeed or were to be crushed by military force. A Committee of Public Safety was formed in the Georgian capital, and it proved more effective in controlling the local situation than its equivalent in Baku.

The fact that, outside Baku, the Sovnarkom had not been recognized anywhere in Transcaucasia led to touchy political and constitutional problems that would plague the regional leaders for months to come. Although, as far as the major non-Muslim parties were concerned, the central government of Russia no longer existed, they were unwilling to loosen their ties to Russia. The Georgian Mensheviks were at this stage still sincerely opposed to nationalism. Led by such men of revolutionary fame as Noi Zhordania, Irakli Tsereteli, and Nicholas Chkheidze, they formed the hard core of Menshevism in Russia and saw their future in the context of all-Russian politics. The Dashnakists retained their commitment to a pro-Russian orientation, which was strengthened by the circumstance that the Russian armies had already driven the Ottomans out of parts of historic Armenia. Elimination of the Russian presence south of the Caucasus Mountains would have spelled a dramatic reversal for the prospect of Armenian national aspirations.