Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia

The Soviet Socialist Republic of Abkhazia (abbreviated Abkhazian SSR or SSR of Abkhazia) (Russian: Социалистическая Советская Республика Абхазия) was a short-lived semi-autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on the territory of Abkhazia from March 31 1921 to February 19 1931. It had a special status of a “contractual republic” associated with the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic through which Abkhazia was part of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (since March 12 1922) (Transcaucasian SFSR was part of the Soviet Union since December 30 1922). The Abkhazian SSR was abolished in 1931 and transformed into the Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Georgian SSR.

Creation

Abkhazia, hitherto an autonomous province within the Democratic Republic of Georgia, came under the Soviet control in the course of the Soviet Russian Red Army invasion of February-March 1921. On March 4 1921, the Red Army, in conjunction with local revolutionary guerrillas, took control of Abkhazia’s capital, Sukhumi, where a provisional Soviet administration – the Abkhaz Revolutionary committee (Revkom) – was established. On March 31 1921, a special conference attended by Sergo Orjonikidze, Shalva Eliava, Efrem Eshba and Nestor Lakoba, declared the Abkhazian SSR, but the question of the form of the republic's relations with both Georgia and Russia was left open. On May 21 1921, the Georgian Revkom welcomed the formation of the "independent Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia", and said the form of relations should be settled by the first Workers' Congresses of both republics.

Status

Finally, on December 16 1921, Abkhazia signed a special treaty of alliance delegating some of its sovereign powers to the Georgian SSR. The treaty defined Abkhazia’s status as a “contractual republic” (Russian: договорная республика) and established a military, political and financial union between the two Soviet republics, subordinating the Abkhazian SSR to the Georgian SSR in some of these areas. Thus, through the Georgian SSR, Abkhazia joined the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on March 12 1922 and the Soviet Union on December 30 1922.

Abkhazia's ambiguous status of a "contractual republic" was written down into that republic’s April 1 1925 Constitution which specified that "the SSR of Abkhazia, having united with the SSR of Georgia on the basis of a special treaty of union" was, through it, a part of the Transcaucasian SFSR and the USSR. However, the 1924 Soviet Constitution earlier referred to Abkhazia as an autonomous republic.

On February 19 1931, Abkhazia’s republican status was downgraded, on the orders of Joseph Stalin, to that of an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Georgian SSR, reputedly as punishment of the Abkhaz Communist leadership under Nestor Lakoba for their failure to overcome the peasants' resistance to collectivization.