For three years following the Russian Revolution, the small South Caucasian country of Georgia was a democracy.
But Stalin later ordered the Red Army to invade and to bring the country back under Russian rule.
Communist attacks on political opponents, trade unions, cooperatives, and even the church sparked resistance, and an armed uprising broke out across the nation in 1924. It was swiftly crushed, with massacres of thousands, including hostages.
Social Democratic and Labour parties across Europe reacted with shock and indignation. Soviet opponents began to describe communism as ‘red fascism’ and their own movement as ‘democratic socialism’. What followed — including Socialist support for the creation of NATO — resulted from the Georgian uprising and its aftermath.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine a century later, the long-forgotten Georgian experience seems more relevant than ever.
The August Uprising, 1924: The Georgian Anti-Soviet Revolt and the Birth of Democratic Socialism by Eric Lee is published on 9 October, 2025.
Read his feature about the lucky discoveries that shaped his book — and why we should embrace them.
Eric has written about the Georgian Democratic Republic for Historia in The Georgian Experiment.
For more historical writing, have a look at our list of over 200 books published this year.
