Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

TRANSCAUCASIAN COMMISSARIAT. Also known by its Russian acronym, Zavkom, this short-lived anti-Bolshevik Transcaucasian government (heir to the Russian Provisional Government’s Special Transcaucasian Committee), consisting of three Georgian, three Armenian, three Azeri Muslim, and two Russian representatives, was created on 15 November 1917, in Tiflis, by leaders of the main local political parties (the Mensheviks, Dashnaks, Musvatists, and Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries) and was led by the Georgian Menshevik E. P. Gegechkori. Its initial purpose was to act, in the wake of the uncertainty caused by the October Revolution, as a provisional government for Transcaucasia, pending the meeting of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly in January 1918. However, being in opposition to the October Revolution, and in light of the Bolsheviks’ dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, it contested the authority of the Soviet government and came to aim (somewhat reluctantly) to formally seal the separation of Transcaucasia from Soviet Russia. To that end, it reached an agreement with Ataman A. M. Kaledin of the Kuban Cossack Host for joint struggle against the Soviet government and its local supporters.

In December 1917, armed units loyal to the Transcaucasian Commissariat drove pro-Bolshevik soldiers from the Tiflis arsenal and closed pro-Bolshevik newspapers in the city. On 9–12 January 1918, its forces also attacked Russian soldiers near the stanitsy of Shamkhor (near Giandzhi) and Khachmasa (near Baku), killing many. Among other measures adopted by the Commissariat were a decree on land (16 December 1917) that transferred much state, church, and private land to a national land fund and eliminated the private market in land; the abolition of class distinctions; improvements in labor conditions; and the circulation of a new currency (in the form of bonds). Delegates from the commissariat also met with the Turkish military authorities at Erzincan, on 2 December 1917, and three days later a truce was signed (by the Russian commander of the Caucasian Front, General M. A. Przheval′skii), which permitted Transcaucasia to keep virtually all the Russian conquests of 1916. This, however, was overturned by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918), which ceded Transcaucasian territory to Turkey (although in any case, the Erzindjan truce was not likely to have been honored in the long run by the Turks, who were merely buying time while the grip of the disintegrating Russian Army on the conquered territories in eastern Anatolia weakened). Consequently, on 26 March 1918, the Transcaucasian Commissariat transferred power to the Transcaucasian Sejm, which on 9 April 1918 would proclaim the independent, but short-lived, Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic.

TRANSCAUCASIAN DEMOCRATIC FEDERATIVE REPUBLIC. This short-lived polity (also known as the Transcaucasian Federation), which had its capital in Tiflis, was formally established on 9 April 1918, in line with a proclamation of 24 February 1918 of the Transcaucasian Sejm. It united the former imperial Russian and Russian-occupied territories of what were to become Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia under a federal government, led by chairman of the council of ministers and minister of foreign affairs A. I. Chkhenkeli (of the Georgian Social-Democratic Labor Party), as agreed by local representatives of the Mensheviks, Musavat, and Dashnaks. It replaced the Transcaucasian Republic and the Transcaucasian Commissariat that had developed in the aftermath of the October Revolution (which in turn had replaced the Special Transcaucasian Committee, established by the Russian Provisional Government to administer the area in 1917).