Transcaucasian Federation

a Soviet state institution uniting the peoples of Transcaucasia from 1922 to 1936.

The domestic and foreign situation of the Azerbaijan SSR, the Armenian SSR, and the Georgian SSR after the Civil War and military intervention of 1918–20 made necessary their economic, military, and political union in the struggle against the hostile activities of the imperialists and the remnants of the Transcaucasian counterrevolution and for the restoration of the economy and the eradication of distrust and animosity between their respective nationalities, which had intensified as a result of the three-year domination by the Musavatists, Dashnaks, and Georgian Mensheviks. This unification was proposed by Lenin.

On Mar. 12, 1922, a conference of authorized representatives from the central executive committees of the three Soviet republics, meeting in Tbilisi, approved a treaty to create the Federated Union of Socialist Soviet Republics of Transcaucasia. The highest authority of this union was to be the Authorized Conference of Representatives, which would be selected in equal number by the governments of the various republics; the unified executive organ was to be the Union Council, elected by the conference. On Dec. 13, 1922, the first Transcaucasian Congress of Soviets, meeting in Baku, changed the Federated Union into the single Transcaucasian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, under which the separate identity of each of the constituent republics would be preserved. The congress approved the Constitution of the Transcaucasian Federation, established the Transcaucasian Central Executive Committee, and established the Council of People’s Commissars, which was responsible to that committee. Georgian nationalist deviationists opposed the Transcaucasian Federation, but their position was not supported by the working people and was condemned by Communist organizations of Transcaucasia. On Dec. 30, 1922, the Transcaucasian Federation united with the Russian, Ukrainian, and Byelorussian Soviet republics to form the USSR. The 1936 Constitution of the USSR gave Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia the status of independent Union republics of the USSR. The Transcaucasian Federation, having accomplished its tasks, was dissolved.