The Sovietization of the Caucasus followed a similar scenario. In April 1920 the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party formed a special Caucasus Bureau, the Kavburo, and placed it under the command staff of the Eleventh Red Army, operating in the Northern Caucasus. The Kavburo did the thinking, and the Eleventh Army carried out the plan. In late January 1920 Chicherin, the commissar of foreign affairs, sent a note to the Azerbaijan government demanding cooperation in the fight against Denikin and promising in return to recognize the independence of Azerbaijan. But as early as April 17 Lenin secretly named his own representative to be director of the future Soviet oil industry in Baku. The Kavburo urged the Baku Communists to launch an uprising on April 27. The Azerbaijan Communists, with whom the Musavatist government was conducting negotiations (despite the fact that the Communists were officially illegal), issued an ultimatum demanding that the government surrender power to the Soviets. Before the twelve-hour ultimatum could expire, on April 28 an armored train carrying Ordzhonikidze and Kirov arrived in Baku. With them Soviet power came to Azerbaijan. Ordzhonikidze, as head of the Kavburo, directed a massive wave of repression, aimed primarily at the leaders of the nationalist movement. Soon the Azerbaijan Communist party announced the appearance of a new star on the horizon of the world revolution. The Baku newspaper Kommunist welcomed the arrival of an important visitor in November 1920 with these words: "Arriving on a visit to Baku [today] is Comrade Stalin—a working-class leader of exceptional energy, firmness, and self-denial, the only recognized authority on questions of revolutionary tactics, and leader of the proletarian revolution, in the East and the Cau- casus. 1
The absence of any Communist organization in Armenia, the result of the pro-Turkish policies of the Russian Communist party, delayed the Sovietization of that republic. An attempt by Armenian Communists living outside Armenia to organize a coup did not succeed. A war with Turkey which broke out in September 1920 ended quickly with the defeat of the Armenian army. On November 27 Stalin, after arriving in Baku, ordered Ordzhonikidze to begin operations against Armenia. On the same day Ordzhonikidze received instructions from Lenin2 to issue an ultimatum to the Armenian government: surrender power to the "Revolutionary Committee of the Soviet Socialist Republic," positioned nearby on Azerbaijan soil.
Without waiting for the deadline to expire, the Eleventh Army entered Armenian territory. On December 6 the Revolutionary Committee arrived in Erevan. A coalition government of Communists and Dashnaks was formed. On December 21, 1920, all laws of the Russian Republic (RSFSR) were made binding for Armenia. The Dashnaks were expelled from the government and repressed.
Georgia, the largest of the Transcaucasian republics, with a government enjoying popular support and a fairly strong army, was seen by Lenin as a serious opponent. When Ordzhonikidze, intoxicated by his success in Baku, asked for permission to invade Georgia, it was denied. The war with Poland had just begun, and Moscow did not want to fight on two fronts. On May 7, 1920, a treaty was signed in Moscow with the ambassador from Georgia. In the first clause the RSFSR recognized the independence and sovereignty of the Georgian state and renounced all former Russian privileges. In a secret clause Georgia pledged to legalize the Communist party and allow it to carry on its activities openly. Kirov, vice-president of the Kavburo, was appointed Soviet ambassador to Tiflis. "It was no secret to anyone," recalled the Georgian Communist leader Makharadze, "that under the circumstances of the time (1920) the activities of the Communist party consisted exclusively of preparing for armed insurrection against the existing government."3 After Soviet power had been established in Azerbaijan and Armenia, Georgia found itself surrounded on three sides. Still Lenin considered the occupation of Georgia premature. Sergei Kamenev, the Red Army commander-in-chief, had reported to Lenin three times that an invasion of Georgia could lead to war on a large scale in the Caucasus.4 Occupation of Georgia might also cause the collapse of talks then underway with Britain. Although Leonid Krasin, the Soviet representative in London, reported that Lloyd George had made a statement recognizing that the Caucasus was within the Soviet sphere of influence, Lenin's fears were not dispelled.
Sovietization of the Caucasus was considered necessary for economic and strategic reasons by all the Bolshevik leaders, despite differences over tactics. In January 1921 the Politburo passed a resolution to overthrow the Georgian government, but Lenin urged that the action be given the appearance of an insurrection to which the Red Army would offer support. Georgian Communists were instructed to organize an uprising.5 On February 16 the Eleventh Army crossed the border to lend a "fraternal hand" to a Military Revolutionary Committee formed in the tiny village of Shulaveri two days earlier. The Georgian army was short of weapons. 'The most essential thing was to obtain rifles and cartridges. We sent telegrams everywhere. No one could promise us anything. Only from London came a categorical reply, a refusal."6 On March 18 the Georgian government surrendered. Lenin, fearing a popular resistance movement if the methods used in Azerbaijan were repeated in Georgia, urged Ordzhonikidze to employ milder tactics. Ordzhonikidze scorned Lenin's suggestion and set about the work of Sovietizing Georgia, using the same methods tested out in the other Caucasian republics (and for the preceding three years in the Russian Republic).
The Kronstadt rebellion had finally forced Lenin to reexamine his policy toward the peasantry. As late as the beginning of 1921 he still rejected all proposals to alleviate or alter the surplus grain appropriation system, the prodrazverstka. Kronstadt convinced him that, with the overwhelming majority of the population opposed to the government's policy, the position of an occupying power in one's own country could no longer be maintained.
Lenin realized that he had made a mistake. In a conversation with Clara Zetkin at the end of 1920, he admitted he had been wrong to believe that the invasion of Poland would set off a revolution. The German Communist Zetkin recalled that as Lenin spoke his face had a look of inexpressible suffering. Lenin's face at that moment reminded the art lover Zetkin of the crucified Christ of Grunewald. Unfortunately no one was present to paint Lenin's face when he admitted his mistake in believing that communism could be built overnight in Russia: "We thought that under the surplus food appropriation system the peasants would provide us with the required quantity of grain, which we could distribute among the factories and thus achieve communist production and distribution." With less than full sincerity he added: "A not very lengthy experience convinced us that that line was wrong."7 The experience had lasted four years, from October 25, 1917, to October 17, 1921, when Lenin made this confession of error. It was indeed a lengthy experience, and very costly in human life. But by "admitting his error" Lenin made an important contribution to the art of ruling the Soviet Union: self-criticism by the Leader eliminates the mistake at once, as though it had never existed, and the Leader remains infallible.
On March 15, 1921, at the Tenth Party Congress, Lenin presented the New Economic Policy. The congress approved it. The era of NEP began.
The NEP was first and foremost an agrarian policy. 'The peasantry is dissatisfied with the form of its relations with us," Lenin explained to the Tenth Congress. "It does not want relations of this type and will not continue to live this way. ... The peasantry has expressed its will in this respect definitely enough. It is the will of the vast masses of the working population."8 At his suggestion the congress changed the type of relations "between them and us." The surplus grain appropriation system (prodrazverstka) was replaced by the "tax in kind" (prodnalog).