CHAPTER IX.
THE PERMANENCE OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
No Government of the day was more firmly established than the Georgian Government. We have seen how unusually large was the majority of the Social Democratic Party in the Georgian Parliament. None of the Opposition parties dreamed of over-turning the Government or altering its policy.
In addition to the overwhelming majority in the Parliament, the Government was supported by the over-whelming majority of the population.
The modern section of the proletariat, which is the politically decisive class in present-day Georgia stood fast behind the Government, which maintained a close association with it.
The Communist Party did indeed exist, and enjoyed the fullest liberty in all its movements, which were not directed to raising an armed rebellion; there was no obstacle in the way of its open propaganda and legal organised activity and the latter ends were eagerly pursued by the side of an equally energetic underground movement. The Party operated with the most lavish resources which emanated from Soviet Russia, but in spite of all this, it did not succeed in gaining a following of any importance.
In contrast to the rest of Europe, Bolshevism has been familiar in Georgia from the commencement, and there it deceives nobody. In spite of boundary divisions, the Georgians are too closely connected with Russia not to know exactly how things are there, and, in comparison with the hell which Soviet Russia represents, Georgia appeared as a paradise. The workers
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