Transcaucasian SFSR

Origins

In March 1922 the Soviet republics of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan were joined in a union, which in December 1922 became the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic with its capital at Tiflis. On 30 December 1922 it was one of the four founding republics of the Soviet Union.

Rule and society

The federation was driven by Moscow's wish to control the region's economy, railways and borders and to damp national rivalries. Georgian communists who opposed it lost out to Stalin and Ordzhonikidze in the so-called Georgian Affair. It shared a single government, while the three republics kept their own institutions. Lavrentiy Beria led its Communist Party from 1932.

Decline and legacy

Under the 1936 Soviet constitution the federation was dissolved, and the Georgian SSR, Armenian SSR and Azerbaijan SSR became separate union republics of the Soviet Union. Each of the three later became independent within its Soviet borders in 1991.