Free Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore Page B

“alienated many” in the struggle “between the older Socialists and the younger Socialists.” The strike spread. Blacklegs were threatened, their horses slaughtered. But the secret police were after Soso the Priest. The Cossacks were massing. 6
    General Smagin, governor of Kutaisi Province, which included Batumi, rushed into town to lead the suppression of the strike. Addressing the workers, his message was bleak: “Back to work or Siberia!” Overnight on 7 March, Smagin arrested Stalin’s bodyguard Porfiro Lomdzharia and the strike leaders.
    Next day, Stalin arranged demonstrations outside the police station where the prisoners were kept. The pressure worked. The Gendarmes nervously moved the prisoners to a transit prison. The governor promised to meet the demonstrators. This did not suit Soso. At that night’s meeting, he proposed storming the prison. Vadachkoria preferred to negotiate. “You’ll never be a revolutionary,” sneered Soso the Priest. The Sosoists backed him. The next morning, Stalin led aggressive demonstrations. The day after that, much of the town joined him on the march to storm the prison. But a traitor had betrayed the plan. Cossacks took up positions. Troops under the tough Captain Antadze blocked the way to the transit prison. They fixed bayonets. The vast crowd hesitated before the roadblock.
    “Don’t run or they’ll shoot,” Stalin warned.
    “Soso suggested we sing songs. We didn’t know the revolutionary hymns then so we sang ‘Ali-Pasha’!” said Porfiro Kuridze.
    “The soldiers won’t fire,” Stalin called out over the crowd, “and don’t be afraid of the officers. Beat ’em up and let’s free our comrades.” The mob lurched forward towards the prison.
    Soso was surrounded by a guard of Sosoists, mainly Gurian peasant-workers, led by Kandelaki. “The Gurians were brave conspirators. They tried to stop me going to the front but I did,” Stalin bragged later. “So they created seven circles round me and even the wounded were held in place so it was impossible to break the circle.”
    Just as the crowd outside the jail started to charge the soldiers, the prisoners inside overcame their guards. One of the prisoners, Porfiro Lomdzharia, heard the rioters: “We tried to get out. The gate was shattered. Some prisoners escaped.” The Cossacks galloped at the maraudingdemonstrators, who tried to grab their rifles. The rebels fired shots in return and pelted the Cossacks with rocks. The soldiers beat them back with rifle-butts but were forced to retreat. Captain Antadze was hit by stones, his cuff pierced by a bullet. The soldiers fought back, shooting into the air—and retreated again. But this time they stood their ground. “Again the loud voice of Stalin called upon us not to disperse and to free the workers,” recalled a demonstrator, Injerabian. The mob surged forward.
    “Then a terrible sound!” Captain Antadze barked the order “Fire!” Volleys of shots rang out. People fell to the ground. Everyone was running and screaming. “It was panic, absolute hell. The deserted square was covered with dead and dying, groaning” under the eyes of the soldiers. The dying cried out “Water” or “Help!” Then “I remembered Soso,” says Kandelaki. “We got separated. I was afraid, starting to search for his body among the dead.” But Vera Lomdzharia, Porfiro’s sister, noticed Stalin wandering around observing the mayhem he had unleashed. Looking for her brother among the corpses, she attacked a soldier, but he replied: “It was Antadze.”
    Soso picked up “one of the wounded” and got him into a phaeton. “He brought him to our flat,” reports Illarion Darakhvelidze. “Soso wrapped bandages around the wounded,” agrees Kandelaki. Natasha Kirtava and other women helped wounded comrades into carts that took them to hospital. There were thirteen dead, fifty-four wounded. That night at Darakhvelidze’s house, “We were extremely agitated.” But Soso was