Anarchism in Georgia () began to emerge during the late 19th century out of the Georgian national liberation movement and the Russian nihilist movement. It reached its apex during the 1905 Russian Revolution, after a number of anarchists returned from exile to participate in revolutionary activities, such as in the newly-established Gurian Republic.
Georgian anarchists Mikheil Tsereteli and Varlam Cherkezishvili played a major role in the development of anarchist ideas in the country, but unlike European and Russian anarchists, Georgians actively fought for national liberation. This ideology against statehood was supported by those Georgian politicians who led the struggle for the liberation of the Georgian people and fought for national self-determination throughout their lives. As for the anarchist theory of the extinction of the state, the outcry against centralism and for the decentralization of government was the ideal of all progressive-minded people in Georgia and the basis of the country's success. They fought for the autonomy of Georgia, and went even further: in the 1910s they demanded full independence for the country. They defended the slogan of "equality of all nations" and they believed that only after achieving national independence could the nation take care of its social situation.
The Georgian anarchist movement was weakened during World War I, as its Georgian members were working abroad. Following the Russian Revolution, anarchism was no longer a relevant political force. Georgian anarchists still uncompromisingly fought against Leninism, condemning all forms of violence, including its expression as a state. In their view, only free people could achieve progress. They fought against the dictatorship of the proletariat brought by the Red Army invasion of Georgia.
History
As capitalism first spread to Georgia, social stratification began to increase along with the expansion of the working class. During the 19th century, national and class consciousness spread throughout the country, leading to a rise in political organizations advocating for nationalist, liberal and socialist ideas. The "First Group", led by Ilia Chavchavadze, was one of the first Georgian nationalist groups to agitate against Russification policies and advocate for the revival of the Georgian language and the cultivation of Georgian culture. In 1869, this was succeeded by the more radical "Second Group", a liberal political group that engaged in journalism and involved itself in urban and economic life. By 1892, the Second Group too was supplanted by the "Third Group", the country's first social democratic organization, which later evolved into the Social Democratic Party of Georgia - a branch of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. During the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP, the party split into two factions: the Bolsheviks, led by Joseph Stalin, and the Mensheviks, led by Noe Zhordania. Nevertheless, both factions took on the position of cosmopolitanism, which aligned them against the interests of the Georgian nationalists.
Meanwhile, the nihilist movement was beginning to spread throughout the Russian Empire, attracting the attention of the Georgian socialist Varlam Cherkezishvili. After Dmitry Karakozov's attempt to assassinate Alexander II, Cherkezishvili was arrested and imprisoned for six months in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Upon his release in 1867, Cherkezishvili established a cooperative restaurant in Petrograd, where he met Sergey Nechayev for the first time. By 1868, Cherkezishvili had become influenced by the anarchist ideas of Mikhail Bakunin that he had encountered in the newspaper Narodnoie Delo. Due to his connections to Nechayev, Cherkezishvili was again arrested, this time being sentenced to exile in Western Siberia. He escaped his Siberian exile to Switzerland, where he founded a mutual aid fund and established the Russian language Obchtchina newspaper, while also collaborating on Peter Kropotkin's magazine Le Révolté. A number of other Georgian radicals had also gone abroad for their education, where many were first exposed to the ideas of anarchism and libertarian communism. In 1900, the Group of Russian Anarchists Abroad was founded in Geneva by the Georgian anarchist Georgy Gogelia, eventually being succeeded by the Bread and Freedom organization, which was joined by Peter Kropotkin and Varlam Cherkezishvili.