Nine months after the Soviet Union signed a good-will agreement respecting the autonomy and independence of its Black Sea neighbor, Vladimir Lenin's Red Army quickly overran the borders of the Democratic Republic of Georgia on February 16, 1921; seizing the Georgian capital nine days later, Russian General Anatoli Ilyich Gekker declared the establishment of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.
The attached article cynically opines that the invasion had nothing to do with the Soviet altruistic desire to look out for the working poor and everything to do with the possession of the Bakou-Batoum oil pipeline that made Georgia the go-to-guy for oil purchases in the region.
Additional magazine and newspaper articles about the Cold War may be read on this page.
