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104 ARMENIA AND THE NEAR EAST
political liberty ; and, above all, a general Russianizing policy,
which began at once with the subordination of the hitherto
independent Georgian Church to the Holy Synod (as early
as 1811), and continued as time went on with the suppression
of the national language and system of education. In 1884
the hitherto separate Georgian army was incorporated in the
general military organization of the Russian Empire, and with
it disappeared the last shred of the independence of the
Georgian kingdom. All this aroused increasing discontent,
especially among the nobles and the upper classes, and led to
several insurrections. It also gave birth to a revival of the
national literature in the second half of last century, when a
number of prominent poets and other writers appeared.
This national romantic movement, which emanated from
the aristocracy, was not so dangerous to the Russian Govern
ment and the existing social organization as the revolutionary
socialist agitation which spread, at the end of last century
and the beginning of this, from European Russia to the
working classes in Transcaucasia. A number of important
industries had now come into existence there, the chief being
petroleum, with its main centres at Baku,Maikop,and Grozni,
while in addition there was manganese, copper, silk, cotton,
timber, and wine. This sudden industrial development soon
gave rise to very grave and intricate problems, with class and
racial antagonisms, in a country where foreign capital con
sidered itself entitled to exploit the primitive labour of the
natives to the utmost, and where the abrupt transition from
feudalism to industrialism had produced a class of workers
all the more dangerous because they would swallow without
criticism any of the latest doctrines, however raw and un
digested, of West European Labour, and propagate them in
their own villages. The anti-national measures of the Imperial
Government were also responsible for driving many into the
arms of the Socialists. In 1 904-1 906 serious disturbances
broke out in various parts of Transcaucasia. Ultimately they
were suppressed after a good deal of bloodshed, but they
were a serious warning of coming events.
Then came the Great War of 1914, and the Russian Duma
revolution of March 191 7 was greeted with enthusiasm in
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