Mesame Dasi (Georgian:მესამე დასი) was the first social-democratic party in theCaucasus, based inTbilisi,Georgia. It was founded in 1892 byEgnate Ninoshvili andM. G. Tskhakaya as a literary-political group, and became affiliated with the international socialist-Marxist movement in 1893. The name, meaning "third group," was coined byGiorgi Tsereteli during his speech at the funeral for Ninoshvili and it was printed in the newspaperKvali.^[1]

TheGeorgian Social Democrats were the ones who took over the name Mesame Dasi (Third Group) in 1893, in order to differentiate themselves from the other two groups, thePirveli Dasi [ka;ru] (First Group) and theMeore Dasi (Second Group). These were two other groups of intellectuals that had been active in the earlier two decades. The Mesame Dasi began their activities by disseminatingMarxistpropaganda to the workers at various oil refineries and oil fields, along with the railway workers working on theTranscaucasian railway. All of their disseminations were done legally, through various legal channels.^[2]

They, in doing so, found two men,Afanas'ev andStanislaw Reniger, also distributing revolutionary works to the workers. With the joining of these two, the Mesame Dasi created reading and study circles in which they taught the workers. They even translated theRussian texts intoGeorgian for those who could read that. Much like the other propaganda circles that were being done inRussia, the Mesame Dasi put their own spin on their teachings, fromRussian history to biology. In order to keep away from legal trouble, the Dasi kept away from discussing the movement and did not attend any of the sporadic strikes among the workers.^[3]

Joseph Stalin joined the Mesame Dasi in 1898 when he was 20, while he was attending theTiflis Theological Seminary. Through the Mesame Dasi, he was first introduced to the ideas ofKarl Marx.^[1][4][5] He was in charge of one of thestudy circles, but became discontented with the viewpoints of the majority. Because of Stalin's sympathies towardBolsheviks and the irritating manner in which he presided, he found himself constantly at odds with the others in the group.^[2] Stalin began to form an opposition group in response to this composed ofLado Ketskhoveli,Alexander Tsulukidze, and himself, which was firmly in the minority. This group, as stated byLavrentiy Beria, was the beginning of theLeninist Bolshevik organization that would be created in 1904. In working against the majority, the group was finally able, in 1900, to move the entire organization more into propaganda and acts of mass agitation. But the actions of Stalin and his minority continued to irk the leaders of the Mesame Dasi.^[6] Finally, in December 1901, they expelled him from the group.^[2]

However, Stalin's minority group would have a lasting effect on some of the leaders.Mikha Tskhakaya, one of the founders of the Mesame Dasi, would end up becoming Georgia's first Bolshevik and supportVladimir Lenin's ideology, along with defending Stalin in his later activities.^[7]

As time went by, the activists among the group, those who participated in the Dasi's illegal activities, began to want to do more. By 1901, the nationalist movement had spread across Georgia, becoming more violent in nature. The old intellectuals of the Dasi continued to oppose the actions of the activists, but their words accomplished nothing. The core of the group began to be made up of workers instead of intellectuals, pushing the group and Georgia further down a socialist path.^[3]

In 1902, a massive strike began in a plant inBatumi. Almost four hundred workers were dismissed from the plant and arrests occurred afterwards. When the workers began to march against the police, they fired into the crowd, killing fourteen workers in the process. The Dasi quickly created a Batumi committee, made up of two intellectuals and three workers. In the end, nearly six hundred workers were made to leave the city and many then returned to their farms and villages inGuria. It was this process that created even more revolution, as the workers met up with other social revolutionaries in Guria and created boycotts against the landlords late in the spring. Because the protests continued to spread, the Mesame Dasi were forced to lend their support to the workers. The original meaning of the boycotts had been about the poor harvest in 1901. But when the military and the police intervened, working for the case of the landlords, the boycotts became large political protests against Russiansupremacy in Georgia and even againstautocracy itself.^[3][8]

By 1920, the Mesame Dasi had begun pushing out the older generations of national patriots, the first two groups. They began redirecting Georgian hostility toward the dominant local group, theArmenians for the Georgians, instead of the Russians as had been done before.^[9]

• Jones, Stephen F. (2005),Socialism in Georgian Colors: The European Road to Social Democracy 1883–1917, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,ISBN 978-0-67-401902-7

• "Stalin – An Appraisal of the Man and his Influence" - Marxists Internet Archive
• "ZHORDANIA, NOE NIKOLAYEVICH" - Encyclopedia.com
• "Joseph Stalin" - Grolier

• 1890s establishments in Georgia (country)
• 1920s disestablishments in Georgia (country)
• Defunct political parties in Georgia (country)
• Political history of Georgia (country)
• Political parties in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic
• Political parties of minorities in Imperial Russia
• Social democratic parties in the Soviet Union
• Socialist parties in Georgia (country)

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• Articles containing Georgian-language text