Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic

The Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (Transcaucasian SFSR or TSFSR), also known as the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, or simply Transcaucasia, was a republic of the Soviet Union that existed from 1922 to 1936. The TSFSR comprised Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, traditionally known as the "Transcaucasian Republics" as they were separated from Russia by the Caucasus Mountains. The TSFSR was one of the four republics to sign the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR establishing the Soviet Union in 1922. The TSFSR was created ostensibly to consolidate the economic situation and Bolshevik control over the region. The TSFSR was dissolved upon the adoption of the 1936 Soviet Constitution and its constituent republics were elevated individually to republics of the Soviet Union. History The roots of a Transcaucasian condominium state trace back to the dissolution of the Russian Empire in 1918, following the October Revolution, when the provinces of the Caucasus seceded and formed their own state called the Transcaucasian Federation. Competing ethno-national interests and confrontation with the Ottoman Empire in World War I led to the dissolution of the Transcaucasian Federation only two months later, in April 1918. The three successor states—the First Republic of Armenia, the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan, and the Democratic Republic of Georgia—lasted until the end of the Russian Civil War that was being fought across the mountains, when they were invaded by the Red Army and sovietized. Following the proposal by Vladimir Lenin the three now Soviet Republics, the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian SSRs, were united into the Federative Union of Socialist Soviet Republics of Transcaucasia on 12 March 1922. On 13 December that year, the First All-Caucasian Congress of Soviets transformed this federation of states into a unified federal state and renamed it into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, though keeping formally the autonomy of its constituent republics. The congress also adopted the constitution, appointed the Central Executive Committee (the highest legislative body between congressional sessions), and the Council of People's Commissars (the government). Mamia Orakhelashvili, a Georgian Bolshevik leader, became the first chairman of the Transcaucasian SFSR's Council of People's Commissars. Tbilisi was the capital of the republic.