Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev Vasil Mzhavanadze Col. Gen. Ivan Fedyuninsky Maj. Gen. Vasily Gladkov The March 1956 demonstrations (also known as the 1956 Tbilisi riots or 9 March massacre) in the Georgian SSR were a series of protests against Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy, which shocked Georgian supporters of Stalinist ideology.

Later on 9 March the troops deployed in the city opened fire upon the students picketing the government buildings in what the official Soviet version held was "an act of self-defense".

[4][5] In spite of prompt pacification, the 1956 events marked a turning point after which Georgian loyalty to the Soviet Union was gravely compromised and the nation's consolidation intensified.

The government's confusion in Tbilisi was a bloody sign that reform was to be limited by the party's determination to preserve its essential monopoly of power.

"[4] On 25 February 1956, at a closed session of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev delivered a "secret speech" in which he criticized actions taken by the Stalin regime, particularly the purges of the military and the upper Party echelons, and the development of Stalin's cult of personality, while maintaining support for other ideals of Communism by invoking Vladimir Lenin.

[4] Sergei Arutyunov [ru] of the Russian Academy of Sciences relates: The shift of loyalty demanded of them at that moment was too enormous to execute easily.

What happened can be reconstructed on the analysis of several, though frequently conflicting, contemporary reports, eyewitnesses' accounts and a few surviving secret Soviet documents.

The demonstrators went down the main Tbilisi thoroughfare, Rustaveli Avenue, to Lenin Square, stopping at the House of Government and then at the City Hall, chanting the slogan "Long Live Great Stalin!

Paralyzed by the scale of the protests and the demonstrators' appeal to Georgian patriotism and manifested communist loyalties, the police reacted more and more sluggishly.

[3] According to the controversial testimony of Ruben Kipiani, later tried as an author of this petition, the demands were: first, return of the "closed letter" on Stalin to the CPSU Central Committee; second, removal of Anastas Mikoyan, Nikolai Bulganin, and Nikita Khrushchev from both party and government positions; third, creation of a new government; fourth, release of the Azerbaijan SSR first secretary Mir Jafar Baghirov from prison; fifth, promotion of the Soviet Georgian officials Akaki Mgeladze and Mzhavandze to the Central Committee Presidium; sixth, appointment of Stalin's son Vasily to the Central Committee; seven, institution of an amnesty.

According to the eyewitness and Georgian-Jewish author Faina Baazova (daughter of David Baazov), the leaflets called for the secession of Georgia from the Soviet Union, a demand not heard previously.

Later that day, the decision to bring troops of the Transcaucasian Military District, then commanded by Col. Gen. Ivan Fedyuninsky, into the matter was made in Moscow.

claimed that the demonstrators, many of whom were allegedly drunk and armed, were pillaging the city, contemplated the pogroms of ethnic Russians and Armenians, and planned to seize the government buildings.

[3] The same evening, the authorities broadcast though radio an appeal calling the rallies to cease and announced that the commander of Tbilisi garrison, Major General Gladkov, was introducing a curfew beginning at midnight on 10 March.

In July 1956, the Central Committee in Moscow issued a resolution critical of the Georgian Communist leadership, and in August the second secretary in Tbilisi was replaced by a Russian.

Yet, Mzhavanadze was successful in pacifying Georgians by minimizing the number of victims in his interviews and sponsoring a program of lectures to spread the party's new views.

[4] Although no apparent attempts at defying the Soviet rule in Georgia were to be made until April 1978, the grudges against the central government in Moscow continued to be held.

However, they gave origin to a new generation of dissidents, such as Merab Kostava and Zviad Gamsakhurdia, both teenage participants of the March 1956 rally, who would lead Georgia into its struggle for independence in the 1980s.

[5] In Georgia, groups such as SovLab lead commemoration ceremonies for the victims of Stalinism, also in an effort to address the legacy of the pro-Stalin sentiment.