The first disturbances among the local peasants appeared already in May 1921, and quickly developed into an armed revolt against the highly unpopular Revolutionary Committee of Georgia (Revkom), an acting Bolshevik government in the transitional period.

The guerrilla detachments led by Mosostr Dadeshkeliani, Nestor Gardapkhadze and Bidzina Pirveli, disarmed the Svaneti-based Red Army units in September, and launched preparations for the march on Kutaisi, the second largest city of Georgia.

The Georgian Revkom, which faced the distinct prospect of a nationwide insurrection and civil war,[1] ordered, on October 7, 1921, the formation of special punitive detachments to fight the insurgents who were denounced as "political bandits".

On November 15, 1921, Soviet officials reported that the number of Svanetian rebels amounted to 1,600, and their actions were coordinated by the National-Democratic Party of Georgia, which maintained contacts with a Tbilisi-based Menshevik organization.

The defeat of the Svanetian rebellion forced major Georgian opposition parties to seek closer cooperation, which would later conclude with the generalization of an anti-Soviet uprising in August 1924.