Avlabar Press

an illegal press set up in 1903 by the Caucasian Union Committee of the RSDLP in Avlabar, a suburb of Tiflis. The main work in setting it up was carried out by Mikho Bochoridze.

The Avlabar press printed V. I. Lenin’s works “The Revolutionary Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry” and “To the Village Poor,” the Program of the RSDLP adopted at its second congress, the Rules of the RSDLP adopted at its third congress, and thousands of copies of leaflets and proclamations in Russian, Georgian, and Armenian. The Avlabar press printed the newspapers Proletariatis brdzola (The Struggle of the Proletariat) and Proletariatis brdzolis purtseli (Leaflet of the Struggle of the Proletariat). The articles, leaflets, and proclamations printed on the Avlabar press were prepared by the members of the Caucasian Union Committee of the RSDLP, which included M. G. Tskhakaia, A. G. Tsulukidze, I. V. Stalin, S. G. Shaumian, V. S. Bobrovskii, and F. E. Makharadze. The publications were disseminated in Transcaucasia and other areas of Russia.

The Avlabar press was carefully hidden. Located in a vault under a house, it had a special entrance through a well. Various progressive-minded workers worked at different times at the Avlabar press. Among them were Ch. Kalan-dadze,G. Lelashvili, T. Vakhtangov, and M. Goguadze. The “mistress” of the house in which the Avlabar press was set up was V. Bochoridze, and during the last two months it was M. Goguadze.

On Apr. 15, 1906, the Avlabar press was seized by the political police (zhandarmeria). It was restored in Soviet times as a historical monument and museum.