quality:corruption, structural:reformatting
Within the Soviet Union

In 1921, the Bolshevik Red Army invaded Georgia and ended its short-lived independence. Abkhazia was made a socialist Soviet republic (SSR Abkhazia) with the ambiguous status of a " treaty republic" associated with the Georgian SSR. In 1931, Joseph Stalin made it an autonomous republic (Abkhaz ASSR) within the Georgian SSR. Despite its nominal autonomy, it was subjected to strong direct rule from central Soviet authorities. The publishing of materials in Abkhazian dwindled and was eventually stopped altogether; Abkhaz schools were closed in 1945–1946, requiring Abkhaz children to study in the Georgian language. This was part of the wider Soviet educational reform launched in all SSRs in 1938. The teaching of Abkhaz language was preserved in the new reorganized Abkhaz schools as a mandatory subject by the decision of the Georgian Communist Party. In the Terror of 1937–38, the ruling elite was purged of Abkhaz and by 1952 over 80% of the 228 top party and government officials and enterprise managers were ethnic Georgians; there remained 34 Abkhaz, 7 Russians and 3 Armenians in these positions. Georgian Communist Party leader Kandid Charkviani supported the Georgianization of Abkhazia. Peasant households from the rest of the Georgian SSR were resettled to Abkhazia, which included the organised settlement of ethnic Georgians. About 9,000 peasant households were settled in the underpopulated areas of Abkhazia between 1947 and 1952 and left to fend for themselves.

The policy of repression was eased after Stalin's death and Beria's execution, and the Abkhaz were given a greater role in the governance of the republic. As in most of the smaller autonomous republics, the Soviet government encouraged the development of culture and particularly of literature. The Abkhazian ASSR was the only autonomous republic in the USSR in which the language of the titular nation (in that case Abkhazian) was confirmed in its constitution as one of its official languages.