Georgian Bolshevik who chaired the Turkestan Commission in the Sovietisation of Central Asia and later headed the Transcaucasian government
From an impoverished noble family in Kutaisi Province, he joined the Bolsheviks in 1904 and in 1917 became the first chairman of the Vologda provincial soviet. In February 1919 he was made chairman of the Turkestan Commission, but while Kolchak's army blocked the road and the commission waited in Samara and Orenburg he sat on the Revolutionary Military Councils of Frunze's Southern Group and the Turkestan Front. From October he led the commission, now charged with party leadership in Turkestan, which in January 1920 helped found the Communist Party of Turkestan. After taking part in the Sovietisation of Georgia in 1921 he headed the governments of Georgia and the Transcaucasian Federation; arrested in 1937, he was shot on 3 December and rehabilitated in 1956.
Activities and affiliations
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1904–1937
Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
Political and party leadership -
1919–1920
Soviet Union state institutions
Military command -
1919–1931
Soviet Union state institutionsMain
Government and administration
Career Timeline
- 1904Joined the RSDLP (Bolsheviks)
- 1917Chairman of the Vologda provincial soviet
- 1918Chairman of the Vologda provincial executive committee; food commissar
- 1919Member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Group, Eastern Front
- 1919–1920Member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkestan Front
- 1919–1922Chairman of the Turkestan Commission
- 1920–1921Plenipotentiary to Turkey and Persia
- 1920–1922Member of the Turkestan Bureau of the Bolshevik Central Committee
- 1921Member of the 11th Army’s Revolutionary Military Council; Sovietisation of Georgia
- 1921–1923People’s commissar for military and naval affairs of Georgia and Transcaucasia
- 1923–1927Chairman of the Georgian Council of People’s Commissars
- 1927–1931Chairman of the Transcaucasian Council of People’s Commissars
- 1931–1936Deputy people’s commissar of foreign trade of the USSR
- 1936–1937Deputy people’s commissar of light industry of the USSR
- 1937Arrested and shot