People of the Revolution and the USSR

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Any Political and party leadership 1
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Most people

Any Mensheviks (RSDLP) 1

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Russia

Mensheviks (RSDLP) 1
Position
Any Non-Bolshevik socialists 1
Citizenship(set)
Any Russia 130 Soviet Union 15 Georgia 1 United States 1
Background
Any Georgia 1
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People of the Soviet Union

The old regime and its challengers1905–1917 1 The last generation1985–1991 1

People of the wider world

The revolutionary wave and the world war1917–1945 2
Citizenship: Georgia The old regime and its challengers 1905–1917 Clear all

Irakli Georgievich Tsereteli

ირაკლი წერეთელი
Mensheviks (RSDLP) Non-Bolshevik socialists Georgia Georgia 1881–1959 ○ Natural causes

Architect of Revolutionary Defencism and the man to whom Lenin replied, 'There is such a party!'

At the First Congress of Soviets on 4 June 1917, Tsereteli declared that 'there is no party in Russia that says: give us power.' Lenin rose from his seat and answered: 'There is such a party!'

A Georgian Menshevik leader who championed Revolutionary Defencism in 1917 and served as Interior Minister in the Provisional Government. He is remembered for drawing Lenin's famous retort, 'There is such a party!' After the October Revolution he helped found an independent Georgia.

Career timeline
  • 1900–1902Entered Moscow University law faculty; arrested as student-movement leader, exiled to Siberia
  • 1903–1906Joined RSDLP, aligned with Mensheviks; editor of Kvali weekly. Studied in Berlin, returned 1906
  • 1907Deputy, Second Duma (Kutaisi); head of SD faction. After dissolution, 5 years' hard labour, Siberian exile
  • 1915–1917.02Led Siberian Zimmerwaldism; edited Siberian Journal. Joined Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee
  • 1917.03–09Petrograd Soviet Executive Committee; leading voice of Revolutionary Defencism
  • 1917.05–08Minister of Post and Telegraph (May–July), concurrently Minister of Interior (July–August)
  • 1918–1921Co-signed Georgian independence declaration; Constituent Assembly deputy; Paris Peace Conference delegate
  • 1921–1959Exile in France; executive member of the Second International. Moved to USA 1940; died in New York, 1959