1888: he warned the Tsar's aides, to their faces, that using two freight locomotives to speed the imperial train was reckless. Days later the Borki derailment proved him right. Alexander III remembered — and made him Director of State Railways.
Architect of the empire's modernization: the Trans-Siberian railway, the gold standard. In 1905 he made peace with Japan and wrung the October Manifesto from a cornered Tsar, who never forgave him for it. He died sidelined, writing his memoirs.
Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet in the dual-power era, face of revolutionary defencism
"Deprived of direct contact with his people, he lost his power of resistance. Even a mighty oak, overturned by a storm and torn from the soil that fed it, withers. So it was with Chkheidze." — Irakli Tsereteli at his funeral, 1926
A Georgian nobleman and Menshevik who produced the first Georgian translation of the Communist Manifesto. In 1917 he chaired the Petrograd Soviet during dual power but opposed the October Revolution; he went on to lead Georgia's independence and its government-in-exile in Paris.
Career timeline
1890sJoined Mesame-dasi; first Georgian translation of the Communist Manifesto
1898–1907Batumi city duma deputy, municipal hospital inspector; joined RSDLP (1898), Menshevik from 1903
1907–1917Deputy, Third and Fourth State Dumas (Tiflis); head of the Menshevik faction
1917.02–09Chairman, Petrograd Soviet; Chairman, All-Russian Central Executive Committee (from June)
1918–1921Chairman, Transcaucasian Seim and Georgian Constituent Assembly; signed independence declaration
1919Georgian delegate to the Paris Peace Conference
1921–1926Exile in France; head of the Georgian government-in-exile
Commander of the West Russian Volunteer Army who led German Freikorps against Riga
Refusing Yudenich's order to join the Narva front, in October 1919 he proclaimed himself 'representative of Russian state power' and marched on Riga.
A Russian cavalry officer who styled himself 'Prince Avalov', he gathered tens of thousands of German Freikorps men who refused to leave Latvia into the West Russian Volunteer Army and attacked Riga in October 1919, only to be repelled. In exile he led a Russian fascist organization in Berlin and died in New York in 1973.
Career timeline
1901Enlisted as kapellmeister in the 1st Argun Regiment
1904–1905Fought in the Russo-Japanese War; awarded the Cross of St George
1918Head of recruitment and counterintelligence, Southern Army, Kiev
1919.04Formed a volunteer detachment at the Salzvedel POW camp
1919.07Formed the Count Keller detachment at Mitava
1919.09Proclaimed himself CinC of the West Russian Volunteer Army; marched on Riga in October
1925Published memoirs 'In the Struggle against Bolshevism'
1933Founded the Russian National-Socialist Movement (ROND)
