Sergo Ordzhonikidze

Bolsheviks

Ordzhonikidze joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1903 when he was 17 and worked for them in an underground printshop distributing leaflets for the Bolshevik faction of the party. By 1905 a revolution began in Russia, and he was given more dangerous assignments. He was arrested for the first time in December 1905 for transporting arms and spent several months in prison. Granted bail, he fled briefly to Germany to avoid trial, though he soon returned to work in Baku, where he had previously been working. There he helped organize the 1907 May Day parade and was arrested again. He may also have been involved in the assassination of the prominent Georgian writer Ilia Chavchavadze on 12 September 1907.

Imprisoned for a third time in October 1907, Ordzhonikidze shared a cell with a fellow Georgian revolutionary, Iosif Dzhugashvili, who would later adopt the name Joseph Stalin. The two became close friends and spent their time playing backgammon and discussing politics. After his fourth arrest, in November 1907, Ordzhonikidze was exiled to Siberia, though he fled after several months and came back to work in Baku. The Bolsheviks reassigned him to Persia to help with the revolutionary movement that was launched there in 1910. The Bolsheviks were unable to gain sufficient support in Persia and Ordzhonikidze returned to Baku.

In 1911, Ordzhonikidze traveled to Paris where he met Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks. He attended classes at the Longjumeau Party School, which had been set up to train Bolsheviks, though he left after a short time because of party in-fighting. He was sent back to Russia to help prepare the Sixth RSDLP Conference, which was held in Prague, Austria-Hungary in January 1912. At this meeting the Bolsheviks, the majority faction within the RSDLP, confirmed themselves to be a distinct party and established themselves as a separate party; while they had split from the RSDLP back in 1903 and ceased to work with it, they formally remained part of it until the Prague Conference. Ordzhonikidze was elected to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, the leadership body of the party, and sent back to Russia to inform other Bolsheviks of the results of the Conference. He also visited Stalin, exiled in Vologda, and the two traveled back to the Caucasus, then to Saint Petersburg, where Ordzhonikidze was arrested once again in April 1912.

Recognized by the authorities as a revolutionary, Ordzhonikidze was sentenced to three years at the Shlisselburg Fortress prison. Late in 1915 he was sentenced to permanent exile in the eastern Siberian town of Yakutsk, where he met his future wife Zinaida in September 1916. They were married in 1917 and would adopt a daughter, Eteri (born 1923).

In exile, Ordzhonikidze mainly spent his time reading; his favourites were Georgian classics as well as authors like Jack London, Lord Byron, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. He also was interested in statistics relating to the Russian economy, especially details regarding the production of food and agriculture, as well as the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Ordzhonikidze was still in Yakutsk when news of the 1917 February Revolution reached him. He briefly worked with the Yakutsk soviet (council) before quickly leaving for Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg had been named since 1914), reaching there by the end of May. Once in the city, Ordzhonikidze took on an active role in the revolution. He became a member of the Petrograd Bolshevik Committee and would frequently address rallies and visit large factories to conduct party work. In doing this Ordzhonikidze became closely associated with both Lenin and Stalin. He returned briefly to Georgia for a visit but was back in Petrograd by October and was there for the October Revolution when the Bolsheviks seized power.