65 Facts About Sergo Ordzhonikidze

Sergo Ordzhonikidze backed their union into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, which helped form the Soviet Union in 1922 and served as the First Secretary of the TSFSR until 1926.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze was reluctant to take part in the campaigns against so-called wreckers and saboteurs that began in the early 1930s, causing friction between himself and his longtime friend Joseph Stalin, whom he helped during his rise to power.

Grigol Sergo Ordzhonikidze was born in 1886 in Ghoresha, a village in the Kutais Governorate of the Russian Empire.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze's father Konstantine was a member of an impoverished Georgian noble family, while Eupraxia was a peasant.

Unable to take care of his son, Konstantine sent Grigol to live with his uncle and aunt, David and Eka Sergo Ordzhonikidze, who lived in Ghoresha.

The elder Konstantine died when Sergo Ordzhonikidze was 10 years old, leaving him with David and Eka.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze completed school, had medical training to become an orderly, and worked briefly as a medical assistant.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903 when he was 17 and worked for them in an underground printshop distributing leaflets for the Bolshevik faction of the party.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze was arrested for the first time in December 1905 for transporting arms and spent several months in prison.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze may have been involved in the assassination of the prominent Georgian writer Ilia Chavchavadze on 12 September 1907.

The Bolsheviks were unable to gain sufficient support in Persia and Sergo Ordzhonikidze returned to Baku.

In 1911, Sergo Ordzhonikidze traveled to Paris where he met Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze 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.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze was sent back to Russia to help prepare the Sixth RSDLP Conference, which was held in Prague, Austria-Hungary in January 1912.

Sergo 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.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze visited Stalin, exiled in Vologda, and the two traveled back to the Caucasus, then to Saint Petersburg, where Ordzhonikidze was arrested in April 1912.

In exile, Sergo Ordzhonikidze mainly spent his time reading; his favourites were Georgian classics as well as authors like Jack London, Lord Byron, and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze 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.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze was still in Yakutsk when news of the 1917 February Revolution reached him.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze became a member of the Petrograd Bolshevik Committee and would frequently address rallies and visit large factories to conduct party work.

In doing this Sergo Ordzhonikidze became closely associated with both Lenin and Stalin.

The outbreak of the Russian Civil War in 1917 saw Sergo Ordzhonikidze appointed as the Bolsheviks' Commissar of Ukraine, South Russia, and the North Caucasus.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze organized meetings with the local Chechen and Ingush population and urged them to join, arguing that the soviet system was similar to the Islamic system the Chechens favored.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze earned a reputation as a brutal leader and ordered the arrest or execution of many opponents associated with the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, or any other group fighting the Bolsheviks.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze was named the chairman of the Kavbiuro, while Sergei Kirov was made vice-chairman.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze was given a position on the Revolutionary Military Council of the Caucasian Front and named Chairman of the North Caucasus Revolutionary Committee.

Not wanting to allow this dispute to become public, the Central Committee largely stood behind Sergo Ordzhonikidze and allowed him to implement policies as he saw fit.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze retained his leadership role in the Caucasus, assuming the title of First Secretary, and remained there until 1926.

In 1926 Sergo Ordzhonikidze was named the head of the Central Control Commission of the Communist Party, the body responsible for party discipline, and of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, an agency created to oversee implementation of Soviet economic policy at every level.

Historian Oleg Khlevniuk speculated that Sergo Ordzhonikidze was not interested in taking over Rabkrin as it meant leaving the quiet of a low-key post in the Caucasus and getting intimately involved in the drama and politics at the highest levels.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze served as a candidate member of the Politburo from 23 July to 3 November 1926, when he was removed.

At the other end Sergo Ordzhonikidze was sought out by factory managers, who would present grievances and petitions in hopes of getting help from Rabkrin.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze revitalized Rabkrin; it became a powerful tool within the Soviet Union, and by the end of the 1920s was the centre of state industrial policymaking, usurping that role from Vesenka.

Likely in response to his critique of Kuybyshev, Sergo Ordzhonikidze was made the new head of Vesenka on 13 November 1930, and Kuybyshev was moved to the State Planning Committee.

Shortly after his new appointment, on 21 December 1930, Sergo Ordzhonikidze was named as a full member of the Politburo, as he had been removed from his post at the Central Control Commission.

On his arrival at Vesenka Sergo Ordzhonikidze was mandated to improve the quality of workers.

Much like when he started at Rabkrin, Sergo Ordzhonikidze was not an expert on the work of Vesenka, but immediately began to familiarize himself with it.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze would downplay their previous political affiliations and back them up.

In 1932 Vesenka was re-organized as the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry ; Sergo Ordzhonikidze remained as the head of the new commissariat.

In recognition of this relationship Sergo Ordzhonikidze was chosen to place Kirov's urn into the Kremlin Wall, in which other leading Bolsheviks were interred.

Concerned about productivity in two key sectors, metallurgy and coal mining, which had both seen consistent shortages, despite efforts to increase output, Sergo Ordzhonikidze took an active role in improving performance.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze looked for ways to solve the issue, paying particular attention to the Donbas, a region of Ukraine that was the main centre of Soviet coal production.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze had long tried to protect those working under him, a characteristic he retained throughout his time in Rabkrin, Vesenka, and the NKTP.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze argued against police interference in factory affairs and was successful enough in this to have the Politburo agree to ban prosecutors from investigating factories or even entering them, a policy that Stalin would later regret approving.

Lominadze, a fellow Georgian and an ally of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, had been expelled from the Party previously for his role in the Syrtsov-Lominadze Affair, where along with Sergey Syrtsov, he had been accused of "factionalism" in 1930, when the two had opposed collectivization of agriculture.

Stalin was angry that Ordzhonikidze had been sending a pension to Lominadze's wife and son.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze was instrumental in finding Papulia a position with the Transcaucasus Railway.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze learned of the arrest during a party for his 50th birthday and was so upset at the news that he refused to attend the celebration.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze reached out to Beria and asked for his help in freeing Papulia.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze reached out to Stalin for help but was refused.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze was now unable to protect those from the NKTP, which was heavily targeted at this time.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze was expected to address wrecking and sabotage within the NKTP at a Central Committee plenum that was scheduled to start 20 February 1937.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze then left for the Kremlin to see Vyacheslav Molotov and attend a subsequent Politburo meeting.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze met a deputy there and was home again by 00:20, following a routine schedule.

The details of the last few hours of Sergo Ordzhonikidze's life are unclear.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze was then invited to visit Stalin and did so for about 90 minutes.

The announcement of Sergo Ordzhonikidze's death came as a surprise to the public.

Immediately after Sergo Ordzhonikidze's death was announced, the cause of death was disputed.

The recent arrests of figures within the NKTP gave credence to these rumours, suggesting Sergo Ordzhonikidze would be targeted next.

Khlevniuk has suggested that Sergo Ordzhonikidze was reluctant to openly challenge Stalin regarding wrecking in the NKTP, and instead only wanted to change his mind on the subject, and that instances of wreckers were highly exaggerated.

Details of Sergo Ordzhonikidze's death were not widely discussed within the Soviet Union until Nikita Khrushchev gave his "Secret Speech" criticizing Stalinism in 1956, and this helped keep rumours of a targeted killing alive.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze published a memoir of Ordzhonikidze's life that was first released in 1956, and died in 1960.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze was controversial within the regional Bolshevik leadership for being authoritarian and having a preference to promote fellow ethnic Georgians rather than qualified candidates.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze was defended by Lenin and Stalin: the former revealed that Ordzhonikidze was deaf in one ear and so had to shout, even at Lenin himself, to hear himself.

Sergo Ordzhonikidze had dealt with stenocardia and cardiac asthma for two years before his death, with a serious bout of asthma in November 1936.