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| isbn =1-4000-7678-1}}</ref> Ordzhonikidze became involved in radical politics in 1903 and after graduating as a doctor from the Mikhailov Hospital Medical School in [[Tiflis]], was arrested for arms smuggling. He was released and went to [[Germany]], but in 1907 returned to Russia and settled in [[Baku]] where he worked closely with Stalin and others. Sergo is now believed by historians to have been involved in the 1907 assassination of Prince [[Ilia Chavchavadze]], a prominent Georgian poet and intellectual.<ref>{{cite book
| isbn =1-4000-7678-1}}</ref> Ordzhonikidze became involved in radical politics in 1903 and according to some sources graduated as a doctor from the Mikhailov Hospital Medical School in [[Tbilisi|Tiflis]], but is also reported as having qualified only as a medical orderly. <ref name="conquest">{{cite book
| last = Conquest
| first = Robert
| authorlink =Robert Conquest
| title = The Great Terror
| publisher =
| location=
| year =
| page=35
| isbn =</ref> He was arrested for arms smuggling {{when?|date=Jul-13}}, but was released and went to [[Germany]]. In 1907 he returned to Russia and settled in [[Baku]] where he worked closely with Stalin and others. Ordzhonikidze is now believed by historians to have been involved in the 1907 assassination of Prince [[Ilia Chavchavadze]], a prominent Georgian poet and intellectual.<ref>{{cite book
| last = Montefiore
| last = Montefiore
| first = Simon Sebag
| first = Simon Sebag

Revision as of 04:29, 26 July 2013

File:Sergo ordzhonikidze.jpg
Sergo Ordzhonikidze

Grigol Ordzhonikidze (Georgian: გრიგოლ (სერგო) ორჯონიკიძე - Grigol (Sergo) Orjonikidze, Russian: Григо́рий Константи́нович Орджоники́дзе, generally known as Sergo Ordzhonikidze (Серго́); October 24 [O.S. October 12] 1886, Kutaisi Governorate – February 18, 1937, Moscow) was a Georgian Bolshevik, later member of the CPSU Politburo and close friend to Joseph Stalin. Ordzhonikidze, Stalin and Anastas Mikoyan comprised what was jokingly referred to as the "Caucasian Clique."

Biography

Early life

Born in present-day Kharagauli, western Georgia to a Georgian noble family,[1] Ordzhonikidze became involved in radical politics in 1903 and according to some sources graduated as a doctor from the Mikhailov Hospital Medical School in Tiflis, but is also reported as having qualified only as a medical orderly. [2] He was arrested for arms smuggling [when?], but was released and went to Germany. In 1907 he returned to Russia and settled in Baku where he worked closely with Stalin and others. Ordzhonikidze is now believed by historians to have been involved in the 1907 assassination of Prince Ilia Chavchavadze, a prominent Georgian poet and intellectual.[3] Sergo also participated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution on a mission by the Bolshevik party and stayed in Tehran for a while around 1909.[4]

He was arrested for being a member of the Social Democratic Party and deported to Siberia, but managed to escape three years later. He returned with Stalin to St. Petersburg in April 1912, but again was apprehended and sentenced to three years hard labour. For a time he served on the collegium of the new Cheka. During the course of the Russian Civil War, he became a commissar for the Ukraine and took part in fighting against the White Army of Anton Denikin in the Caucasus. Appointed chairman of the Caucasian Bureau of the Russian Communist Party in 1920, he was instrumental in the incorporation of the Caucasus in the nascent Soviet Union. After Azerbaijan and Armenia had been taken over by the Bolsheviks, in 1921 Ordzhonikidze led a Bolshevik invasion of the Democratic Republic of Georgia and established the Socialist Republic of Georgia.[5] Later, he fought to reduce Georgian autonomy from the Russian SFSR and hence became a key figure involved in the Georgian Affair of 1922.[6] During the same period, he also aided Mirza Koochak Khan in establishing the short-lived Socialist Republic of Gilan in northern Iran.[7]

File:Bukharin Ordzhonikidze.jpg
Sergo Ordzhonikidze if he was younger and served in the tsarist guard, cartoon by Nikolai Bukharin, 1927

Politburo member

Ordzhonikidze became a candidate member of the Politburo in 1926, and was appointed Commissar of Soviet Heavy Industry in 1932.[8] According to historian Roy Medvedev, Ordjonikidze opposed the purges of Stalin, Lazar Kaganovich and Nikolai Yezhov and the arrest of his deputy in the Commissariat of Heavy Industry, Georgy Pyatakov.[9] Historian Oleg Khlevniuk [10] has found no evidence in Soviet archives that suggests Ordzhonikidze disagreed with the Moscow Trials, including the arrest, conviction, and execution of Pyatakov. According to the archives, Ordzhonikidze questioned Pyatakov personally, and was convinced of his guilt. He allegedly drafted a speech (delivered by Molotov after Ordzhonikidze's death) for the February–March 1937 Central Committee Plenum that left no doubt of his determination to uproot "saboteurs" such as Pyatakov from his commissariat [citation needed]. Khlevniuk maintains as an overall assessment that Ordzhonikidze may have been a "soft" (i.e. not hard-line) Stalinist but a Stalinist nonetheless.

Death

Ordzhonikidze died during the night of February 17–18, 1937. On February 19, Pravda published a report signed by three doctors and by the People's Commissar for Health Grigory Kaminsky, affirming that Ordzhonikidze "died of paralysis of the heart."[11] However, it is understood that he had been shot, apparently as an act of suicide.

The story that Ordzhonikidze committed suicide was first mentioned by Nikita Khrushchev during his Secret Speech of February 25, 1956. Khrushchev made this claim again in his speech to the 22nd Party Congress in 1961. In his memoirs Khrushchev gives two contradictory sources for this story: Anastas Mikoyan, who supposedly told him after the war, and Georgy Malenkov, who supposedly told Khrushchev about this during the war itself.

Roy Medvedev reports a rumor that Ordzhonikidze's files and papers were later confiscated by Lavrentiy Beria, and that Ordzhonikidze's bodyguards and personal secretary, along with his brothers Ivan and Konstantin, were also arrested.[9] In fact his brothers were arrested, but at different times and apparently[according to whom?] unrelated to Ordzhonikidze's.

Legacy

Grigory Ordzhonikidze on a 1952 Soviet Union postage stamp.

Several towns and districts in the USSR were renamed Ordzhonikidze after him, such as Vladikavkaz in Russia and Vahdat in Tajikistan. Sokol plant, the main producer of MiG fighters, was named in honour of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, as well as the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI).

References

  1. ^ Montefiore, Simon Sebag (2004). Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. New York: Knopf. p. 123. ISBN 1-4000-7678-1.
  2. ^ {{cite book | last = Conquest | first = Robert | authorlink =Robert Conquest | title = The Great Terror | publisher = | location= | year = | page=35 | isbn =
  3. ^ Montefiore, Simon Sebag (2007). Young Stalin. New York: Knopf. p. 179. ISBN 1-4000-9613-8.
  4. ^ Gregor Yaghikiyan, Showravi va jonbesh-e jangal (The Soviet Union and the Jungle Movement) (Persian), Editor: Borzouyeh Dehgan, Tehran: Novin, 1984.
  5. ^ Montefiore. The Court of the Red Tsar, p. 123.
  6. ^ Figes, Orlando (1998). A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924. New York: Penguin Books. pp. 798–799. ISBN 0-14-024364-X.
  7. ^ Ebrahim Fakhrayi, Sardar-e Jangal (The Commander of Jungle) (Persian), Tehran: Javidan,1983.
  8. ^ Service, Robert (2003). A History of Modern Russia: From Nicholas II to Vladimir Putin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 194. ISBN 0-674-01801-X.
  9. ^ a b Medvedev, Roy A (1971). Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism. New York: Knopf.
  10. ^ Khlevniuk, Oleg (1995). In Stalin's Shadow: The Career of "Sergo" Ordzhonikidze. New York: M.E. Sharpe.
  11. ^ Montefiore. The Court of the Red Tsar, p. 213.
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