Mamia Orakhelashvili ( ka, მამია ორახელაშვილი, russian: Иван (Мамия) Дмитриевич Орахелашвили, ''Ivan (Mamia) Dmitrievich Orakhelashvili''; June 10, 1881 – December 11, 1937) was a Georgian

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

and

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

politician energetically involved in the revolutionary movement in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

and Georgia.

Early life and career

Born in the

Kutais Governorate The Kutaisi or Kutais Governorate was a province ('' guberniya'') of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire. It roughly corresponded to most of western Georgia throughout most of its existence, and most of the Artvin Province (except t ...

, Imperial Russia (in present-day Georgia) in the family of a landlord, Orakhelashvili studied medicine at the

University of Kharkiv The Kharkiv University or Karazin University ( uk, Каразінський університет), or officially V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University ( uk, Харківський національний університет імені ...

and St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy. He joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903 and took an active part in the 1905 uprising in Petersburg. Between 1906 and 1914 he was arrested by the

Tsarist Tsarist autocracy (russian: царское самодержавие, transcr. ''tsarskoye samoderzhaviye''), also called Tsarism, was a form of autocracy (later absolute monarchy) specific to the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states ...

police several times.

Russian Revolution

After the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power, Orakhelashvili chaired the

Vladikavkaz Vladikavkaz (russian: Владикавка́з, , os, Дзæуджыхъæу, translit=Dzæwdžyqæw, ;), formerly known as Ordzhonikidze () and Dzaudzhikau (), is the capital city of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, Russia. It is located i ...

. Between 1918 and 1920 he worked in the underground Bolshevik group in the

Democratic Republic of Georgia The Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG; ka, საქართველოს დემოკრატიული რესპუბლიკა ') was the first modern establishment of a republic of Georgia, which existed from May 1918 to F ...

, and was arrested by the Georgian government. He was released in accordance to the Moscow Treaty between Georgia and

Soviet Russia The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...

(May 1920) and became chairman of the recently legalized Georgian Communist party. In February 1921, he participated in a Bolshevik diversion in southern Georgia, which was used by

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

’s government as a pretext for the Red Army invasion of Georgia. He provided the preface to ''Тайны меньшевистского царства'' (''Secrets of Menshevik Georgia'') by Iakov Moiseyevich Shafir (1921) in which archival material was used to justify the Soviet invasion.

In Soviet Georgia

After the

Sovietization Sovietization (russian: Советизация) is the adoption of a political system based on the model of soviets (workers' councils) or the adoption of a way of life, mentality, and culture modelled after the Soviet Union. This often included ...

of Georgia, Orakhelashvili served as chairman of the Georgian

Revkom {{no footnotes, date=May 2016A revolutionary committee or revkom (russian: Революционный комитет, ревком) were Bolshevik-led organizations in Soviet Russia and other Soviet republics established to serve as provisional gove ...

and secretary of the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party. He later became deputy chairman of the Georgian Council of People’s Commissars and chairman of the

Transcaucasian SFSR , conventional_long_name = Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic , common_name = Transcaucasian SFSR , p1 = Armenian Soviet Socialist RepublicArmenian SSR , flag_p1 = Flag of SSRA ...

Council of People’s Commissars. Between 1923 and 1937, he served as deputy chairman of the USSR Council of People’s Commissars and first secretary of the Transcaucasian Communist Party Committee and was one of the most influential Soviet officials in the Caucasus. In 1930, Orakhelashvili joined the editorial board of the Communist Party newspaper ''

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...

''. In 1932, he was appointed a deputy director of the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute and authored several works on Communist Party history and Bolshevik activities in Transcaucasia and Georgia. His historic descriptions of the period in question did not particularly meet the

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

ist version of the events. During the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...

in 1937, he was arrested and executed. His wife Mariam Orakhelashvili, the Minister of Education of the

Georgian SSR The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (Georgian SSR; ka, საქართველოს საბჭოთა სოციალისტური რესპუბლიკა, tr; russian: Грузинская Советская Соц� ...

was tortured and shot in prison. Their daughter, Ketevan, was sent to a

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

camp, and her husband, the prominent conductor Evgeni Mikeladze, tortured to death.Knight, Amy W. (1993), ''Beria: Stalin's First Lieutenant'', p. 83.

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financia ...

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

. They were rehabilitated in 1955.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Orakhelashvili 1880s births 1937 deaths People from Kutaisi politicians from Kutaisi 20th-century politicians from Georgia (country) First Secretaries of the Georgian Communist Party Revolutionaries from Georgia (country) Great Purge victims from Georgia (country) Old Bolsheviks People from Kutais Governorate Heads of government of the Transcaucasian SFSR Soviet rehabilitations Pravda people S.M. Kirov Military Medical Academy alumni First Secretaries of the Communist Party of the Transcaucasian SFSR