Noi Zhordania,
the son of a small landowner, was born in Guria in 1870. He attended
the Tiflis Seminary and the Warsaw Veterinary Institute.
Converted
to Marxism Zhordania he established the Mesame
Dasi group in Georgia. Threatened with arrest he left the
country and became editor if the radical journal, Kvali
that supported the Social Democratic Labour
Party.
At the
Second Congress of the Social Democratic Labour
Party in London in 1903, there was
a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius
Martov, two of the party's main leaders. Lenin argued for a small
party of professional revolutionaries with alarge fringe of non-party
sympathisers and supporters. Martov disagreed believing it was better
to have a large party of activists. Martov won the vote 28-23 but
Lenin was unwilling to accept the result and formed a faction known
as the Bolsheviks. Those who remained
loyal to Martov became known as Mensheviks.
Zhordania
joined George Plekhanov, Pavel
Axelrod, Leon Trotsky, Lev
Deich, Vladimir
Antonov-Ovseenko,
Irakli Tsereteli, Moisei
Uritsky and Fedor Dan and supported Julius
Martov.
On his
return to Russia he published the Sotsial
Demokratia in Georgia. In this role he successfully persuaded
the Social Democratic Labour Party in Georgia
to support the Mensheviks.
In 1914
Zhordania worked with Leon Trotsky on
the journal Borba (The Struggle).
After the February Revolution he was elected
chairman of the Tiflis Soviet. In June,
1918 he became head of the new Georgian government. However, he was
forced out of power by the invasion of Georgia by the Red
Army in February, 1921.
Zhordania
went to live in exile in Paris. Noi Zhordania died in France
in 1953.
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
