Irakli Tsereteli

Who was Irakli Tsereteli?

Irakli Tsereteli was a Georgian politician, one of the leaders of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party and later the Georgian Mensheviks.

Irakli Tsereteli was born in Kutaisi in the family of a radical writer Giorgi Tsereteli, of the noble family of Tsereteli, and Olympiada Nikoladze, sister of the journalist Niko Nikoladze. He studied law at Moscow University where he became involved in student protests. After taking part in a student demonstration in 1902 he was briefly exiled to Siberia. On his release from prison Tsereteli joined the Social Democratic Labour Party and at the party's 1903 congress in London sided with Julius Martov against Vladimir Lenin. By becoming a Menshevik, opposed to Lenin's Bolsheviks. Tsereteli became editor of the pro-Menshevik publication 'Kvali, but decided to move to Germany to escape increasing harassment from the authorities. He returned to Russia during the 1905 Revolution and was elected to the second Duma, emerging as a leading Menshevik. On the dissolution of the Duma, Tsereteli was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and then exiled in 1913 to Irkutsk; there he became the leader of a circle of moderate Internationalists called the “Siberian Zimmerwaldists.”