Nikolay Chkheidze

Chkheidze in June 1917

From 1907 to 1917, Chkheidze was a member of Tiflis Gubernyia in the Russian State Duma and gained popularity as a spokesman for the Menshevik faction within the Russian Social Democratic Party. He was an active member of the irregular freemasonic lodge, the Grand Orient of Russia’s Peoples.[3] In 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution, Chkheidze became Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. He failed to prevent the rise of Bolshevism and refused a post in the Russian Provisional Government. However, he did support its policies and advocated revolutionary oboronchestvo (defencism). He also voted to continue the war against the German Empire.[4][5]

In October 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia. At the time, Chkheidze was in Georgia. He remained in Georgia and on 23 February 1918, became leader of the Transcaucasian Federation in Tiflis. Some months later the federation was dissolved.[6]

On 26 May 1918, the Act of Independence of Georgia was adopted, Chkheidze was elected chairman of the National Council of Georgia: this Georgian Provisional Assembly decided to appoint a government, to prepare elections and to create a constitutional commission. In February 1919 he was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly of Georgia and on March 12 president of this assembly, but could not participate in its first session because he was located in Paris. Chairing the Georgian delegation to the Versailles Conference, he tried to gain the Entente's support for the Democratic Republic of Georgia. He also proposed to Georges Clemenceau and to David Lloyd George a French or British protectorate for Georgian foreign affairs and defense, but was unsuccessful.[7] Chkheidze, who had 14 years of parliamentary life experience, oversaw the writing of the Constitution by Razhden Arsenidze and 14 other MPs of the majority and the opposition.

In March 1921, when the Red Army invaded Georgia, Chkheidze fled with his family to France via Constantinople.[8] In 1923 and 1924, as part of the Social Democratic Labour Party of Georgia in exile, Chkheidze opposed a national uprising in Georgia. Chkheidze, Irakly Tsereteli, Datiko Sharashidze, and Kale Kavtaradze formed a group called Oppozitsia. In their mind, the Red Army and Cheka were too strong, and the unarmed Georgian people too weak. After the August Uprising of 1924, 10,000 Georgians were executed, and between 50,000 and 100,000 Georgians were deported to Siberia or to Central Asia.