Lado Ketskhoveli
Lado Ketskhoveli (Georgian: ლადო კეცხოველი; 14 January 1877, in Gori – 30 August 1903, in Tiflis) was a Georgian writer and revolutionary who was one of the first people to introduce Joseph Stalin to Marxism.[1][2] He was one of the few people that Stalin looked up to because of his "astonishing, outstanding talents" and a person whom Stalin called himself a "disciple" to.[3]
Biography
Early years
The son of a
Joining the Mesame Dasi
Afterwards, while Stalin was attending the Tiflis Seminary at an older age, Lado tried to enter the Kiev Seminary after having gotten himself and all 82 of the other students expelled from the Tiflis Seminary from their strike four years earlier. He was able to enter the Kiev Seminary, but quickly suspicion fell on him and he was arrested. Then he was let out again on police surveillance, but managed to get away from their watch and return to Tiflis, where he met up with Stalin once more.[2]
He then showed
Organizing worker strikes
During the latter part of 1899, Lado began organizing a full-scale strike by the workers in Tbilisi and he was eagerly assisted by Stalin. They began the strike on New Year's Day and Lado managed to bring the city to a grinding halt by having the train drivers join him in the strike. However, this was not just let go by the government, as the secret police had been watching their activities for a while. Stalin was arrested by them in January 1900 under the pretense that his father, Beso, had not been paying his taxes in his local village. But the revolutionary group was able to work together to raise the money for his bail. When he finally returned, both Lado and Stalin continued to work on organizing strikes.[3]
Later years
In January 1900, by decision of the leading group of the Tiflis organization of the Russian Social Democraitc Labour Party, Ketskhoveli went to Baku with the aim of uniting local social democratic circles and creating an underground printing house and became one of the founders of the Baku Committee of the RSDLP.
On May Day of 1900, Stalin began to organize a secret meeting of the revolutionaries, considering it was the day that labor usually demonstrated. However, even with his meticulous secrecy, he was found out and the secret police first came to Lado, but he managed to escape to Baku, leaving Stalin to take his place. No arrests came of the incident, though Stalin did become marked by the police as a leader of the group.[3]
In 1901, Lado began to work with
Death and legacy
Finally, in 1903, Lado was arrested in Baku and put in the
Because of the great respect and admiration that Stalin held for Lado, one of the few people he ever considered an equal, he had a collection of articles created in 1938 that were dedicated completely to Lado, including a paean made by Lavrentiy Beria. In addition, commemorative articles continued to be made by various newspapers from 1938 onward, until the end of the war, and, in 1953, a monograph was made to immortalize his exploits.[2]
In the town of
References
- ISBN 978-0-375-75771-6.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-521-85104-6.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4000-9613-8.
- ISBN 978-0-674-01697-2.
- ISBN 978-1-57607-208-0.
- ISBN 978-0-674-01902-7.
- ISBN 978-0-7146-8342-3.
- ^ "Report on the Village of Arali – Human Rights". humanrights.ge. Archived from the original on 3 September 2010. Retrieved 21 March 2010.