Shalva Eliava

Born Sept. 18 (30), 1883, in the village of Ganiri, Kutaisi Province; died Dec. 3, 1937. Soviet state and party figure. Member of the Communist Party from 1904.

The son of an impoverished dvorianin (nobleman), Eliava entered the University of St. Petersburg in 1903 and joined the revolutionary movement. He took part in the Revolution of 1905–07 in Tbilisi and Kutaisi, and in 1911 he was exiled to Olonets Province. In 1913 he conducted party work in St. Petersburg, and he contributed to the newspaper Pravda. In 1915 he was exiled to Vologda.

In 1917, Eliava served as chairman of the presidium of the Vologda provincial executive committee, and in 1918 he became chairman of the provincial foodstuffs committee. In December 1918 he began working in Moscow. In 1919 and 1920 he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the First Army of the Eastern Front, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkestan Front, and chairman of the Turkestan Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of RSFSR. In 1920, Eliava served as plenipotentiary of the RSFSR in Turkey and Persia. Between 1921 and 1930 he was a member of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP(B), a member of the Transcaucasian Krai Committee of the RCP(B), people’s commissar of the navy of the Georgian SSR, and chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of Georgia. From 1927 to 1930, Eliava served as chairman of the Transcaucasian Federation. In 1931 he became deputy people’s commissar of foreign trade of the USSR, and in 1936 he was named deputy people’s commissar of light industry of the USSR.

Eliava was a delegate to the Twelfth through Seventeenth Party Congresses, and at the Fifteenth through Seventeenth Congresses he was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the ACP(B). He was a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. Eliava was awarded three orders.