Mikhail Grigoryevich Tskhakaya (1865 – 1950), a.k.a. Barsov, was a Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

n communist. Barsov was a senior leader in the Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

 movement in Georgia, having been active in revolutionary politics since 1880. In 1892 he helped found Mesame Dasy (third group), the first Georgian Socialist party. When the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party , also known as Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party or Russian Social Democratic Party, was a revolutionary socialist Russian political party formed in 1898 in Minsk to unite the various revolutionary organizations into one party...

 was founded, he joined it. He saved the young Joseph Stalin from expulsion for Georgian nationalism in 1904. However, he made him write a credo renouncing his views and attend a series of lectures by him on Marxism. Despite this, they remained friends. In July 1906 Tskhakaya was Stalin's witness at his wedding to Ekaterina Dzhugashvili. On September 9 Tskhakaya and Stalin were among just six Bolsheviks at the Social Democratic conference in Tbilisi

Tbilisi

Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

 (the other 36 were Mensheviks

Menshevik

The Mensheviks were a faction of the Russian revolutionary movement that emerged in 1904 after a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, both members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The dispute originated at the Second Congress of that party, ostensibly over minor issues...

). They shared a room at the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

The 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was held in London between May 13 and June 1, 1907. The congress was the largest in attendance of the congresses of the unified RSDLP. Thirty-five session of the congress were held in the Brotherhood Church in Hackney, during which...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. Neither were allowed to vote owing to Bolshevism's weakness in Georgia. In 1907, after a series of arrests and deportations, he went into exile in Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 where he visited Lenin in Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

. He returned to Russia in 1917, alongside Lenin on the famous sealed train. From that point onwards, he was an influential leader of the Georgian Communist Party.