Ordzhonikidze, Grigori Konstantinovich (1886–1937)

Georgian communist. He became chair of the Central Control Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and deputy head of the government in 1926, chair of the Supreme Council of National Economy and a Politburo member in 1930, and commissar for heavy industry in 1932. He was one of Stalin's chief lieutenants, but died in mysterious circumstances during the Great Purge of 1936–38.

Ordzhonikidze joined the Bolsheviks in 1903 and in 1912 became a member of their Central Committee. He spent several years in prison and banishment. After the October Revolution in 1917 he was extraordinary commissar of the Soviet government in southern Russia. In 1920 he became the head of the party in the Caucasus and in 1921 head of the party in Transcaucasia.