Lado Ketskhoveli

Lado Ketskhoveli (; 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.

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.

He then showed Silibistro "Silva" Jibladze, a rather famous man who, in years past, had beaten up the rector of the Tiflis Seminary, to Stalin. Jibladze, Noe Jordania, and some others, had formed a group known as the Mesame Dasi, the "Third Group", in 1892. The group was a socialist party made up of Georgians. They had all come together in Tbilisi and taken over the newspaper known as Kvali, using it to spread revolutionary messages to the workers in the area. Stalin wished to help with the newspaper and went to the leader of the group, Jordania, to ask to do so. He was swiftly and rudely denied. Lado, disliking Jordania's attitude almost as much as Stalin, took Stalin to the Russian workers' circles that had been forming in Tbilisi. It was here, thanks to Lado, that Stalin would begin to become a true revolutionary.

Death and legacy Finally, in 1903, Lado was arrested in Baku and put in the Metekhi Fortress, a political prison run by the Tsars. While he was there, one day, he had begun yelling "Down with Autocracy" at the guards and, in return, one of them shot him in the heart. Afterwards, there was no ceremony at his burial, but both Dzhugashvili and Lado's younger brother spoke at his funeral. His brother said that Lado's last words were, "They will pay dearly for my death."

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.