Novaya Uda Balagansk frostbite Proletariatis Brdzola Filipp Makharadze Marxist internationalism Vladimir Lenin Bolsheviks Julius Martov Mensheviks Chiatura Siberia Bolshevik Georgia Batumi
Stalin left Batumi in October, arriving at the small Siberian town of Novaya Uda in late November 1903. There, he lived in a two-room peasant's house, sleeping in the building's larder. He made two escape attempts: On the first, he made it to Balagansk before returning due to frostbite. His second attempt, in January 1904, was successful and he made it to Tiflis. There, he co-edited a Georgian Marxist newspaper, Proletariatis Brdzola ("Proletarian Struggle"), with Filipp Makharadze. He called for the Georgian Marxist movement to split from its Russian counterpart, resulting in several RSDLP members accusing him of holding views contrary to the ethos of Marxist internationalism and calling for his expulsion from the party; he soon recanted his opinions. During his exile, the RSDLP had split between Vladimir Lenin's "Bolsheviks" and Julius Martov's "Mensheviks". Stalin detested many of the Mensheviks in Georgia and aligned himself with the Bolsheviks. Although he established a Bolshevik stronghold in the mining town of Chiatura, Bolshevism remained a minority force in the Menshevik-dominated Georgian revolutionary scene.
