Grigory Ordzhonikidze was born into a family of impoverished nobles in Georgia.  He graduated from a paramedic school (1905). Since 1903, Ordzhonikidze was a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), a Bolshevik. His party pseudonym was Sergo. In 1905–1907, he participated in the revolutionary movement in Transcaucasia, was repeatedly arrested, kept in prisons in Baku and Sukhum, was exiled to Siberia, and fled. Ordzhonikidze participated in the Iranian Revolution of 1905–1911. He studied at the Leninist Party school in Longjumeau (France), then returned to Russia. 1912 saw him elected to the Central Committee and the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. During the February Revolution of 1917, he was in exile in Yakutsk.

In June–August 1917, he was a member of the Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP(b) and the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. In September – October, he conducted revolutionary work in the Transcaucasus.  Then he returned to Petrograd, where he took an active part in the October coup of 1917. He took part in battles against the troops of Aleksander Kerensky—Pyotr Krasnov. In December 1917, he was appointed temporary Extraordinary Commissar of the region of Ukraine, the authorized auditor of the People’s Commissariat for Food Supply in the south of the country. In April 1918, he was appointed temporary Extraordinary Commissar of the Southern Region. He was an organizer of the Don, Kuban-Black Sea, and North Caucasian Soviet Republics.

His subsequent career included the following posts: Chairman of the Defense Council of the North Caucasus (December 1918 to June 1919),  a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 16th Army of the Western Front, the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (in 1919), and then the Revolutionary Military Council of the 14th Army of the Southern Front. Ordzhonikidze participated in the defeat of Anton Denikin’s troops.

Since January 1920, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Caucasian Front, in February, Chairman of the Bureau for the Restoration of Soviet Power in the North Caucasus. In 1921–1922, Head of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) – RCP(b), an organizer of the Transcaucasian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic. In 1922–1926, 1st Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the Party, then 1st secretary of the North Caucasian regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks.

After the Civil War, he held high government posts: since 1921, a member of the Central Committee of the RСP(b), since July 1926, a candidate member of the Politburo, since December 1930, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, since November 1930, Chairman of the Supreme Board of the National Economy (VSNKh), and then People’s Commissar of Heavy Industry. Ordzhonikidze died on February 18, 1937. The official cause of death was a heart attack (versions of suicide or murder were put forward). He was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.