Sergo Ordzhonikidze, a Bolshevik commissar with the Red Army in the Caucasus and close ally of Joseph Stalin, tried to persuade the Russian leader Lenin to allow an advance into Georgia. On May 1, the Georgian government ordered mobilization and appointed General Giorgi Kvinitadze, Director of the Tiflis Military College, as commander-in-chief. The Bolsheviks in Georgia, fully confident that the Red Army would continue its march into Georgia, no longer hesitated.