 He was elected to the Fourth State Duma where he advocated self-determination for the peoples of Russia.After the February Revolution of 1917, he worked for the Special Transcaucasian Committee as a Commissar for Internal Affairs and was elected, in June 1917, a member of All-Russian Central Executive Committee.In March 1918 he led a delegation to Trabzon to negotiate with the Ottoman Empire over territory that had been ceded in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, namely Batumi; as Georgia had not been consulted, they were not willing to give up land.