In 1920 he led a delegation of the Chiatura Manganese Exporting Society in Europe. He was still abroad, when the short-lived Georgian independence was terminated by the Soviet Russia's military invasion in 1921.
Soon after the 1917 February Revolution in Russia, Nikoladze allied himself with more radical Georgian intelligentsia, supporting Georgia's full independence from Russia. He was elected an honorary chairman of the National Democratic Party of Georgia.