 Although the émigrés experienced a permanent shortage of money, Zhordania's government maintained close contacts with the still popular Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party and other anti-Soviet organizations in Georgia, and thus constituted a standing nuisance to the Soviet authorities.The NGG encouraged and helped the Committee for Independence of Georgia, an inter-party bloc in Georgia, in its struggle against the Bolshevik regime, which culminated in the 1924 August Uprising.Prior to the revolt, Noe Khomeriki, the Minister of Agriculture in exile, Benia Chkhikvishvili, the former mayor of Tbilisi, and Valiko Jugheli, the former commander of the People’s Guard, secretly returned to Georgia, but were arrested and shortly thereafter executed by the Soviet secret police, the Cheka.