In 2014, the president of Georgia died, and during the times of the USSR, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was 86 years old, and his name was Eduard Shevarnadze. This person will be discussed below.
Komsomol
Eduard Shevardnadze, whose photo is located in the article, was born in 1928. It happened in Georgia, in the village of Mamati. The family in which Eduard Shevardnadze was born was large and not very rich. His father worked at school as a teacher of Russian language and literature, and Edik himself worked as a postman from the age of ten.
During the fierce repressions of 1937, Edward's father escaped arrest, hiding from the NKVD. One of the employees of the People’s Commissariat, who had previously studied with him, saved his life. Edward himself entered the medical college, which he graduated with honors. But he sacrificed his medical practice as a political career, which he began with as the freed secretary of the Komsomol. His career developed rapidly, and at 25 he became the first secretary of the Kutaisi city committee of the Komsomol.
Later, he was noticed after the reaction of Georgian youth to the report of Khrushchev at the XX Party Congress. Tbilisi activists aggressively protested the initiative to debunk the Stalin personality cult. As a result, troops were brought into the city and force was used, 21 people were victims. Kutaisi remained aloof from the riots. It is impossible to say exactly what role Eduard Shevardnadze played in this, but he was promoted. And a year later, he already headed the Komsomol throughout the entire Georgian Republic.
Anti-corruption activities
From the post of Secretary Shevardnadze Eduard Amvrosievich was transferred in 1968 to the post of Republican Minister of Internal Affairs. On the one hand, it was a promotion, but rather specific. There were unwritten rules in the administrative apparatus of the Soviet regime, according to which the occupation of a general post in the police was the final stage of a career, because they had never been transferred back to politics. Thus, this place was a dead end in terms of career development. But Shevardnadze Eduard Amvrosievich, whose biography is full of interesting twists, managed to get out of this situation.
The fact is that the Soviet Caucasus was a very corrupt region and stood out from this point against the background of the rest, also far from ideal, of the Union. The anti-corruption campaign unleashed by the Kremlin needed trusted people who did not tarnish their reputation. And Shevardnadze had just such a reputation, as was reported to Brezhnev. As a result, he was sent for an internship as the first secretary of the Tbilisi City Committee. And a year later, in 1972, he headed the republic. However, only four years later he received membership in the Central Committee of the CPSU, which was due to him on duty. The result of the first anti-corruption five-year plan of Shevardnadze was the dismissal of about forty thousand people. Convicted by law, while it was 75% - about thirty thousand.
Eduard Shevardnadze’s methods of combating bribery were retained by his biography due to the wide resonance that they had in society. For example, at a meeting of the Georgian Central Committee, he asked the assembled officials to demonstrate their watches. As a result, with the exception of the newly appointed first secretary with his modest "Glory, " everyone had the prestigious and expensive Seiko. Another time, he banned the operation of a taxi, but still it was full of cars on the street with characteristic signs. This is worth noting because, unlike the present, private carriage was classified as unearned income and condemned.
However, he did not succeed in completely eliminating bribery from the control apparatus. Among the reviews of this period there are also those who call all his activities window dressing, as a result of which some thieves in law took the place of others.
Political flexibility
Shevardnadze Eduard Amvrosievich gained particular popularity among the population of the republic in 1978, and the reason for this was the political conflict over the official language. The situation was such that only three republics in the USSR had their national dialects as official state languages. Georgia was among them. In all other regions of the Soviet Union, the concept of the state language was not spelled out in the Constitution. In the course of the adoption of a new version of the Constitution, they decided to remove this feature and apply general practice to all republics. However, this proposal did not appeal to local citizens, and they gathered at the government building with peaceful protest. Eduard Shevardnadze immediately contacted Moscow and personally convinced Brezhnev that this decision should be postponed. He did not follow the path customary for the Soviet authorities to please the Party. Instead, the leader of the republic went to the people and publicly said: "Everything will be the way you want." This repeatedly increased his rating and added weight in the eyes of citizens.
At the same time, however, he promised to the last fight with ideological enemies. For example, he said that the capitalist pigsty would clean it to the bone. Very flattering Eduard Shevardnadze spoke about Moscow politics and personally about Comrade Brezhnev. His flattering crossed all conceivable limits even under the conditions of the Soviet regime. Shevardnadze spoke positively of the entry of Soviet military units into Afghanistan, insisting that this was the "only true" step. This and much more led to the fact that the opposition of the Georgian leader often reproached him for insincerity and deceit. As a matter of fact, these same claims remain relevant today, even after Eduard Amvrosievich suffered death. During his lifetime, Shevardnadze answered them evasively, explaining that he supposedly did not serve the Kremlin, but tried to create conditions in order to better serve the interests of the people.
It is interesting to note such a fact as a critical attitude towards Stalin and the Stalinist regime, which Eduard Shevardnadze broadcast in his policy. 1984, for example, is the year of the premiere of the movie "Repentance" by Tengiz Abuladze. This film produced a noticeable resonance in society, because in it Stalinism is subjected to sharp condemnation. And this picture came out thanks to the personal efforts of Shevardnadze.
Gorbachev's assistant
The friendship between Shevardnadze and Gorbachev began when the latter was the first secretary of the Stavropol Territorial Party Committee. According to the recollections of both, they talked quite frankly, and in one of these conversations Shevardnadze said that "everything is rotten, everything needs to be changed." Less than three months later, Gorbachev headed the Soviet Union and immediately invited Eduard Amvrosievich to his place with a proposal to take him the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. The latter agreed, and so instead of the former Shevardnadze — the leader of Georgia, Shevardnadze — the USSR Minister of Foreign Affairs — appeared. This appointment made a splash not only in the country, but throughout the world. Firstly, Eduard Amvrosievich did not speak a single foreign language. And secondly, he did not have any foreign policy experience. However, for Gorbachev’s goals, he was ideally suited because he met the requirements of “new thinking” in the field of politics and diplomacy. As a diplomat, he was unconventional for a Soviet politician: he joked, maintained a fairly laid-back atmosphere, and allowed himself some liberties.
However, he miscalculated with his own team, deciding to leave all the employees of the ministry in their places. Shevardnadze neglected the personnel reshuffle, as a result of which the old team split into two parts. One of them supported the new boss and was delighted with his style, manners, memory and professional qualities. The other, on the contrary, stood in opposition and called everything that the new Foreign Minister does, stupidity, and himself Kutaisi Komsomol.
Especially the military disliked Shevardnadze. The Foreign Minister, to their obvious displeasure, argued that the greatest danger to Soviet citizens was the poverty of the population and the technological superiority of competing states, not American missiles and planes. The military is not used to this attitude. Always getting everything they needed under the regime of Brezhnev and Andropov, officials from the Ministry of Defense came to an open confrontation with Shevardnadze, openly cursing and criticizing him hard at various events. For example, during the disarmament talks, Mikhail Moiseev, chief of the general staff, told representatives of the United States that, unlike the "eccentric" Soviet diplomats, they have normal ones.
When Soviet troops were withdrawn from Eastern Europe, hatred of the Foreign Minister intensified, since service within Germany or Czechoslovakia was a cherished goal for many. In the end, the meeting of the leaders of the Ministry of Defense demanded that the government put Gorbachev on trial. Subsequently, many experts claimed that the Kremlin’s harsh policy in the Caucasus in the 1990s was caused by a personal hostility of the Russian military to Shevardnadze. In addition, many zealots of the Soviet system of values were extremely annoyed by the position of Eduard Amvrosievich with regard to Western countries, which suggested that they see not partners and competitors, but partners. Even Gorbachev himself, being under the onslaught of the dissatisfied, was seriously thinking about changing his minister.
Discord with Gorbachev
Gorbachev's radical changes were poorly received by the Soviet nomenclature. Active democratization of society and economic reforms, as well as a policy of publicity, were met with desperate resistance. Ultra-Orthodox communists blamed Shevardnadze for almost everything that happened in the camp of the bad. The second half of the 80s was marked by a crack that appeared in relations between the leader of the USSR Gorbachev and the Foreign Minister. The result of this was the voluntary resignation of the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1990. Moreover, Eduard Amvrosievich did not coordinate his demarche with anyone. As a result, diplomats from around the world were in a panic, as was Gorbachev himself, who had to apologize and make excuses for the actions of his former ally, who was Eduard Shevardnadze. His biography, however, includes a second attempt to take the place of the head of the Foreign Ministry.
Return to the post of Foreign Minister
As far as we know, the decision to return to the post of head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not easy for Shevardnadze. With a proposal to do this, Gorbachev turned to him immediately after the coup. However, Edward's first reaction was failure. Nevertheless, when the collapse of the USSR became a very real threat, he nevertheless agreed to give his help. When the White House was attacked in August 1991, Shevardnadze was among his defenders. His presence there was very beneficial to Gorbachev, because he told the whole world - both the Soviet nomenclature and the West - that everything was returning to its place, and the consequences of the putsch were a thing of the past. Many people believed that Shevardnadze was not interested in the USSR, but exclusively in Georgia. Shevardnadze allegedly wanted and tried in every possible way to achieve the collapse of the Union in order to make the republic an independent state from the Kremlin. However, this is not so - until the very last he tried to prevent the collapse of the USSR and made every effort for this. For example, having refused to travel abroad, he spent time in visits to the capital of the republics. He realized that sovereign Russia, headed by Boris Yeltsin, would not become his home and there he would not be offered any position. But his efforts were unsuccessful. In general, his second attempt to take his former place lasted only three weeks.
Sovereign Georgia Leadership
The collapse of the USSR for the former minister of 63 years meant the prospect of a calm and carefree life anywhere in the world. But instead, at the suggestion of the Georgian government apparatus, he decided to head sovereign Georgia. It happened in 1992, after the overthrow of Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Contemporaries often compared his return to his homeland with an episode of the Varangians calling to Russia. The desire to put the republic’s internal affairs in order played an important role in its decision. But he failed to fulfill this task: Georgian society was not fully consolidated. His world authority did not help him, and, among other things, armed criminal leaders showed serious resistance. After taking the post of head of Georgia, Shevardnadze had to deal with the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia that were provoked by his predecessor. Under the influence of the military, as well as public opinion, he agreed in 1992 to send troops to these territories.
Presidency
Shevardnadze won the presidential election twice - in 1995 and 2000. They differed by a significant margin, but he still did not become a universally recognized national hero. He was often criticized for economic instability, for weakness in relation to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as for the corruption of the state apparatus. Twice he was assassinated. For the first time, in 1995, he was injured by a bomb explosion. Three years later, they tried to kill him again. However, this time the president’s motorcade was fired from machine guns and a grenade launcher. The head of state was saved only thanks to the armored car. About who committed these attempts, it is not known. In the first case, the main suspect is Igor Giorgadze, the former head of the Georgian security service. He himself, however, denies his involvement in the organization of the assassination attempt and is hiding in Russia. But regarding the second episode at various times, there were versions that it was organized by Chechen fighters, local bandits, opposition politicians and even the Russian GRU.
Resignation
In November 2003, as a result of parliamentary elections, the victory of Shevardnadze’s supporters was announced. However, opposition politicians announced falsification of election results, which provoked mass unrest. In history, this event was captured as the Rose Revolution. As a result of these events, Shevardnadze accepted the resignation. The new government granted him a pension, and he went to live his life in his own residence in Tbilisi.
