Moscow Condemns Corruption and “Nationalist Drift” in Georgia

Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, On the Organizational and Political Work of the Tbilisi City Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia in Carrying Out the Decisions of the 24th Congress of the CPSU. February 22, 1972

Issued in February 1972, only weeks before the fall of Georgian party leader Vasil Mzhavanadze and the rise of Eduard Shevardnadze, this decree signaled Moscow’s growing alarm over corruption, patronage, economic stagnation, and weak ideological discipline in Soviet Georgia. The language of “private-property tendencies,” bribery, “localism,” and failures of “internationalist education” reflected broader anxieties within the late Soviet leadership about the persistence of informal networks and republican particularism beneath the façade of socialist order. Although formally directed at the Tbilisi city party organization, the resolution amounted to a sweeping indictment of the political culture that had developed under Mzhavanadze’s rule. It also foreshadowed the anti-corruption and disciplinary campaigns that would soon redefine Georgian politics under Shevardnadze. Read today, the document offers a rare and unusually candid view into how the central Soviet leadership understood the intertwined problems of nationalism, corruption, economic inefficiency, and ideological drift in one of the USSR’s most politically distinctive republics.

Original Source: ЦПА ИМЛ, ф. 17, оп. 59, д. 413, л. 46-55. Публикация в изложении: Правда, 1972, 6 марта, № 166.

Having heard the report of Comrade O. I. Lolashvili, First Secretary of the Tbilisi City Party Committee, the CPSU Central Committee notes that the city party organization is carrying out substantial work to mobilize communists and all working people in implementing the decisions of the 24th Congress of the CPSU.

The city committee, district committees, and primary party organizations have developed and are carrying out practical measures to improve further the leadership of the economy, develop the creative initiative of the masses, strengthen ideological and educational work, and activate all aspects of inner-party life. Under the leadership of party organizations, labor collectives have launched socialist competition for the early fulfillment of the tasks of the Ninth Five-Year Plan. The city’s industry successfully completed the 1971 plan for overall production and sales volume; production of new types of machinery, equipment, and consumer goods has been mastered. Scientific research and design institutions have carried out a number of developments of great significance for accelerating technological progress. Workers in creative organizations are making their contribution to the development of Soviet literature and art.

As a result of the comprehensive assistance of the Party and government and the selfless labor of workers and the intelligentsia, the capital of Soviet Georgia, Tbilisi, is developing as one of the country’s major industrial, scientific, cultural, and administrative centers. The city is growing rapidly and improving, the living standards of working people are rising, and conditions of labor, daily life, and recreation are improving.

At the same time, however, the CPSU Central Committee considers that the level of organizational and political work carried out by the Tbilisi City Committee and its leadership of economic and cultural construction does not yet fully correspond to the requirements of the 24th Congress or to the tasks facing the city party organization.

The city committee does not sufficiently take into account the specific character of leading a capital-city party organization and does not always keep the most important areas of work in view, including matters significant not only for the city but for the republic as a whole. In political and organizational work, the party organization does not properly utilize all the opportunities available in a republican center: the presence of a large working class, scientific and technical and creative intelligentsia, highly qualified and experienced cadres, a developed industrial base, and an extensive network of cultural institutions. In a number of cases, behind generally favorable indicators, the city committee fails to notice serious shortcomings and does not take the necessary measures to eliminate them. It devotes insufficient attention to organizing and checking implementation of party and government directives.

The city committee, district committees, and primary party organizations do too little to raise the responsibility of economic administrators and labor collectives for the timely fulfillment of state plans by every enterprise and construction project and for developing and implementing concrete measures to increase production efficiency. The city’s industry is failing to fulfill assignments for the production of electrical automation equipment, footwear, silk fabrics, knitwear, and outer garments. In 1971, every fourth enterprise reduced the volume of marketed production, and labor productivity declined compared with the previous year. At many enterprises, the technical level of production is improving too slowly, productive capacity is not fully utilized, returns on fixed assets are declining, and insufficient attention is paid to improving product quality. In the previous year, trade organizations rejected, downgraded, or returned for reworking up to 20 percent of inspected locally produced goods.

The CPSU Central Committee considers it unacceptable that plans for capital construction are systematically unfulfilled in the city. During the Eighth Five-Year Plan, approximately 650,000 square meters of housing were not completed, amounting to more than one and a half annual plans. In 1971, the housing construction target was again not met. Residential buildings and industrial and cultural facilities are often delivered with serious defects. Construction of the new water supply system and treatment facilities has dragged on, negatively affecting the city’s sanitary conditions.

Party and Soviet organs are not displaying sufficient persistence and exactingness in eliminating serious shortcomings in trade, public catering, and consumer services, especially in new residential districts. Modern methods of customer service are poorly implemented in Tbilisi, and there is an insufficient network of cafeterias and buffets at industrial enterprises, construction sites, and educational institutions. Despite considerable opportunities, uninterrupted state trade in fresh vegetables and fruits has not been established. Public demand for apartment repairs, repair of household appliances and footwear, laundry services, and dry cleaning is far from fully satisfied. Working people express complaints about the work of medical institutions.

Within the city party organization, the directives of the 24th Congress regarding work with cadres are not consistently implemented. Party requirements that the chief criteria in evaluating personnel should be political maturity, qualifications, moral character, and the ability to lead the masses under contemporary conditions are not always observed. In personnel matters, unprincipled behavior and liberalism are sometimes permitted, and the opinion of the collective or party organization is ignored. As a result, weak workers who are incapable of organizing work effectively sometimes attain responsible posts. The city committee has failed to achieve the proper combination of trust and respect for cadres with strict demands upon them and shows undue tolerance toward individual leaders who perform their duties poorly, permit bureaucratic behavior, and display contemptuous attitudes toward the needs and concerns of working people.

The city committee and district committees devote insufficient attention to improving the activity of primary party organizations and strengthening their influence on enterprises and institutions. In many primary party organizations, effective measures are not taken to raise the activity and initiative of communists or to develop criticism and self-criticism. The Tbilisi City Committee pays insufficient attention to the work of party organizations in republican ministries and departments in improving administrative activity and educating cadres. Party committees provide little assistance to primary organizations in scientific research institutes, design organizations, engineering bureaus, educational institutions, cultural and educational establishments, medical institutions, and other organizations in exercising the right granted by the 24th Congress to supervise administrative activity.

Serious shortcomings exist in propaganda and mass-political work. Such work is weakly connected with life and with the solution of the concrete tasks facing the city party organization and labor collectives. Insufficient attention is devoted to educating workers in a conscious attitude toward labor and socialist property. The press, radio, and television do not speak actively enough on ideological questions and moral education.

The CPSU Central Committee notes that the city party organization conducts an inadequate struggle against such phenomena alien to Soviet society as theft of state property, speculation, bribery, and parasitism. Communists, Komsomol members, the public at large, and administrative organs have not genuinely been mobilized to overcome these problems.

In a number of party organizations, insufficient attention is devoted to the internationalist education of workers, especially the intelligentsia and youth…

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The CPSU Central Committee resolves:

1   To oblige the Tbilisi City Committee to eliminate the shortcomings noted in the present resolution and ensure the further strengthening of the organizational and political work of the city party organization in carrying out the decisions of the 24th Congress of the CPSU.
2   To oblige the city committee, district committees, and primary party organizations to develop fully the labor and political activity of the masses, improve the organization and effectiveness of socialist competition, and raise the responsibility of leading and engineering-technical workers for fulfilling planned assignments at every enterprise, workshop, section, and brigade.
3   To regard the radical improvement of capital construction as an urgent task of the city party organization and to take the necessary measures to eliminate lagging construction of industrial capacity, housing, municipal enterprises, trade, and cultural facilities.
4   To direct special attention to improving trade, public catering, communal and domestic services, and medical care for the population.
5   To raise the level of leadership over scientific research institutes, educational institutions, and cultural establishments; to strengthen scientific work and improve educational and ideological activity.
6   To improve ideological work, propagandize the decisions of the 24th Congress and the November 1971 CPSU Central Committee Plenum, and educate workers in the spirit of Soviet patriotism and socialist internationalism. The party organizations are instructed to combat all manifestations of nationalism and chauvinism and, in preparation for the fiftieth anniversary of the USSR, to emphasize the triumph of Leninist nationality policy and the historic significance of the union of the Soviet republics into a single multinational socialist state.
7   To demand effective measures against theft of socialist property, bribery, speculation, parasitism, and abuses in trade and consumer services and to intensify political work aimed at overcoming private-property attitudes and other negative phenomena.
8   To ensure strict observance of Leninist principles in the selection and placement of cadres and to raise the personal responsibility of leading officials at all levels.
9   To regard the observance of Leninist norms of party life, the development of inner-party democracy, and principled criticism and self-criticism as among the most important tasks of the city party organization.
10  To improve leadership over mass organizations of working people, strengthen the role of Soviets, trade unions, and Komsomol organizations, and increase their participation in economic management, socialist competition, and communist education of youth.