How the Georgian Press Covered the Resignation

Irakli Gotsiridze, Was E. Shevardnadze’s Resignation Unexpected? 20 December 1990

Published in the Georgian SSR newspaper Sakartvelos Respublika in late December 1990, this commentary argues that Eduard Shevardnadze’s resignation was not a sudden outburst but a calculated alarm bell. The author treats the “approaching dictatorship” line as a diagnosis of power shifting back toward the security organs and hardline party functionaries. To make the point, the article recalls earlier warning signs and then stages a revealing exchange with Egor Ligachev about the KGB, “organized crime,” and the political direction of the USSR.

Original Georgian: მოულოდნელია თუ არა ე. შევარდნაძის გადადგომა? საქართველოს რესპუბლიკა (Sakartvelos Respublika), 20 Dec 1990, p. 3

(Editorial commentary)

For me, this resignation was not unexpected. And here is why.

I still have, and I have reread, Shevardnadze’s resignation letter—written a year earlier, on 25 December 1989. That document was not made public then, but the fact remained a fact: its author raised the question of leaving the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR and a member of the CPSU Central Committee Politburo. Why was such a step contemplated? Why was it not carried out at that time? And, more broadly, how could such an extraordinary act by one of the state’s most prominent representatives pass without consequences?

In answer to this, I will recall another moment. On 24 December 1989, at the Congress of People’s Deputies, when the question of the events of 9 April in Tbilisi was being discussed, Shevardnadze made statements connected with that topic. From the very beginning I opposed the main report of the Prosecutor’s office and its “co-report,” not out of personal dislike but because I saw there an attempt to blur responsibility. When the prosecutor—speaking as an accuser—took the floor, I went to the rostrum and, losing patience, said words to the effect that I could not remain in the hall and listen to that performance. I mention this because it helps explain Shevardnadze’s later behavior: this was not the first time he had chosen public protest when he believed the state was sliding toward coercion.

It would be a shallow interpretation to treat the Foreign Minister’s unusual step as mere emotion, or to reduce it to national temperament. Whatever his Georgian origins, Shevardnadze could not simply “act out” some emotional impulse. Yes, he may have made mistakes and may have been harsh in tone. But I do not think the logic of his act was emotional. What should not be overlooked is that, in several speeches and interviews, Shevardnadze stubbornly repeated the same thought: if the reforms fail, a dictatorship is possible. What is the basis for such fear from a person at the very top of the government? To that question he answered with the disturbing phrase that soon became famous: “A dictatorship is approaching.”

I will try to make the meaning of that phrase concrete with several facts.

Not long before, I met and spoke with Egor Ligachev. The meeting was initiated by me, but I quickly understood that Ligachev was pleased by the opportunity: he wanted once again to express his negative attitude toward the course being carried out by the Gorbachev–Shevardnadze tandem. Here is an excerpt of our conversation.

Question: A few days ago the chairman of the USSR Committee for State Security, Kryuchkov, stated that the KGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs are joining forces to fight organized crime. Do you think this is good for society?

Ligachev: I think it is good for society, because the Committee for State Security has a highly qualified apparatus, and involving such an apparatus in the struggle against organized crime is reasonable.

Question: But could this not be turned against society, as it was in the 1930s?

Ligachev: Here we are dealing not with politics but with ordinary criminal offenses.

Question: And how do we distinguish political offenses from criminal ones?

Ligachev: By appropriate laws.

In response, I read to Ligachev several lines from a draft law “On the USSR Committee for State Security,” which was being prepared for adoption by the USSR Supreme Soviet. It stated that the KGB would have the right, with prosecutorial authorization, to conduct surveillance of mail and telephone conversations, and at any time to enter citizens’ dwellings, and—at the request of internal affairs bodies and the prosecutor—to conduct certain “operational-technical measures” for the prevention and detection of crimes.

To this Ligachev replied: the law had not yet been adopted by the Supreme Soviet.

After that we spoke about the processes unfolding in Eastern Europe. Ligachev insisted, in essence, that we were being “assured” those developments were to our benefit, that they would supposedly help us more quickly build a “common European home.” But, he asked, why should that require the destruction of socialist systems in countries where they already existed? And why should the Soviet Union accept a course in which those states move “to the West” and build their lives on a capitalist foundation?

From there, the conversation moved to the future of the USSR itself: whether the Union should be preserved, in what form, and what political forces would defend it. Ligachev expressed confidence that the Union must and would remain strong, that a renewed state would once again become powerful.

For me, this exchange said a great deal. I became deeply convinced that this kind of party functionary spoke for precisely the forces that compelled Shevardnadze to utter his warning: “A dictatorship is approaching.” He had many reasons for saying it.

So what does Shevardnadze’s resignation mean, and what does it point toward? I think it is, first of all, evidence that the struggle is intensifying around the fate of perestroika, and that there are influential forces aiming to halt it—forces for whom the strengthening of the security organs, the narrowing of political life, and the restoration of “order” by administrative means are not accidental side-effects but the desired direction of travel.

That is why his resignation should be read not as a personal gesture but as a political signal: perestroika is again at risk, and preventing its reversal has become a task of the first importance.