Today marks the ninety years since the birth of Eduard Shevardnadze, a politician who played a significant role in the history of both the late Soviet Union and post-Soviet Georgia. Eduard Amvrosievich Shevardnadze was born on January 25, 1928 in the village of Mamati, Lanchkhut region, in the historical region of Guria in Georgia. The personality of this politician and the consequences of his actions in the post of both the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR and the President of Georgia cause controversial assessments. About the dead, or good, or nothing but the truth. But we will not discuss Shevardnadze's personality as a person, we will focus on his policy, the consequences of which are still "alive".
For some reason, for a long time in many Russian media, Shevardnadze was portrayed as an exceptionally wise politician, a born diplomat, such a political “aksakal”. However, if you look at the list of "merits" of Eduard Amvrosievich, then you understand that even if he had some kind of political wisdom, it was clearly not working for the good of the Soviet state. And after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to which Eduard Shevardnadze also had a hand, already in the status of the president of sovereign Georgia, the former Soviet foreign minister was far from being a friend of Russia. Instantly "changing shoes", yesterday's representative of the Soviet party nomenklatura, general of the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR calmly reoriented to cooperation with the United States.
Who knows how the fate of Eduard Amvrosievich would have developed if he had chosen a different life path for himself in his youth. He graduated with honors from the Tbilisi Medical College and could have entered a medical school without exams. Perhaps he would have become an excellent doctor, like many of his fellow countrymen, he would have treated people and, ninety years after his birth, he would have been remembered with exceptional gratitude. But, after graduating from college, Shevardnadze went along the Komsomol, and then the party line. This predetermined his future destiny, and Edward's career in the party was very successful.
At the age of 18, he took the position of an instructor in the personnel department of the Ordzhonikidze district committee of the Komsomol of Tbilisi and then went exclusively along the Komsomol line. By that time Shevardnadze had neither experience in production, nor service in the army, nor even work as a teacher, paramedic or newspaper correspondent. Professional apparatchik. In 1952, 24-year-old Eduard became secretary of the Kutaisi regional committee of the Komsomol of the Georgian SSR, and in 1953 - the first secretary of the Kutaisi regional committee of the Komsomol of the Georgian SSR. Naturally, such a successful career in the Komsomol gave great chances to continue a career already in party structures. In 1957-1961. Eduard Shevardnadze was the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Young Communist League of the Georgian SSR. It was at this time that he met another Komsomol functionary - Mikhail Gorbachev, who in 1958 participated in the XIII Congress of the Komsomol as the second secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the Komsomol.
In 1961, when Eduard was 33 years old, he switched from Komsomol to party work - he headed the Mtskheta district committee of the Communist Party of the Georgian SSR. Then a dizzying career began. The path from the first secretary of the district committee to the republican minister took him only 4 years. In 1963-1964. Shevardnadze headed the Pervomaisky District Committee of the Communist Party of the Georgian SSR in Tbilisi, and in 1964 was appointed First Deputy Minister of Public Order of Georgia. Then it was a very common practice to send party officials to "strengthen" the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB. Yesterday's Komsomol member Shevardnadze, who had been engaged exclusively in apparatus work since the age of 18, ended up in a general's position at 36 without the slightest experience of work in law enforcement agencies and even without serving in the army. The following year, 1965, he was appointed Minister of Public Order (from 1968 - Internal Affairs) of the Georgian SSR and received the rank of Major General of the Internal Service. Shevardnadze led the Georgian police for seven years - until 1972.
In 1972, after a very brief leadership of the Tbilisi City Committee of the Communist Party of the Georgian SSR, Eduard Shevardnadze was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. In this position, he replaced Vasily Mzhavanadze, who was accused of corruption and encouraging the activities of shop workers. Eduard Shevardnadze promised to restore order and deal with violations of socialist legality. He carried out a massive purge in the party and state apparatus of the republic, replacing the old leading cadres with young intellectuals and technocrats. However, it was during the years of his leadership of the Georgian SSR - in the 1970s - 1980s, that the republic finally secured the glory of one of the most corrupt in the Union, living by "special rules" that have nothing to do with Soviet laws. And the "cleansing" of the leadership could be a classic preparation for the subsequent flowering of nationalism.
In 1985, Eduard Shevardnadze was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR. Mikhail Gorbachev needed a reliable person in this post, who would share his aspirations to liberalize the political, including internationally, course. Therefore, the choice fell on Shevardnadze, who, by the way, had no experience of diplomatic work and even spoke in the state language of the USSR, not to mention foreign languages, until the end of his life he spoke with a strong accent.
It was in the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR that Eduard Shevardnadze, by his activities, inflicted maximum damage on the Soviet state. In fact, together with his “patron” Mikhail Gorbachev, Shevardnadze is directly responsible for the events that led to the final weakening and disintegration of the Soviet state. It was Eduard Shevardnadze who, with his extreme compliance, led to a rapid surrender of positions in foreign policy, having managed to completely destroy the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe in five years, and prepare the conditions for the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops from the countries of Eastern Europe.
In 1987, Eduard Shevardnadze signed the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, which was to enter into force in 1991. As a result of the Treaty, the Soviet Union destroyed 2.5 times more carriers and 3.5 times more warheads than the United States. The Oka missile (SS-23), which had been created for many years by entire teams of Soviet scientists and engineers, was also destroyed, although the United States did not ask for it. It turns out that Shevardnadze and Gorbachev simply "gifted" the United States with the destruction of a Soviet missile that was modern at that time.
Another famous "case" of Eduard Amvrosievich is the "Shevardnadze-Baker agreement." The USSR Foreign Minister signed an agreement with US Secretary of State James Baker on the Maritime Delimitation Line in the Bering Sea. The title of this document does not convey the essence of the consequences to which the "delimitation of sea spaces" led. The part of the Bering Sea, which was discussed in the agreement, contained large explored reserves of oil, and in addition there was a lot of fish. But the "political aksakal" simply yielded to the United States 46, 3 thousand square meters. km of the continental shelf and 7, 7 thousand sq. km of the continental economic zone of the Soviet Union. Only 4, 6 thousand square meters were transferred to the USSR. km of the continental shelf - ten times less than the United States. Of course, the US Coast Guard ships immediately appeared in this zone and it became impossible to visit it by Soviet fishing vessels. Subsequently, James Baker, characterizing Shevardnadze, said that the main achievement of the latter is the refusal to use force to preserve the empire. But there were other, even more interesting words - “the Soviet minister seemed almost a supplicant. The Soviet leadership needs only a little encouragement to conduct business essentially on Western terms."
Eduard Shevardnadze played a key role in the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Of course, from a human point of view, the fact that our soldiers and officers have stopped dying is a big plus. But politically, it was a colossal miscalculation. Its consequences were the imminent coming of the Mujahideen to power in the neighboring country, the complete opening of the "underbelly" of the Soviet Union for attacks by extremists, which began almost immediately after the withdrawal of troops. The civil war in Tajikistan is also the result of this step, as is the flow of drugs that poured into the post-Soviet republics, from which hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of young Russians died.
It was Eduard Shevardnadze who was behind the "surrender" of East Germany. Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze are highly respected in the West for their contribution to the unification of Germany. But what was the use of this for the Soviet state, for Russia? Even the Western leaders themselves were stunned by the actions of the Soviet leadership. Throughout 1990, the issue of the unification of the FRG and the GDR was discussed. And Eduard Shevardnadze made very serious concessions. As you know, the FRG was in the NATO bloc, and the GDR was in the Warsaw Pact Organization. There was an opportunity to fix the need for a united Germany to refuse to join NATO, but Shevardnadze conceded and agreed with Germany's right to re-enter the North Atlantic Alliance.
In addition, he allowed not to indicate the promise of German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher to abandon plans to expand NATO to the East. Although the latter promised the Soviet minister that the former countries of the socialist bloc would never be NATO members. Shevardnadze explained his actions by the fact that he trusts his negotiating partners and that it is not necessary to write down Genscher's promise on paper. What was the cost of recording these words in the agreement? But there is no fixation - and there are no agreements. In the 1990s and 2000s, most of the former USSR allies in Eastern Europe became members of NATO. The North Atlantic Alliance has advanced as much as possible to the borders of modern Russia - and this is the most direct "merit" of the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, a "wise politician".
The process of German reunification took place in maximum haste. The impression is that someone set the task for Gorbachev and Shevardnadze - by 1991, to complete all preparations for the collapse of the Soviet state. Therefore, 1990 went down in history as the year of the surrender of the positions of the Soviet Union on all fronts. By the way, “White Fox” himself, as the media liked to call him, recalled in his memoirs that he made some decisions on the unification of Germany himself, without consulting “Michal Sergeich”. It is obvious that Shevardnadze wanted to go down in history as a unifier of Germany much more than to remain in the memory of a normal foreign minister of his state. George W. Bush, the President of the United States, was literally shocked by the behavior of the Soviet leaders. He recalled that the West was ready to write off multibillion-dollar debts, to give guarantees that Eastern Europe would never join NATO, but Shevardnadze did not demand anything in return.
On December 20, 1990, Eduard Shevardnadze, at the IV Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, announced his resignation from the post of Foreign Minister "in protest against the impending dictatorship," although it was not very clear what dictatorship was in question. However, in November 1991, he returned to the post of Minister of Foreign Relations of the USSR for a month (instead of the abolished Foreign Ministry), but soon the Soviet Union ceased to exist and Eduard Amvrosievich was out of work. He decided to return to Georgia, where in January 1992 there was a military coup that overthrew Zviad Gamsakhurdia.
On March 10, 1992, Shevardnadze headed the State Council of Georgia, in October 1992 he was elected chairman of the Georgian parliament, and on November 6, 1992 - the head of the Georgian state (since 1995 - the president). Thus, Shevardnadze actually headed sovereign Georgia for eleven years - from 1992 to 2003. Those who have caught that time remember that life in Georgia has become literally unbearable. The war with Abkhazia, the conflict in South Ossetia, the unprecedented growth of banditry - and all this against the background of the complete destruction of social infrastructure, total impoverishment of the population. It was during the years of Shevardnadze's presidency that many Georgian citizens left the country, emigrating to other states, first of all to the very Russia, from which Tbilisi so desired independence a few years ago.
Shevardnadze’s policy as president of sovereign Georgia also cannot be called friendly towards Russia. Although in words "White Fox" has repeatedly spoken about the friendship of the Russian and Georgian peoples, he himself tried to turn the country into a satellite of the United States, begging Washington to send an international military contingent to the republic. The role of Georgia during the First Chechen War is well known. It was at this time that the country where the militant bases were located was headed by Eduard Shevardnadze.
In domestic politics, Shevardnadze suffered a complete fiasco, failing to lead the country out of the economic and social catastrophe. On November 21-23, 2003, the so-called. The Rose Revolution, which forced Eduard Amvrosievich on November 23, 2003, to resign from the presidency of the country. After the resignation, Shevardnadze lived for almost eleven more years. He died on July 7, 2014 at the age of 87.
