Editorial: a moderate communist reformer

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Eduard Shevardnadze, who died yesterday at the age of 87, will be remembered as the Mikhail Gorbachev era Soviet foreign minister easing tensions during perestroika and establishing more constructive relations with the West. His tenure at the helm of Georgia, however, was characterised by controversy – Shevardnadze led the country both in depths of Soviet stagnation, as First Secretary of Georgian Communist Party, and as president of the independent Georgia in 1995–2003.

After his surprise rise to be USSR foreign minister, (wherein a large role was played by his old acquaintance with Mr Gorbachev dating back to when the latter worked in Stavropol region, Russia, bordering on Georgia), Mr Shevardnadze‘s grey locks came across as something totally differing than the stone faced hardliner predecessor Andrei Gromyko. In his memoirs, the US ambassador USA Jack Matlock recalls his initial meeting with minister Eduard Amvrosievich: the latter cracked the occasional joke and reacted to differences by: «We come from different angles but we need to solve this problem. Perhaps, at the next meeting, we’ll move closer.»

As Georgia’s communist leader, Mr Shevardnadze at times demonstrated a thinking more independent and flexible that the Soviet average; even so, he clearly was a disciple of the Soviet system and its active representative. As foreign minister of the USSR, however, he supported the renewal by Mr Gorbachev and, by 1990, came to be even more liberal in his position than his vacillating boss.

At the end of 1990, he left his post with a bang, issuing a public warning of upcoming dictatorship. After the putsch, he was for a moment again nominated foreign minister of the USSR. The post was lost with the empire falling apart. In his comments yesterday, Mr Gorbachev called Mr Shevardnadze his friend, a remarkable talent who quickly gained contact with highly differing people.

Much harder, however, to pass an assessment on what Mr Shevardnadze accomplished as President of Georgia. Western-minded outwardly, while trying to maintain relations with Russia, he led a nation rampant with corruption. Also, there was the bloody confrontation with neighbouring Abkhazia, the Chechnya war at the borders and instability in domestic policy. Increasingly, Mr Shevardnadze’s rule (during second term, especially) came to be about clinging to power. In 2003, he was swept away by the Rose Revolution, having become a bother even to former supporters.

With him in power, relations between Georgia and Estonia were good. Even from the Baltic pre-independence days, it at least goes to Mr Shevardnadze’s credit that he did not actively work against us and assured the US secretary of James Baker, for instance, that Moscow had no plans to use force against the Baltics.

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