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Georgia The Rise of Gamsakhurdia
Partly as a result of the conspiratorial nature of
antigovernment activity prior to 1989, opposition groups tended
to be small, tightly knit units organized around prominent
individuals. The personal ambitions of opposition leaders
prevented the emergence of a united front, but Zviad
Gamsakhurdia, the most widely honored and recognized of the
nationalist dissidents, moved naturally to a position of
leadership. The son of Georgia's foremost contemporary novelist,
Gamsakhurdia had gained many enemies during the communist years
in acrimonious disputes and irreconcilable factional splits.
Opposition pressure resulted in an open, multiparty election
in October 1990. Despite guarantees written into the new law on
elections, many prominent opposition parties boycotted the vote,
arguing that their groups could not compete fairly and that their
participation under existing conditions would only legitimize
continuation of Georgia's "colonial status" within the Soviet
system.
As an alternative, the opposition parties had held their own
election, without government approval, in September 1990.
Although the minimum turnout for a valid election was not
achieved, the new "legislative" body, called the Georgian
National Congress, met and became a center of opposition to the
government chosen in the official October election. In the
officially sanctioned voting, Gamsakhurdia's Round Table/Free
Georgia coalition won a solid majority in the Supreme Soviet,
Georgia's official parliamentary body.
Arguably the most virulently anticommunist politician ever
elected in a Soviet republic, Gamsakhurdia was intolerant of all
political opposition. He often accused his opposition of treason
or involvement with the KGB. The quality of political debate in
Georgia was lowered by the exchange of such charges between
Gamsakhurdia and opposition leaders such as Gia Chanturia of the
National Democratic Party.
After his election, Gamsakhurdia's greatest concern was the
armed opposition. Both Gamsakhurdia's Round Table/Free Georgia
coalition and some opposition factions in the Georgian National
Congress had informal military units, which the previous,
communist Supreme Soviet had legalized under pressure from
informal groups. The most formidable of these groups were the
Mkhedrioni (horsemen), said to number 5,000 men, and the socalled National Guard. The new parliament, dominated by
Gamsakhurdia, outlawed such groups and ordered them to surrender
their weapons, but the order had no effect. After the elections,
independent military groups raided local police stations and
Soviet military installations, sometimes adding formidable
weaponry to their arsenals. In February 1991, a Soviet army
counterattack against Mkhedrioni headquarters had led to the
imprisonment of the Mkhedrioni leader.
Gamsakhurdia moved quickly to assert Georgia's independence
from Moscow. He took steps to bring the Georgian KGB and Ministry
of Internal Affairs (both overseen until then from Moscow) under
his control. Gamsakhurdia refused to attend meetings called by
Gorbachev to preserve a working union among the rapidly
separating Soviet republics. Gamsakhurdia's communications with
the Soviet leader usually took the form of angry telegrams and
telephone calls. In May 1991, Gamsakhurdia ended the collection
in Georgia of Gorbachev's national sales tax on the grounds that
it damaged the Georgian economy. Soon Georgia ceased all payments
to Moscow, and the central government took steps to isolate the
republic economically.
Rather than consent to participate in Gorbachev's March 1991
referendum on preserving a federation of Soviet republics,
Gamsakhurdia organized a separate referendum on Georgian
independence. The measure was approved by 98.9 percent of
Georgian voters. Shortly thereafter, on the second anniversary of
the April Tragedy (April 9, 1991), the Georgian parliament passed
a declaration of independence from the Soviet Union. Once the
Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991, Georgia refused to
participate in the formation or subsequent activities of the
Commonwealth of Independent States (
CIS--see
Glossary), the loose
confederation of independent republics that succeeded the Soviet
Union.
Data as of March 1994
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