Givi Grigorievich Gumbaridze
Гиви Григорьевич Гумбаридзе
1945–
○ Left politics after the Soviet collapse
A Georgian party official at the edge of Soviet collapse
“The law should be enforced, but it should be enforced without victims.”
Givi Gumbaridze was a Communist Party official who rose from archival and party-organizational work to the top leadership of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. A former state-security chief, he governed as national mobilization intensified and party rule collided with popular demands. After the bloody Tbilisi crackdown of 1989, he called for both accountability and order, but could not reverse the crisis of Soviet authority.
Career Timeline
- 1966–1967Served in the Soviet Army
- 1968–1972Researcher in Georgia’s central state archives and aide in the republic’s Supreme Soviet apparatus
- 1977–1983Official in the Georgian Communist Party Central Committee’s administrative-organs department
- 1983–1985First Secretary of the Zestafoni District Party Committee
- 1988First Secretary of the Tbilisi City Party Committee
- 1988–1989Chairman of the Georgian SSR Committee for State Security
- 1989–1990First Secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia
- 1990–1991Member of the CPSU Politburo
- 1989–1990Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR
The Soviet Politburo
- Full member 1990.07–1991.01
1991.01 removed