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.
Activities and affiliations
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
Related historical events
- 1988–1991The Nationalities Crisis and the Collapse of Central AuthoritySecurity chief who reported the crackdownAt six on 9 April 1989, he reported the army's dispersal of the crowd and the deaths to the KGB deputy chairman.
- 1991The August Coup and the Collapse of the USSRFirst Secretary of the Georgian Communist PartyAs a Politburo member during the coup, he led the Georgian Communist Party.
The April 9 Tbilisi Tragedy and the Struggle over Accountability
Barely four months after becoming chairman of the Georgian KGB in December 1988, Gumbaridze was thrust into the center of the tragedy of 9 April 1989, when Soviet troops dispersed a crowd on Tbilisi's Rustaveli Avenue and innocent civilians were killed. By his own later account, on the eve of the events he had received an instruction from KGB deputy chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov to monitor the situation but take no forceful action. Unaware that the army had even been deployed, at six in the morning on 9 April he telephoned KGB deputy chairman Filipp Bobkov to report, 'We are in trouble. The troops cleared the square, twelve people were killed.'
Five days after the killings, on 14 April, he was named First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party in place of the outgoing Djumber Patiashvili, yet he chose to confront Moscow's denials rather than share them. On 25 April he told Western journalists that 'that gases were used is the truth, and, yes, some people died from poisoning,' becoming the first senior official to acknowledge the use of a potentially lethal gas. On 24 December of the same year, at the Second Congress of People's Deputies, he sharply objected to the report of chief military prosecutor Aleksandr Katusev for obscuring responsibility, and after Georgian deputies walked out the congress ultimately adopted a resolution condemning the use of violence in Tbilisi. He later testified at the congress that soldiers had shouted 'This is for Stalin and Beria' as they dispersed the demonstrators.