The Georgian boss who ruled nineteen years, and godfathered a shadow economy
In June 1965, Mzhavanadze had the Stalin museum in Gori reopened and quoted Stalin: "Our Party is a fortress whose gates open only for tried and true people."
A military-political commissar whom Khrushchev came to know in the Kiev Military District, he was installed as First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party in September 1953, purging Beria's patronage network and ruling the republic for nineteen years. He became a candidate member of the CPSU Politburo in 1957, quietly resisted Khrushchev's 1962 bifurcation reform, and was among the small circle of senior officials informed in advance of the plot to oust Khrushchev in October 1964. After Khrushchev's fall he pushed back against de-Stalinization, reopening the Stalin museum in Gori in 1965, and under his long tenure Georgia developed a flourishing shadow economy, the so-called 'Georgian model.' In 1972 he was brought down by corruption materials gathered by his own Interior Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, and lived out his retirement in Moscow until his death in 1988.
Career Timeline
- 1915–24Factory worker
- 1924–37Red Army service, joined CPSU 1927
- 1937–41Military-political commissar, Soviet-Finnish War
- 1941–45GPW: Military Council member, Leningrad Front & field armies
- 1945–53Military Council, Kiev & Carpathian Military Districts
- 1953–72First Secretary, Georgian CP Central Committee
- 1957–72Candidate member, CPSU Politburo/Presidium
- 1972.9Dismissed for corruption, pensioned
Related historical events
- 1939.11–1940.03The Winter Warmilitary political commissar
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic Warmember of military councils on the Leningrad Front and other armies
- 1953The Fall of BeriaInstalled as Georgian First Secretary after Beria's arrest, purged Beria's patronage networkAppointed by Khrushchev as First Secretary of the Georgian CP immediately after Beria's arrest in June 1953, he replaced Beria's protégé Aleksandre Mirtskhulava and carried out a sweeping purge of Beria's patronage network in the Georgian party and state apparatus.
- 1956.02The Twentieth Party Congress and the Secret SpeechFirst Secretary of the Georgian CP who managed the Tbilisi protests and their suppressionIn March 1956 in Tbilisi he negotiated with protesters angered by the secret speech and offered concessions, but the crackdown by Soviet Army troops followed.