Eduard Shevardnadze

Eduard Shevardnadze appears as a loyal member of Mikhail Gorbachev’s government who breaks with it when he believes dictatorship is in the offing. His resignation as foreign minister and public warning mark a moment when an insider’s alarm becomes visible, even as Gorbachev fails to heed it.

Role in the Political Crisis

In the account of Gorbachev’s increasingly precarious position, Shevardnadze is identified as a loyal foreign minister. He resigns from his post and publicly declares that a dictatorship is approaching. The passage presents his warning against the wider backdrop of growing sedition within the Politburo and military actions undertaken without Gorbachev’s knowledge.

Warning and Its Limits

Shevardnadze’s resignation gives public form to a danger that Gorbachev does not acknowledge. Gorbachev ignores the warning, just as he dismisses Alexander Yakovlev’s attempts to alert him to sedition within the Politburo. The contrast is sharp: Shevardnadze makes his alarm public by leaving office, while Gorbachev remains dismissive of those who tell him that events are slipping beyond his control. The passage does not describe what Shevardnadze did afterward; its emphasis is on the warning itself and the failure to take it seriously.