Shevardnadze started his political career in the late 1940s as a leading member of his local Komsomol organisation. He was later appointed its Second Secretary, then its First Secretary. His rise russian foreign minister under gorbachev the Georgian Soviet hierarchy continued until 1961 when he was demoted after he insulted a senior official.
As First Secretary, Shevardnadze started several economic reforms, which would spur economic growth in the republic—an uncommon occurrence in the Soviet Union because the country was experiencing a nationwide economic stagnation. Shevardnadze’s anti-corruption campaign continued until he resigned from his office as First Secretary. In the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, Shevardnadze returned to the newly independent Georgia. He became the country’s head of state following the removal of the country’s first president, Zviad Gamsakhurdia.
Shevardnadze was formally elected president in 1995. Eduard Shevardnadze was born in Mamati in the Transcaucasian SFSR, Soviet Union, on 25 January 1928. His father Ambrose was a teacher and a devoted communist and party official. After his demotion Shevardnadze endured several years of obscurity before returning to attention as a First Secretary of a city district in Tbilisi. In 1951, Shevardnadze married Nanuli Shevardnadze, whose father was killed by the authorities at the height of the purge.
At first Nanuli rejected Shevardnadze’s marriage proposal, fearing that her family background would ruin Shevardnadze’s party career. Shevardnadze’s rapid rise in Soviet Georgia’s political hierarchy was the result of his campaign against corruption. Throughout most of Shevardnadze’s leadership, anti-corruption campaigns were central to his authority and policy. By the time Shevardnadze had become leader, Georgia was the Soviet republic most afflicted by corruption.
Under Shevardnadze’s rule, Georgia was one of several Soviet Republics that did not experience economic stagnation, instead experiencing rapid economic growth. By 1974, industrial output had increased by 9. 6 per cent and agricultural output had increased by 18 per cent. In 1973, Shevardnadze launched an agricultural reform in Abasha, popularly referred to as the “Abasha experiment”. This reform was inspired by János Kádár’s agricultural policy in Hungarian People’s Republic, which returned agricultural decision-making to the local level of governance.
