468 THE END OF THE COLD WAR
Central Committee and the Supreme Soviet.^35 In March and April
1990, Katusev and Rodionov raked over the coals of the Tbilisi mas-
sacre by claiming that Shevardnadze was tainted with Georgian
nationalism.^36 To Shevardnadze’s chagrin, Gorbachëv noticeably failed
to defend him.^37 By July there was a chance Shevardnadze would fail to
secure re-election to the Central Committee at the Party Congress.
Not liking the idea of being ‘dragged into the Central Committee by
the ears’, he asked Gorbachëv to withdraw his name from the candi-
dates’ list. Gorbachëv urged him to shoulder the load of political
unpleasantness just as he himself did.^38 He ignored the plea from
Shevardnadze, and Shevardnadze obtained a large majority.^39 In truth
Gorbachëv had other things to worry about. Yeltsin came to the Con-
gress but announced his resignation from the party when his radical
proposals for democratization were rejected. He demonstratively
walked out of the hall. Though Gorbachëv secured assent to most of
his current policies, there was noisy criticism of the official party
programme draft. But he could at least derive satisfaction from
Ligachëv’s failure to secure election as his deputy – and Ligachëv
quickly departed from the Politburo.
But the tension grew inside the ascendant group in the leader-
ship, and the rivalry between Shevardnadze and Yakovlev was an
open secret.^40 Word spread that it suited Gorbachëv to have the two
outstanding radicals competing for his favour. Shevardnadze in his
brighter moods absolved Gorbachëv of making mischief: ‘I don’t think
this comes from Gorbachëv. Ultimately he knows my moods. Rather
this comes from others – from Alexander Nikolaevich [Yakovlev] and
the International Department of the Central Committee.’^41 It was
Yakovlev whom he suspected of unappetizing manoeuvres. He also
resented his tendency to claim the paternity of perestroika. He himself
disclaimed any ambition to replace Gorbachev. By implication he
could not say the same about Yakovlev.^42 As for Yakovlev, he refused to
share Shevardnadze’s generous opinion of Gorbachëv, whom he said
had never liked him and talked venomously about him.^43 He noticed
that Gorbachëv declined to let him chair meetings of the Politburo or
Secretariat in his absence. Yakovlev would love to have delivered one
of the annual public speeches but Gorbachëv never invited him,
whereas he granted that honour to Ligachëv. Yakovlev suspected that
people around Gorbachëv had been muttering that ‘Yakovlev had
started his own game’.^44
Since the end of 1989 Shevardnadze too had detected a decline in