A NEW WORLD ORDER? 477sion was his own report to the full Supreme Soviet on what was
happening in the Persian Gulf. He intended to quash all rumours that
the leadership was going to send troops to the region. Speakers
belonging to the Soyuz group denounced official foreign policy; they
disliked what they saw as the USSR’s capitulation to the West. Shevard-
nadze had heard such things before. He sat quietly in the third row on
the right-hand side of the hall as he waited the call to speak.^24 As soon
as he opened his mouth, it was obvious that he was in a passionate
frame of mind. He noted that two Supreme Soviet deputies were
boasting that they would follow up the removal of Internal Affairs
Minister Vadim Bakatin with efforts to dismiss the Minister of Foreign
Affairs. He recalled that when his name had been put forward at
the Party Congress for election to the Central Committee, 800 votes
had been recorded against him; he noted that the Supreme Soviet had
begun to hold hearings on foreign policy in his absence. He high-
lighted the press campaigns against him.^25
Then came the hammer blow:
A dictatorship is on the way – I declare this with a full sense of
responsibility. Nobody knows what kind of dictatorship it will be,
who will come to power, what kind of dictator or what kind of
order will be installed . . . I’m going into retirement. Don’t react
and don’t curse me. Let this be my protest against the coming of
dictatorship. I express my deep gratitude to Mikhail Sergeevich
Gorbachëv; I am his friend and sympathizer; I always supported
and to the end of my days will support the ideas of perestroika. But
I cannot reconcile myself to events that are taking place in our
country and to the trials that await our people. This is nevertheless
what I believe: dictatorship will not succeed; the future belongs to
democracy.^26One of the architects of perestroika was announcing his resignation.
Half the audience rose to its feet in sorrow and admiration; the other
half sat on their hands, pleased that Shevardnadze was departing.
As Shevardnadze left the hall, Gorbachëv’s face showed discomfort.
Something very important had happened for the fate of reform in the
USSR – and the worry was that it could have adverse consequences in
Soviet foreign policy.
Gorbachëv asked him by phone: ‘Why was I left out of this?’ He
speculated that the Georgian situation was Shevardnadze’s real motive.
Shevardnadze rebutted this. He stood by the rationale he had offered