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All powerful empires in the world beginning
with the Roman empire, the empires of the Ahemenids and the
Sasanids, Arab Khalifat, Tatar-Mongolian empire, the Temurid's
empire and finishing with the nuclear empire of Bolsheviks
in the Soviet Union were destroyed exclusively because of
infinite corruption which reigned in these states. The apex
of unprecedented corruption in our recent past was beset with
the bribes for acquiring a quota for entering the CPSU (Communist
Party of the Soviet Union).
Corruption as a cancer tumor goes on to corrode young organisms
even in the states proclaimed to be the most just and democratic
ones in the world. However, the tragedies didn't serve as
lessons for mankind.
The Georgian society was notorious for corruption in the Soviet
times yet. Bribes were a trivial matter in the former Soviet
republic. Do you remember the anecdote? "A Georgian wanted
to attend Lenin's mausoleum. But the latter was closed for
annual repairs and restoration jobs. The Georgian brought
two boxes of expensive cognac and asked to let him see the
leader of world proletariat. The guard, seeing his donations,
asked the Georgian: "Will You go inside Yourself or should
we bring Vladimir Ilyich out-of-doors?""
That what happened in Georgia in the years of Edward Shevardnadze's
governance smashed all records: the country found itself among
ruins; we remind that the president had been a member of the
Politbureau of the CPSU Central Committee. The people had
been suffering for years without central heating and electricity,
without salaries and pensions. 1.5 million citizens emigrated
from Georgia. The sweep of corruption is unparalleled even
by post-Soviet standards. If a competitive environment was
formed it existed only between the clans of Shevardnadze's
closest relatives - nephew Nugzar, daughter Manana, her husband
Ghiya, son Paama, brother-in-law Guram and wife's nephew Goga.
All big business in the country is associated with their names.
Foreign business deserted the country with great scandals.
As Russian MM report, for the concessions done by the former
minister of foreign affairs of the USSR in favor of the West
modern Georgia received disinterested aid to the amount of
3.6 billion dollars from rich western countries; as USA and
Germany coming first. But the governmental elite looted this
enormous foreign aid. Unjust privatization, washing money
clean turned into an ordinary phenomenon. The capital concentrated
in the hands of Shevardnadze's relatives who are rolling in
business abroad, first of all, in Russia. Judging by the publications
of Lenta.ru, 30% of persons of consequence from the criminal
world of Russia are Georgians by nationality. In Georgia itself
the people live in misery. Grave political opponents of Shevardnadze
are either dead or imprisoned, or exiled. But a repressive
form of governance carried out by the former glorious Chekist
didn't help Shevardnadze to retain power. He was overthrown
and the day of his discharge was marked as a holiday as because
the country was liberated from the corrupted regime.
The moral catastrophe expressed in a vulgar-market form created
such a crisis in social consciousness that repressive forces
were unable to uphold their status. Even the law enforcement
agencies of Georgia peacefully changed the sides and supported
the opposition having refused from the president. That what
occurred in Georgia is called "velvety revolution".
But this is a temporal phenomenon, as Russia, USA and leading
European powers are playing unfinished diplomatic games. The
leaders of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and de-facto Adzharia are
bound to determine their stances; all the three autonomous
areas being recalcitrant to control.
But however it might be, Shevardnadze's power was doomed earlier.
The foundations had been initially unsteady. The corrupted
power had no future. Gerrymandering at the parliamentary polls
entailed people's resentment; in the long run the power being
changed. Simply Georgia was unable to be living further pursuant
to the mode shaped. They ought not to have scoffed at their
own people endlessly. The former party statesman Edward Shevardnadze
seems not to have imbibed the works of Marxism-Leninism. Quoting
Lenin, there formed "a revolutionary situation when "lower
layers" don't want to live as they did any more, and
"upper layers" can't govern in a new fashion".
I wonder, what lesson can be derived out of the Georgian events
by the leaders of post-Soviet countries where corruption exuberates?
The people sees and hears everything, it tolerates it all
only for the time being. Ones pull themselves together and
resign on a voluntary basis as it was with Boris Yeltsin and
Edward Shevardnadze, others wouldn't part with power under
any circumstances. But thus or otherwise, the power based
on injustice can't be everlasting.
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