KREMLIN SHAKE UP IN GEORGIA

Workers Press no. 889, 9 October 1972 · scan page 6

Topics: Communist Party and Stalinism, Soviet Union

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The former deputy Minister of the Interior of Georgia has been put in charge of the republic's Communist Party organization in a new shakeup ordered by the Kremlin.

A dispute between Moscow and the leaders of Joseph Stalin's home state has been simmering for months. The promotion of Edward Chevardnadze to the post of first secretary of the Georgian CP is taken generally as an indication that the Kremlin is taking a tough line. Mjavanadze who, according to Moscow, resigned at his own request. Miavanadze (70) was a candidate member of the Soviet CP's politburo.

The origin of Mjavanadze's resignation could well lie in the severe criticisms of the local Party organization published months ago in 'Pravda'. On August 29, Mjavanadze himself signed a 'Pravda' article dealing with the efforts to overcome the shortcomings attacked by the Kremlin.

Mjavanadze has been replaced by a much younger man: Chevardnadze is only 44 and is not even a member of the Soviet CP Central Committee. Nor was he a delegate to the Party congress in March last year.

But his career as deputy head of the local secret police over the last seven years has apparently qualified him for the top job: indicating that the Kremlin intends to go over from exhortation to other methods of persuasion in its relations with the Georgian