Word: dictatorship
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Moreover, Gorbachev and Shevardnadze calculatedly made their country's foreign policy a function of domestic affairs. If Shevardnadze's chilling prediction of an approaching dictatorship comes to pass, it cannot fail to produce profound and ugly changes in the face the U.S.S.R. presents to the outside world...
...that had been wondering with increasing apprehension which way the U.S.S.R. was going. Shevardnadze thought he knew: back toward the terrible past. "Reactionaries" were gaining power, he said, and nobody would speak out against them. "Comrade democrats!" Shevardnadze shouted, "You have scattered. Reformers have slunk into the bushes. A dictatorship is coming...
Then came the real bombshell: "I am resigning." As cries of outrage and surprise sounded through the hall, Shevardnadze waved his hands and added, "Don't react, and don't criticize me. Let this be my personal contribution, my protest against the advance of dictatorship. I believe that to resign is my duty as a man, as a citizen, as a communist. I cannot reconcile myself to what is happening in our country and the trials awaiting our people...
...reformist democrats, national separatists and proponents of a law-and-order crackdown; the splits had become too deep and envenomed for that. And Shevardnadze tossed in a warning of what might happen if Gorbachev finally came down on the side of the authoritarians. "No one knows what this dictatorship will be like," he said, "what kind of dictator will come to power and what order will be established." That sounded like a warning that the hard-liners could easily push Gorbachev aside after using him to establish their power...
...deepest questions raised by Shevardnadze's resignation, internationally as well as internally, are: Is the Soviet Union really in danger of renewed dictatorship? And if it is, does the Foreign Minister's resignation make the peril greater or less...