Sergey Kavtaradze

Sergey or Sergo Kavtaradze ( Sergo Kavtaradze; Sergey Ivanovich Kavtaradze; 15 August 1885 – 17 October 1971) was a Soviet politician and diplomat who briefly served as head of government in the Georgian SSR and as Deputy Prosecutor General of the Soviet Union. A Georgian Bolshevik activist, he was persecuted for his Trotskyist activities, but was pardoned and reinstated by his personal friend Joseph Stalin.

Arrested during the Great Purge, Kavtaradze became famous for being among the few victims to be brought out of jail and readmitted in the Soviet Communist Party hierarchy. He was Deputy to the Foreign Commissar Vyacheslav Molotov for the greater part of World War II, and, in 1944, was sent to Iran, where his controversial stance helped topple the Mohammad Sa'ed cabinet. Kavtaradze was also involved in provoking rebellion in the Iranian Azerbaijan and other Iranian-ruled areas.

His last major office was that of Ambassador to Romania, where he maintained close contacts with the Romanian Communist Party faction formed around Ana Pauker and played a part in facilitating electoral fraud during the general election of 1946.

Biography

Early activities Kavtaradze was born into a noble family in Zovreti, in the Georgian area of Imereti, at the time part of the Russian Empire. During this time, he reputedly helped the young Stalin hide from detectives.

Kavtaradze's political activities contrasted with his romantic life: he eventually married Sofia Vachnadze, a Georgian princess whose godmother was Empress Consort Maria Feodorovna (mother of Emperor Nicolas II).< In 1912, he split with the mainstream Social Democrats as one of the Old Bolsheviks, and subsequently stood on the group's far left. He then worked for the Bolshevik paper Pravda (1912–1914), and, in 1915, graduated from the Saint Petersburg University Faculty of Law. or up until May 1921). Sa'ed, who was by then involved in a conflict with the far left Tudeh and nationalist forces over having allowed British and American businesses the possibility of opening oil field in the country, did not reply favorably to the envoy's request. At a lower level, Pauker's relations with Kavtaradze were replicated by the close relationship between Gheorghiu-Dej and Mark Borisovich Mitin, the Cominform activist and Stalinist theorist. The Romanian side, overseen by Ploughmen's Front leader and Premier Petru Groza, also comprised Foreign Minister and Vice-Premier Gheorghe Tătărescu, Romanian Social Democrat leader Ştefan Voitec, and Mihail Ghelmegeanu.

In January 1947, as Romania prepared to sign the Paris Peace Treaty, he played a part in negotiating, with Premier Groza, Foreign Minister Tătărescu, and PCR activist Emil Bodnăraş, the Soviet takeover of islands on the Danube's Chilia branch. While Groza asked for Romania to receive the Hertsa region and a small area north of Siret in exchange, Tătărescu opposed any change in the status quo, and Bodnăraş asked for promises of compensation to be made. Kavtaradze relayed his government's position that no guarantees were to be made, and the islands were ceded to the Soviet Union as part of the Paris Treaty system.

Since the Soviet-dominated Allied Commission ended its mandate (October 1947) and until his recall, Kavtaradze replaced Red Army general Ivan Susaykov as the most important representative of his country in relations with the Groza government, and, later, with Communist Romania. He retired in 1954, one year after Stalin's death, and in 1961, was a delegate to the 22nd Party Congress. He died ten years later in Tbilisi, where his descendants were still residing in 2003.

Legacy Stalin's forgiveness for Kavtaradze has drawn interest from historians, as did the fact Stalin's attitudes toward his friend remained ambiguous after he was released from prison. In his Let History Judge, Roy Medvedev cites an episode occurring circa 1939, reported to him by Kavtaradze himself: during dinner at the Kremlin, Kavtaradze was addressed by Stalin the words "And yet you wanted to kill me". Medvedev notes: "Some historians may see this comment as proof of Stalin's paranoia. But Stalin knew well that Kavtaradze never tried to kill him. However, he could not admit this openly, for then he would have had to reconsider the execution of Budu Mdivani and many other Communists involved in the case. It was much simpler to 'forgive' Kavtaradze alone." In his view, the case was similar to that of Alyosha Svanidze (the brother of Stalin's first wife Ekaterina Svanidze), who was shot after refusing to confess similar crimes. He concluded: "All these actions reveal a misanthropic tyrant, not a mentally ill person who did not know what he was doing." Reportedly, Sergey Kavtaradze himself believed that the conversation showed Stalin to be "sick". Simon Sebag Montefiore, who places this event right after the Kavtaradzes' liberation, cites the line as: "Nevertheless, you all wanted to kill me?", and gives Kavtaradze's reply to it as "Do you really think so?" He also records an exchange between Stalin and Sofia Kavtaradze: Stalin, looking at her hair (which had turned white in prison), commented "We have tortured you too much."

In this context, Stalin charged Sergey Kavtaradze with editing a Russian-language translation of Shota Rustaveli's The Knight in the Panther's Skin, which he was to complete together with the academic Shalva Nutsibidze. Nutsibidze was himself a former inmate, and he had begun work on the translation in his cell—Stalin had personally reviewed his work and found it impressive, ordering Nutsibidze to be released. Reportedly, the Soviet dictator even corrected part of the manuscript and his personal translation of a section probably made it into the final edition.

Following his release, Stalin kept Kavtaradze in his circle of intimates, and nicknamed him Tozho—in reference to his slant eyes, which, Stalin believed, made him look like the Japanese prime minister Hideki Tōjō. He also confided in him: at some point after the Great Purge, Stalin allegedly told his friend that "we had to shoot" Nikolai Yezhov. On one occasion in 1945, speaking in Georgian, Stalin told the Mingrelian Lavrentiy Beria he considered him a "traitor" in front of Kavtaradze.

According to Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's political ally, Alexandru Bârlădeanu, Kavtaradze was also on good terms with his faction, and, while in Romania, furnished them details on his youth and relations with Stalin and his earlier fall from grace. Bârlădeanu remembered Kavtaradze telling him that he was present at the 17th Party Congress of 1934, where he claimed to have cast his vote in favor of Sergey Kirov and against Stalin's choices for the Central Committee. The ballot was secret, but Stalin later ordered the voting majority to be purged, which would have left Kavtaradze among the very few survivors of that vote.