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- WORLD, Page 76World NotesSOVIET UNIONSame Place, New Times
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- When Eduard Shevardnadze abruptly resigned as Soviet Foreign
- Minister last December, warning of a coming dictatorship, he
- provoked widespread shock and alarm. His reappointment last week
- brought an international sigh of relief.
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- Since joining the resistance to the putsch attempt in
- August, Shevardnadze has been watching from the sidelines as the
- power of the central government has drained away to the
- ascendant republics. His decision to rejoin Mikhail Gorbachev
- is likely to lend credibility to the Soviet President's efforts
- to reconstruct a union and to solicit Western aid for the ailing
- economy.
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- But Shevardnadze's resumed role will be far from what it
- was before. He will have to devote much of his time to
- resolving disputes with the republics rather than
- globe-trotting. Shevardnadze was hardly upbeat. "There is no
- reason for congratulations," he told the newspaper Komsomolskaya
- Pravda. "The time has come when the fate is being decided not
- just of our country, but of peace on our planet."
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