 The rest of the protesters gathered in and around Tbilisi State University.As the situation threatened to turn dangerous and rumors were coming of Soviet troops preparing for action, Eduard Shevardnadze, the First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party Central Committee, addressed the demonstrators and reminded them about the student demonstrators shot by the Soviet army in Tbilisi on 9 March 1956.Although he was booed when he first tried to speak to the crowd, Shevardnadze was quick to react.