Below are the most important dates of Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise to power, from his appointment as General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 to his resignation in 1991:

1985

• March 11: Mikhail Gorbachev, 54, is elected leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
• October 15: presents a plan of economic restructuring called “perestroika”.

1986

• April 26: Explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Power conceals the tragedy for days, contributing to the contamination of hundreds of thousands of people.
• December 23: dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov returns to Moscow after seven years of exile in Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod).

1987

• December 8: Signs an agreement with Ronald Reagan to eliminate medium-range missiles in Washington during his third summit.

1988

• December 7: At UN Headquarters in New York, the USSR announces that it will unilaterally reduce its troops in Eastern Europe and the European part of the USSR by 500,000 troops.

1989

• February 15: Withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan after 10 years of war.
• May 16: Summit between Gorbachev and Chinese number one Deng Xiaoping in Beijing, achieving normalization after 30 years of disagreements.
• 12/15 June: Gorbachev receives a triumphant reception in Bonn, Federal Republic of Germany, declaring that the Wall will “fall when the circumstances that prompted his thought cease to exist”.
• 7 October: In East Berlin, RFA leader announces in the presence of Erich Honecker that “latecomers will be punished for life”. On November 9, the Berlin Wall falls.
• December 1: Pope Paul II. Historic meeting with John Paul.

1990

• March 11: Lithuania declared its independence from the USSR. On January 13, 1991, Soviet tanks entered Vilnius (14 dead and 700 wounded).
• March 15: Gorbachev is elected president of the USSR for a five-year term.
• July 16: Gorbachev and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl agree on a united, sovereign, NATO-independent Germany.
• October 15: Gorbachev receives the Nobel Peace Prize.

1991

• June 12: Boris Yeltsin is elected President of the Russian Federation by universal suffrage.
• July 31: The START agreement, the first agreement on the reduction of the US and Soviet strategic nuclear arsenals, is signed in Moscow.
• 19-21 August: Coup attempt against Gorbachev in Crimea by conservative communists in Moscow. This move motivates the suspension of the Communist Party and hastens the collapse of the Soviet Union.
• December 8: The presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus confirm in Minsk that the Soviet Union “no longer exists”.
• December 25: Mikhail Gorbachev announces the end of his term as President of the USSR.