The great dates of Gorbachev’s rise to power

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.