Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan held their first summit in November 1985 in Geneva.
Moscow:
Here is a timeline of some of the major events in the nearly seven years that Mikhail Gorbachev, who died Tuesday at the age of 91, took power in the Soviet Union.
March 1985 – Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, the youngest member of the Politburo at 54, became General Secretary of the Communist Party after the death of Konstantin Chernenko. He initiated a program of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (opening) to bring the country out of political and economic impasse.
November 1985 – Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan held their first summit in Geneva; Gorbachev says he is “very optimistic” about detentions and future arms cuts.
April 1986 – The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor spread radioactive clouds across Europe. Soviet authorities accepted it only three days later, raising doubts about Glasnost.
December 1986 – Dr. Andrei Sakharov, the father of the dissident movement, was released from exile following a telephone call from Gorbachev – one of hundreds of political and religious dissidents freed during his rule.
May 1987 – A young German named Mathias Rust breaches Soviet air defenses by flying a Cessna light aircraft from Helsinki to central Moscow while landing on Red Square. Gorbachev began the purge of top defense officials.
October 1987 – Prominent Russian reformer Boris Yeltsin clashes with Gorbachev over the pace of perestroika and leaves the ruling Politburo.
December 1987 – Gorbachev and Reagan signed the first treaty to cut nuclear arsenals in Washington. All Soviet and American intermediate-range missiles are to be destroyed.
October 1988 – Gorbachev consolidates power by becoming the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the national legislature.
February 1989 – The Soviet military’s nine-year involvement in Afghanistan has come to an end. Independence movements gained momentum in the Baltic republics, Georgia and Ukraine.
March 1989 – The Soviet Union held the first competitive multi-candidate election to elect the Congress of People’s Deputies. Many prominent Old Guard Communists lose to independents, and separatists win the majority of seats in the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
November 1989 – Popular revolutions destroyed communist governments in East Germany and the rest of Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union makes no effort to intervene as its satellite regime collapses.
December 1989 – At a summit in Malta, Gorbachev and US President George HW Bush hailed the end of the Cold War.
February 1990 – The Communist Party renounces its guaranteed monopoly of power. With the major increase in powers, the parliament agrees to give the executive presidency to Gorbachev. Pro-reform protesters held large rallies across the Soviet Union.
October 1990 – East and West Germany unite after intense six-power talks in which Gorbachev plays a key role. The Soviet parliament approved a plan to abandon the communist central plan of economy in favor of a market economy. Gorbachev has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
November 1990 – Parliament empowers Gorbachev to issue decrees in almost all spheres of public activity. The first draft of a union treaty proposed by Gorbachev gives 15 republics substantial power, but four – Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Georgia – refuse to sign.
January 1991 – Troops crushed pro-independence demonstrations in the Baltic, killing 14 in Lithuania and five in Latvia.
March 1991 – The referendum produced an overwhelming majority to preserve the Soviet Union as “a federation of equal sovereign republics” but the six republics boycott the vote.
April 1991 – Eastern European countries break the Warsaw Pact.
June 1991 – Boris Yeltsin was elected President of Russia.
19 August 1991 – Citing Gorbachev’s alleged ill health, his deputy Gennady Yanayev took over as the head of the radical communist junta. A state of emergency has been declared in some areas. The Estonian Parliament declared independence.
21st August – The coup collapsed, destroying the conservative caucus at the center and heavily incentivized separatists in the republics. The Latvian Parliament declared independence.
August 24 – Gorbachev resigned as leader of the Communist Party, ordered the confiscation of his assets by the state, banned it from all state organizations and suggested that it dissolve itself. The Parliament of Ukraine declared independence. Within weeks, everyone has done the same except Kazakhstan and Russia.
September 6 – The Soviet Supreme Legislature recognizes the independence of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Congress annulled the 1922 Treaty of Union and granted interim authority for a voluntary union of sovereign states pending the signing of the treaty.
16 November – Russia controls almost all Soviet gold and diamond reserves and oil exports. It later announced the acquisition of economic ministries.
December 8 – Russia, Ukraine and Belarus declare a Commonwealth of Independent States with no central authority or Gorbachev’s role. At first he opposes the new order and refuses to resign. Slowly he falls into the trap of accepting the inevitable.
25 December 1991 – Gorbachev resigned as the presidency of the Soviet Union, which was formally dissolved the next day.
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