Mikhail Gorbachev, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 15, 1990, is widely regarded as one of the most important figures of the second half of the 20th century.
Following are the most important dates of the transition from power of Mikhail Gorbachev, who died yesterday at the age of 91, from his rise to the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 to his resignation in 1991.
1985
March 11: Mikhail Gorbachev, at age 54, is elected head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
October 15: Presents his plan to restructure the USSR’s economic and political system, perestroika, proposed by Leonid Brezhnev in 1979.
1986
April 26: Explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (Ukraine). The tragedy is concealed from the government for several days, which contributes to the contamination of hundreds of thousands of people by radiation.
December 23: Dissident Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Zakharov returns to Moscow after seven years of forced exile in Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod).
1987
December 8: The INF Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles is signed in Washington, D.C., during the third summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
1988
December 7: In New York, Mikhail Gorbachev announces to the UN that the USSR will unilaterally reduce its forces in Eastern Europe and the European part of the USSR by 500,000 men.
1989
February 15: The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, after ten years of war, is complete.
May 16: Mikhail Gorbachev’s summit in Beijing with Chinese President Deng Xiaoping, sealing the normalization of bilateral relations after 30 years.
June 12-15: Mikhail Gorbachev, after his triumphant reception in Bonn (GLD), declares that the Wall will come down when “the conditions that gave birth to it disappear.”
October 7: Mikhail Gorbachev, in East Berlin, tells East German leader Erich Honecker that “anyone who delays is punished by life.”
November 9: The Wall falls.
December 1st: Historic meeting with Pope John Paul II.
1990
March 11: Lithuania declares its independence from the USSR. On January 13, 1991, Soviet tanks enter Vilnius (14 dead and 700 wounded).
March 15: Mikhail Gorbachev is elected president of the USSR for a five-year term, a newly created position.
July 16: Mikhail Gorbachev and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl agree on a Germany united, sovereign and free to join NATO.
October 15: Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1991
June 12: Boris Yeltsin is elected president of the Russian Federation.
July 31: The START treaty, the first agreement to reduce the strategic nuclear arsenals of the US and the USSR, is signed in Moscow.
August 19/21: Failed conservative coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, who is in Crimea. This attempt leads to the dissolution of the communist party and accelerates the disintegration of the USSR.
December 8: In Minsk, the presidents of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine declare that the Soviet Union “no longer exists”.
December 25: Mikhail Gorbachev announces his resignation as president of the USSR.
RES-EMP
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