— Ch. 1 · Gorbachev's Reforms And Rise —
Dissolution of the Soviet Union.
~18 min read · Ch. 1 of 7
Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo on the 11th of March 1985, just over four hours after his predecessor Konstantin Chernenko died at the age of 73. The new leader was only 54 years old and became the youngest member of the ruling body. His initial goal was to revive a stagnating Soviet economy that had been failing for decades. He realized that fixing the economic crisis required changing the underlying political and social structures of the state. Gorbachev began with personnel changes, removing senior officials from the Brezhnev era who would block any meaningful reform. On the 23rd of April 1985, he brought two protégés, Yegor Ligachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov, into the Politburo as full members. He kept power ministries favorable by promoting KGB Chief Viktor Chebrikov and appointing Marshal Sergei Sokolov as Minister of Defence. The freedom of speech introduced by these reforms allowed nationalist movements and ethnic disputes within the Union to grow into dominant political forces. This openness indirectly led to the revolutions of 1989 in which Soviet-imposed socialist regimes were toppled peacefully across Eastern Europe. Under Gorbachev's leadership, the Communist Party introduced limited competitive elections to a new central legislature called the Congress of People's Deputies in 1989. The ban on other political parties remained until 1990, but the shift in power dynamics was already visible. On the 1st of July 1985, Gorbachev sidelined his main rival Grigory Romanov by removing him from the Politburo. He then brought Boris Yeltsin into the Central Committee Secretariat. On the 23rd of December 1985, Yeltsin was appointed First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party, replacing Viktor Grishin. Gorbachev continued to press for greater liberalization throughout this period. On the 23rd of December 1986, Andrei Sakharov, the most prominent Soviet dissident, returned to Moscow after almost seven years of internal exile. A personal telephone call from Gorbachev ended Sakharov's isolation. At the 28, the 30th of January Central Committee plenum, Gorbachev suggested a policy of demokratizatsiya or democratization throughout Soviet society. He proposed that future Communist Party elections should offer a choice between multiple candidates elected by secret ballot. However, party delegates at the Plenum watered down the proposal significantly. Democratic choice within the Communist Party was never significantly implemented despite the initial promise. Gorbachev also radically expanded the scope of glasnost, stating that no subject was off limits for open discussion in the media. On the 7th of February, dozens of political prisoners were freed in the first group release since the Khrushchev thaw in the mid-1950s. On the 10th of September, Boris Yeltsin wrote a letter of resignation to Gorbachev criticizing the slow pace of reform. At the 27th of October plenary meeting, Yeltsin criticized the general secretary and his servility to authority. In his reply, Gorbachev accused Yeltsin of political immaturity and absolute irresponsibility. News of Yeltsin's insubordination spread quickly, and samizdat versions began to circulate among the public. That marked the beginning of Yeltsin's rebranding as a rebel and rise in popularity as an anti-establishment figure. The following four years of political struggle between Yeltsin and Gorbachev played a large role in the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union.