Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
By late 1991, amid a catastrophic political crisis, with several republics already departing the Union and Gorbachev continuing the waning of centralized power, the leaders of three of its founding members, the Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian SSRs, declared that the Soviet Union no longer existed.
By the mid-1980s, when Gorbachev took power, many analysts were arguing that the Soviet Union was declining to the status of a Third World country. [516] In this context, Gorbachev argued that the Communist Party had to adapt and engage in creative thinking much as Lenin had creatively interpreted and adapted the writings of Karl Marx and ...
He was concerned by the country's low productivity, poor work ethic, and inferior quality goods; [55] like several economists, he feared this would lead to the country becoming a second-rate power. [56] The first stage of Gorbachev's perestroika was uskoreniye ("acceleration"), a term he used regularly in the first two years of his leadership. [57]
Pursuant to the Geneva Accords of 14 April 1988, the Soviet Union conducted a total military withdrawal from Afghanistan between 15 May 1988 and 15 February 1989. [2] Headed by the Soviet military officer Boris Gromov, the retreat of the 40th Army into the Union Republics of Central Asia formally brought the Soviet–Afghan War to a close after nearly a decade of fighting.
Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, forged arms reduction deals with the United States and partnerships with Western powers to remove the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe since World War Two ...
Although restored to power, Gorbachev's authority had been irreparably undermined. Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the Communist Party following the coup, and the Supreme Soviet dissolved the Party and banned all communist activity on Soviet soil.
At 54, Gorbachev was the youngest person since Joseph Stalin to become General Secretary and the country's first head of state born a Soviet citizen instead of a subject of the tsar. During his official confirmation on 11 March, Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko spoke of how the new Soviet leader had filled in for Chernenko as CC Secretariat, and ...
For premium support please call: 800-290-4726 more ways to reach us