Years of Turmoil

1985

March 11: Mikhail Gorbachev elected General Secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee.

April 23: Plenum of the Central Committee. Perestroika is inaugurated.

May 17: Anti-alcohol campaign begins.

1987

January 13: Foreign investment in the Soviet economy through joint-ventures is permitted by a special decree.

February 5: Some private coops legalized.

August 23: Nationalist demonstrations held in the Baltic states on the 48th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

October 21: Central Committee plenum. The first Yeltsin-Gorbachev clash: Yeltsin criticizes perestroika for being too slow.

November 11: Yeltsin is ousted as Moscow First Party Secretary. He is removed from the Politburo the following February.

1988

February: Anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait, Azerbaijan, leave 32 dead. Violence is a reaction to Armenian claims to Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan (which is 75% Armenian).

April 14: Accord is reached on the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.

May 7: The Democratic Union, ostensibly the first public opposition party in Russia in seven decades, is formed.

People’s Fronts begin appear in various republics of the USSR, demonstrating for independence.

1989

April 9: A peaceful Tbilisi demonstration is disbursed violently. 20 are killed. 

May-June: First Congress of People’s Deputies. Deputies are elected through direct voting. Yeltsin wins Moscow seat in a landslide. Congress elects Gorbachev president by a vote of 2123 to 87. Following the Congress an “interregional group” of deputies forms as an opposition favoring accelerated reform.

June 3: Interethnic strife spreads to Uzbekistan, where 100 Meskhetian Turks are slain by Uzbeks.

July: Wave of strikes rolls across the Kuzbass, Donetsk, Pechora and Karaganda regions.

November 9: The Berlin Wall falls.

December 12: The 13th (and final, it turns out) Five Year Plan is approved by the Congress of People’s Deputies

1990

January: Federal troops are sent to Baku when a State of Emergency is declared following over 100 murders in anti-Armenian violence.

March 11: Lithuanian Parliament declares the republic’s independence; 12 days later, Soviet tanks and troops arrive in the capital, Vilnius.

March 14: Special session of the Congress of People’s Deputies. Mikhail Gorbachev elected President of the USSR. Multiparty system is ratified.

March 30: Estonia declares its independence. 

May 4: Latvia declares its independence.

May 29: Yeltsin is elected president of the Russian Federation.

June 12: Russian parliament votes 907-13 in favor of the republic’s sovereignty. Through the rest of 1990, other republics and regions declare their sovereignty.

September 5: Gorbachev embraces the Shatalin Plan for radical economic reform, modeled on Russia’s “500-Day Plan.” The scheme is watered down over succeeding months. 

October 15: Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

December 30: Ownership of private farms is allowed.

1991

January 13: Soviet paratroopers storm Vilnius broadcast complex in Lithuania; 14 are killed. Gorbachev disavows responsibility, saying local commanders acted on their own initiative.

Jan-April: Republics hold national referendums that show overwhelming public support for independence.

March-April: Coal miner strikes spread to 25% of USSR’s mines and last for nine weeks.

April 2: Price controls released. Shortages and hyperinflation ensue. 

March 17: Referendum on whether the USSR should be preserved: 74% of voters in nine of the 15 republics vote in favor. 

May 13: Gorbachev issues decree banning strikes in vital areas of the economy, including coal mining.

June 12: Boris Yeltsin elected Russia’s first president with 60% of the vote.

July: Union Treaty is hammered out between ten of the republics of the USSR.

August 19-21: Coup attempt by eight top Communist Party hardliners. Gorbachev taken prisoner in Crimea. Resistance in Moscow centers on the White House. Mass demonstrations throughout Russia show popular resistance to the coup, which is broken in the third day.

August 24: Gorbachev resigns as General Secretary of the Communist Party.

August 29: Communist Party’s activity is suspended by the Supreme Soviet.

September: Georgia begins a slide into civil war after the election of Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

September 6: The USSR recognizes the three Baltic states’ independence.

November: Work proceeds on a Union of Sovereign States treaty, to be signed on December 9, 1991. Seven republics agree to sign, but say it will have to be submitted to their legislatures for ratification.

December 8: Preempting plans for the Union of Sovereign States, Leaders of Russia, Belorussia and Ukraine, sign an agreement for a Commonwealth of Independent States at a meeting in Belovezha forest preserve.

December 21: Eight other former USSR republics sign on to the CIS treaty: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakstan, Kirgizistan, Moldova, Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. Only the three Baltic republics, which declared independence after the August coup, and Georgia, do not join.

December 25: Mikhail Gorbachev makes his last statement on TV to the Soviet people. Half an hour after the speech, the Soviet flag is taken down and the Russian flag is raised over the Kremlin.