History of Germany (1945–90) eventually hundreds of thousands of people in several cities—particularly in Leipzig—continued to grow. On 7 October, the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Berlin to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of East Germany and urged the East German leadership to pursue reform, without success. The movement of civil resistance against the East German regime—both the emigration and the demonstrations—continued unabated. On 18 October, Erich Honecker was forced to resign as head of the SED and as head of state and was replaced by Egon Krenz. But the exodus continued unabated, and pressure for political reform mounted. On 4 November,
Erich Honecker by Augusto Pinochet. In addition his daughter Sonja was married to a Chilean. Chilean authorities, however, stated he could not enter their country without a valid German passport. Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991 and ceded all the powers still vested in it to Russian leader Boris Yeltsin. Russian authorities had long been keen on expelling Honecker – against the wishes of Gorbachev – and the new government now demanded that he leave the country or else face deportation. During early 1992 conflicting reports emerged regarding Honecker's medical state and the existence