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,
Margot Honecker insurance federation of about 1,500 euros, which she regarded as insolently sparse. In 2000, Luis Corvalán, the former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Chile, published the book "The Other Germany – the GDR. Discussions with Margot Honecker", in which Honecker speaks about the history of the GDR from her perspective. On 19 July 2008, on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, Honecker received the order for cultural independence "Rubén Dario" from President Daniel Ortega. The award was in recognition of Honecker's untiring support of the national campaign against illiteracy in the 1980s.