Dissolution of the Soviet Union Central Committee Secretariat. In the fall of 1985, Gorbachev continued to bring younger and more energetic men into government. On September 27, 55-year-old Nikolai Ryzhkov replaced 79-year-old Nikolai Tikhonov as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, effectively the Soviet prime minister, and on October 14, Nikolai Talyzin replaced Nikolai Baibakov as chairman of the State Planning Committee (GOSPLAN). At the next Central Committee meeting on October 15, Tikhonov retired from the Politburo and Talyzin became a candidate. On December 23, 1985, Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party replacing Viktor Grishin. Gorbachev continued to press for greater
Bessarabia in Romania–Soviet Union relations calls of the Romanian Communist Party for the Soviet annexation of Bessarabia and Bukovina. The issue was brought to light whenever the relationships with the Soviets were waning, but never became a serious subject of high-level negotiations in itself. As late as November 1989, as Russian support decreased, Ceauşescu brought up the Bessarabian question once again and denounced the Soviet invasion during the 14th Congress of the Romanian Communist Party. After the Romanian Revolution, Romania's new president Ion Iliescu, and Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev signed on April 5, 1991 a political treaty which among other things recognized the Soviet–Romanian border.