Mikhail Gorbachev erode Gromyko's dominance of Soviet foreign policy while at the same time sending a signal to the U.S. government that he wanted to improve Soviet-U.S. relations. On 11 March 1985, Chernenko died. Gromyko proposed Gorbachev as the next General-Secretary; as a longstanding party member, Gromyko's recommendation carried great weight among the Central Committee. Gorbachev expected much opposition to his nomination as Chernenko's successor, but ultimately the rest of the Politburo supported him. Shortly after Chernenko's death, the Politburo unanimously elected Gorbachev as his successor; they wanted him over another elderly leader. Although not a well-known figure to the Soviet public,
Mikhail Gorbachev by the increasingly problematic question of nationalities and the dramatic fragmentation of the Eastern Bloc. Despite unprecedented international détente, due to Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan completed in January and continuing talks between Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush, domestic reforms suffered from increasing divergence between reformists, who wanted faster change, and conservatives, who wanted to limit change. Gorbachev states that he tried to find middle ground between both groups, but this would draw more criticism towards him. The story from this point on moves away from reforms and becomes one of the nationalities question and the eventual dissolution of the