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,
1991 in the Soviet Union George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev sign START I treaty in Moscow 1991 in the Soviet Union The following lists events that happened during 1991 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Soviet Union had a transitional government in 1991, during the fall of communism. Every republic in the union had growing nationalism until Christmas of 1991 when Mikhail Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and President of the Soviet Union, abandoned the Union at the time of its dissolution. The dissolution created huge changes in politics and territorial claims. NATO scaled back