Mikhail Gorbachev major campaign to limit alcohol consumption, which Gorbachev—who believed it would improve health and work efficiency—oversaw. His wife keenly supported the measure. As a result, crime rates fell and life expectancy grew slightly between 1986 and 1987. The reform had significant costs to the Soviet economy, resulting in losses of up to $100 billion between 1985 and 1990. Gorbachev later considered the campaign to have been an error. In April 1986 the Chernobyl disaster occurred; in the immediate aftermath, officials fed Gorbachev incorrect information to downplay the incident. As the scale of the disaster became apparent, 336,000 people were evacuated
Eleventh five-year plan (Soviet Union) leadership were reluctant to reform the stagnant Soviet economy. None of the Soviet Far East oblasts fulfilled the five-year plan's housing targets. By the 1960s, the goal of increasing the labour surplus had become a major obstacle, caused by factors including the declining birth rate. Labour growth had also stagnated with working population growth remaining at 18 percent between 1971 and 1980. The table below uses the planner's targets as a base for comparison with actual increases in industrial growth due to labour productivity. According to Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Soviet Premier at the 27th Party Congress, the Eleventh Five-Year Plan