History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union indications Gorbachev may have been in control prior to Chernenko's death as he was announced as the new General Secretary the day after Chernenko died on March 10, 1985. Gorbachev instituted policies of glasnost, perestroika, and acceleration. Glasnost allowed freedom of speech in the Soviet Union and a flourishing of political debate within the Communist Party to a degree not seen since the Russian Revolution, perestroika was an attempt to restructure the political and particularly the economic organisation of the country, while acceleration meant faster development of the economy. This period of liberalisation ultimately ended in the dissolution of the
Soviet Union and the United Nations 1950. The return brought with it a beginning of a new policy of active participation on international and regional organizations. By the late 1980s the Soviet Union belonged to most of the special agencies of the UN. They did, however, resist joining various agricultural, food and humanitarian relief efforts. During the Mikhail Gorbachev era, the Soviet Union made repeated suggestions for increasing UN involvement in the settlement of superpower and regional problems and conflicts. Though these proposals were not implemented, they constituted new initiatives in Soviet foreign policy and represented a break with the nature of past Soviet foreign policy.