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
19th All-Union Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 19th All-Union Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The 19th All-Union Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was a party conference held by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 28 June to 1 July 1988. There were 4,991 delegates at the conference. The General Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, declared in his opening speech that political reform was the key issue. Gorbachev wanted to achieve the "democratization of the life of the state and society", and wanted the Soviet Union to "move along the path of the creation of a socialist state under the