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
1996 Mikhail Gorbachev presidential campaign until its dissolution in December 1991. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin (whose rise to power Gorbachev had tried to prevent) became the Russian head-of-state. Gorbachev had, reportedly, been contemplating a political return since sometime in the middle of 1993. Gorbachev was still a vigorous and opinionated man. He desired to escape from his political exile and to repair his image. Gorbachev was also motivated, amid chaotic reform efforts by Yeltsin, by a belief that he could implement far superior (and less disastrous) reform than Yeltsin. Gorbachev also had a strong personal animosity towards Yeltsin. All of