History of socialism under challenge from Solidarność, or Solidarity, a labor union under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa. The union was sufficiently threatening to the government that on 13 December 1981, the head of state, Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law, suspended the union, and imprisoned most of its leaders. Mikhail Gorbachev (born 1931), who took control in 1985, was the first Soviet leader to have been born after the October revolution. He is remembered for three initiatives: "glasnost", "perestroika", and the "Frank Sinatra doctrine". "Glasnost", or "openness", was Gorbachev's term for allowing public debate in the Soviet Union to an unprecedented degree. "Perestroika"
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.