History of the Soviet Union (1982–91) the people. It was still that this country was governed and kept together, as a structure, as a government structure, by the fear from Stalinist times." The principal elements of the old Soviet political system were Communist Party dominance, the hierarchy of soviets, state socialism, and ethnic federalism. Gorbachev's programs of "perestroika" (restructuring) and "glasnost" (openness) produced radical unforeseen effects that brought that system down. As a means of reviving the Soviet state, Gorbachev repeatedly attempted to build a coalition of political leaders supportive of reform and created new arenas and bases of power. He implemented these measures because he
Central Committee elected by the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union by Gennady Kolbin, an ethnic Russian who had never lived in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. On 23 December 1985, the Politburo appointed Boris Yeltsin, an official from Sverdlovsk, First Secretary of the Moscow City Committee ("de facto" mayor of Moscow). Gorbachev had endorsed the appointment, heeding the advice of Yegor Ligachev (the party's informal second-in-command) who personally recommended him. In contrast, Nikolai Ryzhkov told Gorbachev in private that "He [Yeltsin] will cause you only grief. I would not recommend him." Yeltsin, who had introduced himself as something of a centrist at the 27th Congress, proved himself to be a