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"
Union of Sovereign States Union of Sovereign States The Union of Sovereign States () was the proposed name of a reorganization of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics into a new confederation. Proposed by the then President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, the proposal was an attempt to avert an end to the Soviet Union. The proposal was never implemented in the wake of the August Coup in 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union ultimately occurred on December 26th of that year. The overall proposal was resurrected as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), although as a regional organization, not a