Mikhail Gorbachev and following the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 pursued this agenda. Gorbachev's policies of "glasnost" ("openness") and "perestroika" ("restructuring") and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War. Under this program, the role of the Communist Party in governing the state was removed from the constitution, which inadvertently led to crisis-level political instability with a surge of regional nationalist and anti-communist activism culminating in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev later expressed regret for his failure to save the Soviet state, though he has insisted that his policies were not failures but rather were
Communist Party of the Soviet Union and effective control of the party organization remained in Gorbachev's control. Chernenko died on 10 March 1985 and was succeeded in office by Gorbachev on 11 March 1985. Gorbachev was elected CPSU General Secretary on 11 March 1985, one day after Chernenko's death. When he acceded, the Soviet Union was stagnating but was stable and may have continued largely unchanged into the 21st century if not for Gorbachev's reforms. Gorbachev conducted a significant personnel reshuffling of the CPSU leadership, forcing old party conservatives out of office. In 1985 and early 1986, the new party leadership called for "uskoreniye" (). Gorbachev