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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev becomes Communist Party General Secretary.
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Gorbachev appoints a little-known provincial party boss ,Boris Yeltsin, as head of the Moscow Communist Party.
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Gorbachev goes before the communists Central Committee and proposes deep political and economic reforms. Perestroika is beginning in earnest.
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It has already been resisted by bureaucrats trying to block Gorbachev's economic reforms.
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Elections are held for the new parliament set up as part of Gorbachev's reforms which is known as the Congress of People's Deputies.
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Gorbachev announces that countries in the Warsaw Pact are free to decide on their own futures.
