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Chernenko dies and is replaced by Mikhail Gorbachev as general secretary of the Communist Party
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Gorbachev promulgates the policies of openness, or glasnost, and restructuring, or perestroika
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Chernobyl nuclear power station explodes, showering large areas in Ukraine, Belarus and beyond with radioactive material.
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Gorbachev proposes economic and political reform
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Gorbachev signs superpower treaty with US to begin scrapping nuclear warheads
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Soviet troops leave Afghanistan; nationalist riots put down in Georgia; Lithuanian Communist Party declares its independence from the Soviet Communist Party
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Congress of People’s Deputies votes for the dissolution of the Soviet Union