23 years ago today, on 25 Dec 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He was the only general secretary in the history of the Soviet Union to have been born after the October Revolution. Months earlier, hardliners in the Soviet leadership had launched a coup in an attempt to remove Gorbachev from power. Returning after three days in house arrest, Gorbachev found that power structures no longer heeded his command. In his resignation speech, Gorbachev stood on the record of his presidency, and said he had overseen the Soviet Unions trip down the road of democracy and toward the market economy. The people of Russia, he said, were now living in a new world. Two days later, Boris Yeltsin moved into Gorbachevs office, and China entered into diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 13:16:38 +0000
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