| Date |
 |
Event |
| 1989 |
SU |
In 1989
The CPSU had 20 million members. 50% of men in higher education were
members. |
| 09.01.1989 |
|
Cuba starts to withdraw its expeditionary
force from Angola. |
| 12.01.1989 |
|
Direct rule from Moscow is imposed on
Nagorno-Karabakh. |
| 05.02.1989 |
LT |
20 000 attend the re-consecration of
Vilnius Cathedral. |
| 15.02.1989 |
SU |
The last Soviet troops withdraw from
Afghanistan. |
| 16.02.1989 |
LT |
Lithuanian Independence Day is officially
commemorated. Sajudis voices its demand for independence. |
| 15.03.1989 |
SU |
Private agricultural holdings are allowed
on leased land. |
| 26.03.1989 |
SU |
First multi-candidate elections in the
SU. Nationalists win local elections in Baltic. First round of voting
to the USSR Congress of People's Deputies. Victory for Yeltsin with 87%
of Moscow vote. |
| 09.04.1989 |
SU
LT |
Second round of elections to the Congress
of People's Deputies. Overall, Sajudis backed candidates win 36 of the
42 seats in Lithuania. |
| |
GE |
The Red Army suppresses pro-independence
demonstrations in Georgia. At least 19 die. Politburo members claim they
know nothing about the decision until hours later. Interior Ministry
troops use shovels and poison gas to break up the demonstration. |
| 10.04.1989 |
GE |
Curfew is announced on Georgian TV 4
minutes before coming into effect. |
| 05.1989 |
SU |
Unrest in many republics of the Union. |
| 18.05.1989 |
EE
LT
LV |
Parliaments in Lithuania and Estonia
declare their economic independence from the Soviet Union. Governments
vote themselves full control of their budgets and all industry on their
territory. Lithuania follows Estonia's November decision with a declaration
of "Lithuanian State Sovereignty." It also adopts a law establishing
Lithuanian citizenship.
|
| |
SU |
President Gorbachev gives a rare interview
on his private life to TASS. He details his salary at around GBP 1 000
like other full Politburo members and says he works almost non-stop."Except
for a few hours that are spent on sleep, all my time is given to my work
... and I must admit that my atention is concentrated on work even when
I am on leave." He states that he has a city flat and state-owned
country house, but no private one. He choses not to shed light on his
progress through the upper echelons of Soviet power nor how he was chosen
to take over as Party leader in March 1985. He started helping out on
the local collective farm in Stavropol aged 13. "Althogether I worked
for 5 years at a machine and tractor station, combining my studies with
work in the field." He enrolled at the law department of Moscow
university in 1950 and joined the Communist Party 2 years later. He met
Raisa in 1951, who was a philosophy student from Siberian Rubtovsk, and
married in 1953. He returned to Stavropol and soon shifted to work in
the local Communist Party and rose to become territorial First Secretary.
At the same time he took a correspondence course from the economics department
of anagricultural institute, while his wife wrote a thesis on the life
of collective farm peasantry. At the same time their daughter Irina was
born. Gorbachev names his hobbies as reading, theatre, music and cinema. "I
enjoy most of all taking a walk in the forest. But I must admit that
I have such an opportunity ever more rarely .. As to housing conditions
we have a flat in the city. Taking into consideration the nature of the
work, members of the country's leadership have the use of state-owned
country houses." He distances himself from predecessor Brezhnev's
lavish lifestyle: "Neither I nor any members of my family have or
ever had privately owned country houses anywhere." |
| 27.05.1989 |
SU |
Gorbachev proposes Lukyanov as Vice President
(First Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Soviet) under the new constitution.
The vote is postponed as many deputies think they had the right to propose
nominees from the floor. Rows between Azeri and Armenian deputies. |
| 28.05.1989 |
SU |
Anatoly Lukyanov answers parliament's
questions.
|
| |
SU
GE |
An official parliamentary report
says soldiers carried out "a planned massacre" when they broke up independence
protests in Georgia on 09.04.1989. Soldiers "blocked crossings, surrounded
citizens and beat them with clubs and shovels. They did not spare hunger
strikers, girls, old women, doctors and Red Cross workers. They pursued
people who were running away and beat the wounded even more, tearing
them from the hands of medical personnel." Concluding: "The action taken
on 9 April in Tbilisi carries the signs of a punitive operation - a planned
mass massacre, committed with especial cruelty." Georgian TV announce
the curfew on 10.04.1989 only 4 minutes before it came into effect. |
| 30.05.1989 |
SU |
Opening session of a month-long CSCE
human rights monitoring conference in Paris. "Conference on Human Dimension" includes
low-key Soviet inquiries on British immigration policies. Shevarnadze
give assurances that his country is ready to give clear pledges on rectifying
major areas of disagreement. |
| 04.06.1989 |
|
Students masacred in Tiananmen Square
in Beijing. |
| 05.06.1989 |
RU |
Gas pipeline explosion kills 400 in Siberia. |
| 13.07.1989 |
UA |
Ukrainian coal miners strike. |
| 27.07.1989 |
EE
LT
LV |
Moscow grants economic independence to
the Baltic states. |
| 03.08.1989 |
LT |
Lithuanians hand in their military documents
at a protest rally in Vilnius, organised by "Young Lithuania," refusing
to serve in the Soviet Army. |
| 23.08.1989 |
EE
LT
LV |
Two million Lithuanians, Latvians and
Estonians join hands in a human chain, stretching 650km from Vilnius
to Tallinn, to protest the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop
pact. |
| 10.09.1989 |
SU |
Gorbachev makes a sweeping attack on
conservatives in the CPSU, warning also against the "excessive" demands
of leftist radicals. |
| 12.09.1989 |
SU |
Yeltsin meets President Bush and states
that "Glasnost has been rolling back for the last 2 months." He
also predicts that German unification would take at least a decade and
that is is "significant" that Yegov Ligachev was visiting East
Berlin after more than 12 000 East Germans have crossed to the West across
Hungary's open border. |
13-
14.09.1989 |
SU
EE
LT
LV |
Gorbachev summons party and government leaders from
the three Baltic republics to Moscow for a meeing to discuss relations
with the outlying
republics.he meeting comes less than a week before a crucial plenum of the
CPCC which will be crucial to the course of Perestroika. The most likely
reason is to agree a position with the most articulate members of the pro-autonomy
lobby in advance of the session. |
| 14.09.1989 |
EE
LT |
Estonian Party leader Vaino Valjas reportedly
tells Estonian TV that Gorbachev understands the Baltic states' problems
and is "on our side". Sajudis leader Vytautas Landsbergis states
that "we've been waiting for thie meeting. We were hoping for two
things - to combat the cold war propaganda in Moscow and to prepare for
next week's plenum." |
| |
SU |
The CP draft platform on the nationalities issue is published,
proposing greater decentralisation of economic and political control to
the republican level but asserting the need for cohesion among all 15 Soviet
republics.
Politburo hardliner Yegor Ligachev visits East Berlin and announces that
Gorbachev will visit for the 40th anniversary of the foundaton of the DDR. |
| |
SU
RU |
During his US tour Boris Yeltsin predicts that Moscow
will pass a new law to ban military repression of domestic uprisings. Using
the military against civilian protesters in the Baltic states would be "a
crime against the people of the USSR". He states that negotiations
are under way to reduce the size of the Red Army. |
| |
AR
AZ`` |
Conditions continue to deteriorate in Armenia where the
paralysing strike in Azerbaijan has cut fuel and other supplies, 90% of
which are shipped in via Azeri capital Baku. Deputy Chairman of the Armenian
Council of Ministers, Y. Kodzhamirian, says that the republic is suffering
a virtual economic blockade. |
| 22.09.1989 |
SU |
The Supreme Soviet adopts a law on economic
autonomy. |
| 03.11.1989 |
LT |
The Law on Lithuanian citizenship is
adopted. |
| 11.11.1989 |
SU |
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
of the USSR orders the three Baltic state to comply with the Soviet Constitution. |
| 26.11.1989 |
SU |
Gorbachev affirms that the Soviet Union
must retain a one party system, at least for the time being. He adds
that the economic crisis facing the country is the equal of that faced
in the war against the Nazis. His policy statement occupies almost three
pages of Pravda. “The interests of consolidating society in the currently
difficult stage, and of concentrating all its healthy forces on resolving
the difficult task of perestroika, dictate the advisability of retaining
the one-party system .. The Communist Party has a special role in the
new society. It is called on to be the political vanguard of Soviet society.” |
| 27.11.1989 |
EE
LT
LV |
USSR Supreme Soviet ratifies the Law
on the Economic Sovereignty of the Baltic States. |
| 29.11.1989 |
SU
AR
AZ |
The Soviet Parliament relinquishes central
control over Nagorno-Karabakh under pressure from Azerbaijan and after
a series of rallies in Baku attended by hundreds
of thousands threatening a general strike. Since January it has been administered
by a Moscow commission supported by 5 000 Red Army troops. The planned withdrawal
is criticed by Armenia as the new police units are to be drawn from Azerbaijan.
The new “organisational council” will report to Baku and number local government
and Party officals. Over 120 have been killed and 200 000 have fled during two
years violence . |
| |
SU |
In Rome, Gorbachev remarks “I have arrived
in Rome in a good state of mind.” |
| 02.12.1989 |
SU |
Meeting on the yacht Maxim Gorky off
Malta, Gorbachev and Bush declare the Cold War has ended. |
| 07.12.1989 |
SU |
Article 6 of the Constitution of the
USSR, guaranteeing the leading role of the Communist Party, is abolished. |
| 18.12.1989 |
SU |
EC and USSR sign a trade and cooperation
agreement. |
| 20.12.1989 |
LT |
Lithuanian Communist Party declares
itself independent from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. |
| 26.12.1989 |
SU
LT |
Gorbachev declares "illegal" the independence
of the Lithuanian Communist Party. |
| 28.12.1989 |
EE |
Estonia forms its own foreign ministry
and names Eijen Jotsch its minister. |
| 29.12.1989 |
AR |
Armenia's Supreme Soviet decides to errect
a monument to Sakharov, because of his efforts for Nagorny-Karabakh and
the Armenians. |
| |
EE |
Estonia's Supreme Soviet increases consumer
taxes; beer doubles in price, tobacco +50%, spirits +20%. The money will
be used to increase the wages of doctors, dentists, teachers, journalists
and other "intellectual" professions. |
| |
LT |
Klaipeda, Kaunas and Vilnius witness
10 000's protesting in support of CPL independence from Moscow. Pravda
calls the decision a blow for perestroika. |
| |
LV |
Latvia's Supreme Soviet deletes the Communist
Party's leading role from the republic's constitution after stormy debate
by 220-50. Decision on reintroducing the national anthem and flag is
postponed to January. |
| 31.12.1989 |
EE
LT
LV |
2 million form 600 km. human chain from
Vilnius across the Baltic states. |