1986
13 February
The newspaper Pravda publishes an article entitled “The Purge: A Frank Conversation,” which is sharply critical of the party nomenklatura. The article, endorsed by Gorbachev, sparks a lively discussion. Its author is Tetiana Samolis, an operator at the “Azot” Industrial Union in Tula oblast (Russia). She is later appointed press secretary of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation.
25 February
The XXVII Party Congress convenes at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses in Moscow. Gorbachev gives a five-hour speech emphasizing the problems that have plagued Soviet economic development since the 1970s. He calls for a “radical reform” of the management system and greater economic independence for industry and rural areas, but does not reject the fundamental principles of socialism.
26 April
An accident occurs at the Chornobyl Nuclear Station.
4 June
The writer and activist of the Orthodox movement in the USSR Pavlo Protsenko is arrested on charges of anti-Soviet activity and heading the illegal religious organizati-on “Christian Union of Ukraine.” He is sentenced to a three-year term in a labor camp. The singer Bulat Okudzhava, the writer Fazil Iskander, the poet Yevgenii Yevtushenko, and various international organizations champion his cause. Protsenko is released in February 1987 “in connection with the changed situation in the country.”
16 July
The head of the KGB USSR Viktor Chebrikov sends Gorbachev a note “On the Subversive Aspirations of the Opponent in the Milieu of the Creative Intelligentsia,” together with a long list of names of well-known individuals. According to this document, “Rybakov, Soloukhin, Okudzhava, Mozhaiev, Kornilov…are the focus of the annoying attention of the enemy's secret services.”
26 December
KGB head Chebrikov, General Prosecutor of the USSR Aleksandr Rekunkov, head of the Supreme Court Vladimir Terebilov, and justice minister Boris Kravtsov send a memorandum to the CC CPSU with a suggestion to consider granting a pardon to a certain number of prisoners serving their terms in camps and places of exile.
1987
Spring
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR passes a resolution pardoning Myroslav Marynovych.
July
Crimean Tatars hold protest demonstrations in Moscow, demanding the right to return to their historical fatherland.
6 September
The “Ukrainian Initiative Group for the Release of Prisoners of Conscience” is founded in Lviv. Its members include Mykhailo Horyn (head), Vasyl Barladianu, Ivan Hel, Zorian Popadiuk, Stepan Khmara, and V'iacheslav Chornovil.
2-3 November
A conference dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution takes place in Moscow. Gorbachev's speech “October and Perestroika: the Revolution Continues” gives fresh impetus to the process of rehabilitating many important figures and uncovering the crimes of the Communist regime.
November
In Lviv the veteran Ukrainian human rights activist and political prisoner Ivan Hel heads the Committee in Defense of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.
8 December
The strict-regime camp VS-389/36 in Kuchino (Perm oblast) is closed, and Ukrainian prisoners are transferred to camp VS-389/35 located at Vsekhsviatskaia Station.
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
It was quickly understood that in these conditions it would not be possible to separate the “good” Lenin from the “bad” Stalin.
Criticism began to reach the very foun-dations of the Soviet system and its inhuman nature.
|
|
|
|
Gorbachev and his associates launched reforms from “above,” hoping to salvage the system and improve the socio-economic situation by means of command methods. But from the very outset these were utopian plans.
|
|
|
|
Gorbachev continued praying to the Communist idols. At the same time he introduced two fundamental slogans: "glasnost" and “democratization,” which led to the elimination of “blank spots” in history, the reinstatement of discredited figures and literary- artistic and scholarly works, the start of discussions about complex political and historical problems, and attempts to grasp wide-ranging contemporary processes via the press.
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
back
