- Title: Timeline of rise and fall of the Soviet Union 1969-1989
- Date: 31st August 2022
- Summary: MOSCOW, SOVIET UNION (FILE - AUGUST 19, 1991) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) RUSSIAN FLAG ON TOP OF BARRICADE NEXT TO THE RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT BUILDING WHITE HOUSE DEFENDERS HANDING OVER BRICKS AND STONES TO EACH OTHER ERECTING THE BARRICADES BARRICADE IN FRONT OF WHITE HOUSE VARIOUS OF CROWDS GATHERING OUTSIDE RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT / COLUMN OF TANKS COMING TO SUPPORT PROTESTERS PEOPLE PUSHING ARMOURED PERSONNEL CARRIER IN FRONT OF MOSCOW ADMINISTRATION BUILDING PEOPLE ARGUING WITH SOLDIERS YELTSIN CLIMBING ONTO TANK OUTSIDE WHITE HOUSE AND SHAKING HANDS WITH SOLDIERS CROWD APPLAUDING VARIOUS OF YELTSIN READING HIS DECREE ANNOUNCING THE SO-CALLED 'EMERGENCY COMMITEE' ILLEGAL CROWD OUTSIDE WHITE HOUSE, ZOOM IN TO YELTSIN STANDING WITH RAISED FIST, HIS AIDE RUSLAN KHASBULATOV STANDING NEXT TO HIM VARIOUS OF MEMBERS OF EMERGENCY COMMITTEE WHO PLOTTED THE COUP WITH YANAYEV (THIRD FROM RIGHT) ANNOUNCING THAT GORBACHEV WAS IN POOR HEALTH MOSCOW, SOVIET UNION (FILE - AUGUST 20, 1991) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SHOTS) PASS UNDER KALININSKI PROSPECT / PEOPLE TRYING TO STOP ARMOURED VEHICLES APPROACHING THE CITY MAN THROWING LOG UNDER VEHICLE ARMOURED PERSONNEL CARRIERS BURNING PEOPLE RUNNING AWAY / AUDIO OF SHOTS PEOPLE CARRYING THE BODY OF DEMONSTRATOR WHO WAS KILLED
- Embargoed: 14th September 2022 09:16
- Keywords: 1989 Andrei Sakharov Berlin Wall Buzz Aldrin Chernobyl Crimea holiday home Konstantin Chernenko Mikhail Gorbachev Neil Armstrong Nikolai Tikhonov Nixon November 9 Richard Nixon SALT I SALT II Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev Soviet Union Stanislaw Kania USA United States President Ronald Reagan United States of America Yuri Andropov coup lasers moon landing
- Location: VARIOUS
- City: VARIOUS
- Country: Various
- Topics: Government/Politics,Editors' Choice
- Reuters ID: LVA013025801011970RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union, died on Tuesday (August 30) at the age of 91, Russian news agencies cited hospital officials as saying.
Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, forged arms reduction deals with the United States and partnerships with Western powers to remove the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe since World War Two and bring about the reunification of Germany.
When pro-democracy protests swept across the Soviet bloc nations of communist Eastern Europe in 1989, he refrained from using force - unlike previous Kremlin leaders who had sent tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
But the protests fuelled aspirations for autonomy in the 15 republics of the Soviet Union, which disintegrated over the next two years in chaotic fashion.
Gorbachev struggled in vain to prevent that collapse.
On becoming general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, aged just 54, he had set out to revitalise the system by introducing limited political and economic freedoms, but his reforms spun out of control.
His policy of 'glasnost' - free speech - allowed previously unthinkable criticism of the party and the state, but also emboldened nationalists who began to press for independence in the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and elsewhere.
Many Russians never forgave Gorbachev for the turbulence that his reforms unleashed, considering the subsequent plunge in their living standards too high a price to pay for democracy. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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