Article: Dissolution of the Soviet Union
Section: Soviet Union centre – one-party democracy

Question: When did the Soviets hear Mikhail Gorbachev's proposition for "democratization"?

Soviet Union centre – one-party democracy.
At the 28–30 January 1987 Central Committee Plenum Mikhail Gorbachev suggested a new policy of 'democratization' throughout Soviet society.
Specifically he suggested that future Communist Party elections should offer a choice between multiple candidates, elected by secret ballot, however the CPSU delegates at the Plenum watered down Gorbachev's words and democratic choice within the Communist Party was never significantly implemented.
In addition Gorbachev radically expanded the scope of Glasnost stating that no subject was off limits for open discussion within the media, although the cautious intelligensia took almost a year to begin pushing the boundaries to see if he meant what he said.
For the first time, the Communist Party leader, speaking at the Plenum of the Central Committee, appealed over the heads of its members for the people's support in exchange for a dramatic expansion of liberties.
The tactic proved successful in that within two years political reform was invulnerable to the party 'conservatives', the unintended consequence was that having saved reform, the January 1987 choice, ultimately killed the very system it was designed to save.
On 7 February 1987 dozens of political prisoners were freed in the first group release since the Khrushchev years in the 1950s.
On May 6, 1987 Pamyat, a Russian Nationalist group, held an unsanctioned demonstration in Moscow.
The authorities not only did not break up the demonstration by force—but later, the police kept traffic out of the demonstrators' way while they marched to an impromptu meeting with Boris Yeltsin, head of the Moscow Communist Party, and at that time one of Mikhail Gorbachev's closest allies in the ruling Politburo.
On July 25, 1987 a group of 300 Crimean Tatars, calling for the right to return to the Crimean homeland from which they were deported in 1944, staged a noisy demonstration for several hours near the Kremlin Wall as dozens of police and soldiers looked on.
On 10 September 1987, after a lecture from hard-liner Yegor Ligachev at the Politburo for allowing two small unsanctioned demonstrations on Moscow streets, Boris Yeltsin wrote a letter of resignation to Gorbachev who was holidaying on the Black Sea.
When Gorbachev received the letter he was stunned – nobody in Soviet history had voluntarily resigned from the ranks of the Politburo.
At the October 27, 1987 plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Yeltsin, frustrated that Gorbachev had not addressed any of the issues outlined in his resignation letter asked to speak.
He expressed his discontent with both the slow pace of reform in society, the servility shown to the General Secretary, and opposition to him from Ligachev making his position untenable, before requesting to resign from the Politburo.
This was sensational.
Besides the fact that nobody had ever quit the Politburo, no one in the party had ever had the audacity to address a leader of the party in such a manner in front of the Central Committee since Leon Trotsky in the 1920s.
In his reply, Gorbachev accused Yeltsin of "political immaturity" and "absolute irresponsibility".
Nobody in the Central Committee backed Yeltsin.
Within days news of Yeltsin's actions leaked and rumours of his 'secret speech' at the Central Committee spread throughout Moscow.
Soon fabricated "samizdat" versions began to circulate.
This was the beginning of Yeltsin's re-branding as a rebel and he continued to grow in popularity as an anti-establishment figure.
The next four years of political struggle between Yeltsin and Gorbachev was a major factor in the destruction of the Soviet Union.
On November 11, 1987 Yeltsin was fired from the post of First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party.