News
Events Leading up to the Collapse of the Soviet Union
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February 15, 1989: The last Soviet soldier leaves Afghanistan. (AP)
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November 10, 1989: Berliners dancing on top of the Berlin wall, which fell in part due to Mr. Gorbachev's non-interventionist policy. (AP)
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May 29, 1990, Boris Yeltsin is appointed chairman of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. He becomes its first popularly elected president a year later. (AP)
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Mr. Gorbachev survives a coup organized by hard-line communists as an effort to save the Soviet Union. (AP)