ON THIS DAY ·
Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan
15 Feb 1989 — General Boris Gromov, commander of the 40th Army, crossed the Friendship Bridge over the Amu Darya at Termez as the last Soviet soldier to leave Afghanistan. Gorbachev had called the war a “bleeding wound” in 1986. About 15,000 Soviet troops had died in it.
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The moment in context
Gorbachev’s first attempt at reform did not abandon the Soviet system. It asked the system to work harder. As general secretary, and thus the country’s leader, he sought “acceleration” through investment in machine-building and tighter discipline. His campaign against drinking, launched in May 1985, reduced vodka production and raised its price. It also removed tens of billions of roubles from the budget over three years, because alcohol taxes were one of the state’s largest sources of income. Many drinkers turned to moonshine in place of state vodka.
From Perestroika and glasnost, chapter 8 of Remaking the State: Meiji Japan 1600–1912 and Post-Soviet Russia 1964–2000 (1988).
The place: Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan — map and full story →
Teach this in 5 minutes
- Why it happened — A generational change at the top. Three general secretaries died in office between November 1982 and March 1985. Their deaths opened the leadership to a younger man whose career had…
- The turn — The elections of 26 March 1989. The elections of 26 March 1989 gave most voters a choice of candidates for the first time since 1917. In Leningrad and other cities they rejected…
- What it changed — An elected opposition gained a national stage. The new Congress gave opponents a national platform. Yeltsin, Sakharov and several hundred allies formed the Inter-Regional Group of deputies, the…
Then ask the room: Should Gorbachev be judged a failure for losing the system he set out to save, or credited for ending it without a major war? The argued answer is on the chapter page →
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