1989 in the Soviet Union

← 1988 1987 1986 1989 in the Soviet Union → 1990 1991 1992
Decades:	1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s
See also:	History of the Soviet Union List of years in the Soviet Union

The following lists events that happened during 1989 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Incumbents

• President of the Soviet Union – Mikhail Gorbachev^[1]
• General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – Mikhail Gorbachev
• Chairman of the Supreme Soviet – Mikhail Gorbachev
• Vice President of the Soviet Union – Anatoly Lukyanov
• Premier of the Soviet Union – Nikolai Ryzhkov

Events

Whole Year: Revolutions of 1989

• January to 15 February – Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.^[2]
• 6 February — Negotiations between the Polish government and the union ‘Solidarity’ opened.
• 27 March – 1989 Soviet Union legislative election: first contested elections in Soviet History.^[3]
• 9 April – April 9 tragedy; a pro-independence demonstration in Tbilisi was put down by Soviet authorities, resulting in the deaths of 21 people.^[4]
• 18 May – Lithuania declares sovereignty over all of its territory.
• 25 May – Gorbachev becomes Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union.
• 23 August — Two million people in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania join hands to form the Baltic Way in the Singing Revolution.
• 24 September – Lithuania declares 1940 annexation by the Soviet Union to be null and void.^[5]
• 9 November — Soviet power in Eastern Europe collapses with the Fall of the Berlin Wall.^[6]
• 28 November — Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announces the end of its monopoly of power, in the Velvet Revolution.
• 7 December — Lithuanian parliament announces the end of the political monopoly of the Communist Party of Lithuania, in the Singing Revolution.
• 25 December —Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife and captured and executed, in the Romanian revolution.

References

See also

• 1989 in fine arts of the Soviet Union
• List of Soviet films of 1980-91