A glasnost-era play by Mikhail Shatrov (1932-2010) that opened, without the cuts censors had previously requested, at the Lenin Komsomol Theater in Moscow in February 1986. 

Mikhail Gorbachev’s (1931-2022) speech before a gathering of state media leaders on 14 March 1986, in which he named the Soviet media as the driver of perestroika’s success—positioning it as both a revolutionary force for public awakening and a loyal partner to the Party.

A photograph of letter department workers at Moscow's television and radio guide, Govorit i pokazyvaet Moskva (1973-1990), processing mail from citizens writing in about the upcoming 27th Communist Party Congress in 1986.

In 1989, Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007) capitalized on the gains of glasnost to secure widespread support for his candidacy to the Congress of People’s Deputies, overcoming a contentious past with General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022) and emerging as a popular figure against conservative elements inside the Soviet Communist Party.

Just five months before his death, Nobel Peace Prize-winning physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov (1921-1989) spoke out at the USSR’s First Congress of People’s Deputies, defying Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022) to advocate for a multi-party system in a speech broadcast live to millions—yet silenced within the Congress hall itself.

Televised footage of the USSR’s first Congress of People’s Deputies in 1989. So many Soviet citizens tuned in to the live broadcast that production rates fell nationwide.