Gorbachev breaks the silence
1986 · Event
Eighteen days after the explosion, Gorbachev finally addresses the nation on television — candid by Soviet standards, defensive by any other. Privately the disaster radicalises him: he will later call Chernobyl, not perestroika, the real cause of the Soviet Union's collapse, 'a turning point that opened the possibility of free expression'.
On these timelines: Chernobyl, Russia & the USSR, Eastern Europe & the Balkans, Fall of the Soviet Union, Cold War
More from Chernobyl
- Chernobyl disaster (1986)
- The safety test that destroyed Reactor 4 (1986)
- Pripyat is evacuated (1986)
- A Swedish alarm exposes the secret (1986)
- The liquidators (1986)
- The first responders take fatal doses (1986)
- The sarcophagus seals Reactor 4 (1986)
- The Chernobyl exclusion zone (1986)
Around 1986
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- Dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991)
- Yugoslav Wars (1991)
- Gulf War (1990)
- (Everything I Do) I Do It for You (Bryan Adams) (1991)
- Night Fever (Bee Gees) (1978)
- Invention of the World Wide Web (1989)
- Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) (Pink Floyd) (1979)
- That's The Way Love Goes (Janet Jackson) (1993)
- Pop music: the 1980s (1980)