LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Andrei Sakharov: Mikhail Gorbachev
built 230 days ago
Everything changed when Gorbachev came to power and in 1986 recalled Sakharov from Gorky as one of his first gestures toward opening up the Soviet regime. In 1989, Sakharov was elected to the Soviet Union's first and last real parliament, the All-Union Congress of People's Deputies, and was one of the leaders of the democratic opposition bloc that included Boris Yeltsin. But in December that year, Sakharov died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 68--shortly after Gorbachev rudely berated him in a televised Congress session for pushing too quickly for a multiparty system. Sakharov's funeral drew a crowd a hundred-thousand strong, and the image of Bonner as the quietly grieving woman at his coffin was etched into the public mind.
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The final three years of Sakharov's life were filled with meetings with world leaders, press interviews, travel abroad, renewed contacts with his scientific colleagues, and the writing of his memoirs. In March 1989 he was elected to the First Congress of People's Deputies, representing the Academy of Sciences. Sakharov had his honours restored, received new ones, and saw many of the causes for which he had fought and suffered become official policy under Gorbachev and his successors.
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When Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 and initiated his Perestroika, one of his actions was to allow Sakharov to return to Moscow in 1986. Sakharov became one of the most prominent figures in the political opposition, and eventually was elected into public office in 1989, as a member of the new Soviet parliament. He was elected a co-leader of the democratic opposition faction. In December 1989, Sakharov died of a sudden heart attack and was found dead in his bed by his wife. A few months later, the Soviet Communist Party gave up its constitutional monopoly on political power. The Soviet Union was no more.
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In 1983 U.S. president Ronald Reagan (1911–) proclaimed May 21 National Sakharov Day in recognition of his courage and his contribution to humanity. Sakharov was detained in Gorky for almost seven years, released at last by Premier Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–) in 1986. In 1989 he was elected to the newly formed Soviet legislature. The remaining three years of Sakharov's life were spent traveling abroad. He died of a heart attack on December 14, 1989, in Moscow.
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Following the publication of "Reflections", Sakharov was fired from the weapons program. He became an increasingly vocal advocate of human rights and when he denounced the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan, the Soviet authorities were quick to respond, banishing him to internal exile in Gorkii in January 1980. His long years of isolation finally ended in December 1986, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev invited Sakharov to return to Moscow.
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Between 1980 to 1986, Sakharov was kept under tight Soviet police surveillance. In his memoirs he mentions that their apartment in Gorky was repeatedly subjected to searches and heists. He remained isolated but unrepentant until December 1986 when he was allowed to return to Moscow as Mikhail Gorbachev initiated the policies of perestroika and glasnost.
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Mikhail Gorbachev