ABSTRACT
Mutual economic interests and socialist ideology no longer serve as uniting factors in the Soviet Union, so that the last empire in the world is following the path of its predecessors. In July, the Russian Communist Party was founded as a new branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. During 1990, the pace of events in the Soviet Union accelerated. At the beginning of December 1989, Sakharov, the great defender of human rights and opposition leader in the new Soviet Parliament, appealed to the nation to participate in a two-hour political strike against an impending new dictatorship. Mikhail Gorbachev, feeling the lack of stability and legitimacy of his presidency, decided to restructure the top of the Soviet political pyramid. Gorbachev's victory over the Congress was clouded by Shevardnadze's warning about the threat of dictatorship and by the heart attack suffered by sacked Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov.
