ABSTRACT
After the 23 April 1985 Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Committee plenum, Mikhail Gorbachev began to demonstrate his increased self-confidence. After the July Central Committee plenum and Supreme Soviet session, Gorbachev's focus had shifted from Kremlin infighting to sweeping away the debris. The signs of Grigoriy Romanov's decline were accompanied by further appointments of Gorbachev people to key positions. Gorbachev played a much more prominent part in foreign affairs than either Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze or President Gromyko. Gorbachev showed that he was familiar with French history and culture, quoting Charles de Gaulle, Victor Hugo, and Antoine Saint-Exupery. Gorbachev repeatedly criticized the Soviet planning apparatus; the attacks reaching a climax in his televised 6 September speech in Tyumen. There was the human factor, namely, Gorbachev's closest allies in the Politburo. Political loyalties are notoriously inconstant in the totalitarian society of the USSR.
