ABSTRACT
Entitled "On the Course of the Implementation of the 27th CPSU Congress Decisions and Tasks in Deepening Restructuring," Gorbachev's opening speech presents the major reforms whose endorsement Gorbachev sought. It was loosely based on the conference theses, published several weeks earlier, but it also included several novelties, notably a proposal to establish a new type of presidency and a proposal requiring that first secretaries of local party committees face election as chairmen of the relevant soviets of people's deputies.
