Silent War of 1987

The Silent War of 1987 is the colloquial name for a political struggle occurring between January and August of 1987 in the Soviet Union, where the conservative wing of the Communist Party (led by Gennady Yannayev) and the reformist wing (led by General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev). It began when Gorbachev's proposal to totally restructure the political system of the Soviet Union into a unicameral presidential republic was voted on by the Congress of People's Deputies. The voting was incredibly polarised and was characterised by obstructionism, intense debates and political gridlock. This state of amendments being proposed and shot down, gridlock and unprecedented partisanship was ended on the 23rd of August 1987 when Boris Yeltsin's caucus of deputies voted unanimously in favour of Gorbachev's original proposal. This allowed the "reform and restructuring" of Gorbachev's agenda to go through relatively unimpeded by the conservatives who were for the first time since the founding of the Soviet Union forced into the backseat of politics, a state that would be reinforced more after the election of 1992.