Perestroika hits its first major political iceberg. It has already been resisted by bureaucrats trying to block Gorbachev's economic reforms. Now, hardline communist newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya publishes a clarion call for communists to resist Gorbachev's reforms. The call comes in a letter from a Leningrad chemist, Stalinist Nina Andreyeva, but Gorbachev is out of the country and hardliners are suspected of being behind it.

In the Baltic States, meanwhile, thoughts of independence are beginning to stir in the climate of change. In Estonia, the Popular Front is formed - a political party in all but name, even though only the Communist Party is allowed to exist. Latvia and Lithuania follow suit.

The first rumblings of inter-ethnic unrest are also felt, as clashes begin over Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan, between Azeris and Armenians. Later, violence will also flare in Georgia, where North and South Ossetia and Abkhazia want independence.