The 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held from 25 February to 6 March 1986 in Moscow. [1] This was the first congress presided over by Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. [2] In accordance with the pattern set 20 years earlier by Leonid Brezhnev, the congress occurred five years after the previous CPSU Congress. [2] Much had changed in those five years. [2] Key figures of Soviet politics, Mikhail Suslov, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Dmitriy Ustinov, and Konstantin Chernenko had died, and Mikhail Gorbachev had become General Secretary of the Party. [2] For this reason the congress was widely anticipated, both at home and abroad, as an indicator of Gorbachev's new policies and directions. [2] The congress was attended by 4993 delegates. It elected the Central Committee of the 27th term. [2]
The agenda of the congress: