Mikhail Gorbachev named General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Mikhail Gorbachev, then a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, casting his vote in the 1985 election for Supreme Soviet of Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and local Councils of People's Deputies on February 24, 1985. (ITAR-TASS/ Valentin Kuzmin)