26 April, 1986. There has been no other event that has so fundamentally eroded SU citizen's belief in their governments' ability to manage the economy and emergency situations than the
Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. Official information policy after the disaster contradicted Gorbachev's claim for more openness (glasnost), causing him to lose respect with the urban elite. His prohibitionist policies, meanwhile, destroyed rural support, as most cooperatives were deprived of the possibility to augment revenues (& salaries) by distilling vodka. I have hardly found a former leader being more hated by people, wherever you went, than Gorbachev during the early/ mid 1990s.
