Assertion: Gorbachev initiated the policies of economic and political reform and democratisation within the country (USSR).

Reason: The reforms were supported by the leaders of the Communist Party.

The Assertion is correct but the Reason is incorrect.

Gorbachev initiated the policies of economic and political reform and democratisation within the country. The reforms were opposed by leaders within the Communist Party. A coup took place in 1991 that was encouraged by Communist Party hardliners. The people had tasted freedom by then and did not want the old-style rule of the Communist Party. Boris Yeltsin emerged as a national hero in opposing this coup. The Russian Republic, where Yeltsin won a popular election, began to shake off centralised control. Power began to shift from the Soviet centre to the republics, especially in the more Europeanised part of the Soviet Union, which saw themselves as sovereign states. The Central Asian republics did not ask for independence and wanted to remain with the Soviet Federation. In December 1991, under the leadership of Yeltsin, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, three major republics of the USSR, declared that the Soviet Union was disbanded. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was banned. Capitalism and democracy were adopted as the bases for the post-Soviet republics.