the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests in Ukraine. The song has been used frequently during the 2020 Belarusian protests against Lukashenko, particularly at rallies for opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. On 6 August 2020 two sound engineers slipped the track into the line-up for a pro-government concert. Government officials pulled the power to the speakers mid-song and the engineers were arrested and imprisoned. Such is the influence of the song that Gorbachev later recalled being inspired by it when he assembled his new pro-reform politburo after coming to power following the death of Konstantin Chernenko. Gorbachev stated "The first thing I did was appoint a Politburo and convene a meeting, at which I turned to the foreign minister Gromyko and said things needed to be done differently. Tsoi is singing 'We want changes' in concerts, I said, and people are saying openly and directly, 'We want changes'". Gorbachev must have been mistaken in this as Chernenko died on 10 March 1985 and Khochu peremen was not performed publicly until Summer 1986. External links Performance at the end of the film Assa References Perestroika 1986 songs Soviet songs Kino (band) songs Protest songs