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March 25 is the feast of the Annunciation and virginal conception of Jesus, preceding Christmas, the birth of Jesus, by 9 months.
On March 25, 1984, His Holiness Pope John Paul II, in communion with all the bishops, pronounced the consecration of the whole world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, praying particularly for Russia (1).
At that time, the two blocs at odds with each other after the Yalta Pact were experiencing a period of deep crisis due to the Pershing and SS20 nuclear-tipped missiles installed in Cuba and aimed at the United States. In the Kremlin, engaged in the war in Afghanistan, obscure political figures such as Andropov and Chernenko rose to power.
Shortly afterwards, unexpectedly, Mikhail Gorbachev and his “Perestroika” came to power in the Kremlin, at the same time as the Solidarity independent trade union was growing in Poland, finally opening up a fruitful dialogue on nuclear disarmament between the two “great powers”.
On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall, symbol of the East-West divide and the Cold War, suddenly fell. Part of the wall was brought to the Fatima shrine.
On December 8, 1991, the Belovezha Accords, with the deputies representing all the republics of the USSR, declared that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), born of the October Revolution of 1917, had effectively ceased to exist and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place as a successor entity. Some time later, Gorbachev declared that he had never understood what had gone through the deputies' minds on December 8, 1991!
December 8, 1991, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, was the 8th anniversary of the day John Paul II sent his letter to the bishops of the world, asking them to join him in pronouncing the Act of Consecration of the World to the Immaculate Heart of Mary!
Finally... on December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev signed his resignation as President of the USSR: seven years and 9 months earlier, John Paul II had made the consecration requested by Our Lady of Fatima.
Marian Encyclopedia
Sr Lucia, in a letter dated November 21, 1989, confirmed that Pope John Paul II had indeed carried out the consecration according to the indications of Our Lady of Fatima. (Published in R. Laurentin, Comment la Vierge Marie leur a rendu la liberté, ŒIL, Paris, 1991, p.87-88).