Mikhail Gorbachev


Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (born March 2, 1931), was leader of
the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. His attempts at reform led to the end
of the Cold War, but also inadvertantly caused the end of the political
supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the
dissolution of the Soviet Union.

He studied law at Moscow University, where he met his future wife, Raisa.
They were married in September 1953 and moved to Mr. Gorbachev's home region
of Stavropol in southern Russia when he graduated in 1955.

Mikhail Gorbachev joined the CPSU in 1952 at the age of 21. In 1966, at age
35, he graduated from the Agricultural Institute as an agronomist-
economist. His career moved forward rapidly, and in 1970 he was appointed
First Secretary for Agriculture and the following year made a member of the
Central Committee. In 1972, he headed a Soviet delegation to Belgium and two
years later, in 1974, he was made a Representative to the Supreme Soviet,
and Chairman of the Standing Commission on Youth Affairs. He was elevated to
the Politburo in 1979. There, he received the patronage of Yuri Andropov,
head of the KGB and also a native of Stavropol, and was promoted during
Andropov's brief time as leader of the Party before his death in 1984.

His positions within the CPSU created more opportunities to travel abroad
that would profoundly affect his political and social views in the future as
leader of the country. In 1975, he led a delegation to West Germany and in
1983 he headed a Soviet delegation to Canada to meet with Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau and members of the Canadian House of Commons and Senate. In
1985, he traveled to the United Kingdom, where he met with Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher.

On the death of Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev, at age 54, was
elected General Secretary of the Communist Party on March 11, 1985. As the
de facto ruler of the Soviet Union, he tried to reform the stagnating
Communist rule by introducing Glasnost - openness, and Perestroika -
restructuring, which were launched at the 27th Congress of CPSU in February 1986.

In 1988, Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union would abandon the
Brezhnev Doctrine, and allow the Eastern European countries to turn to
democracy, if they wished. He jokingly called his new doctrine the Sinatra
Doctrine. This led to the string of revolutions in Eastern Europe throughout
1989 in which Communism collapsed. With the exception of Romania, the
collapses were all peaceful ones. This effectively ended the Cold War, and
for this Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel peace prize on October 15, 1990.

But the democratization of the USSR and Eastern Europe tore away the power
of the Communist party and himself, and an attempted coup by conservative
elements occurred in 1991. During this time, he spent three days (August 19
to 21) under house arrest at a dacha in the Crimea before being freed and
restored to power. But upon his return, Gorbachev found that support had
swung over to his colleague, Boris Yeltsin. Further, Gorbachev was forced to
sack large numbers of his Politburo and in several cases, arrest them. Those
arrested for high treason include the 'Gang of Eight' that had led the coup.

Gorbachev was elected as the first executive president of the Soviet Union
on March 15, 1990 but would later resign on December 25, 1991. Gorbachev is
generally well regarded in the West for having ended the Cold War. However
in Russia, his reputation is very low because it is perceived that he
brought about the collapse of the country and is responsible for the misery
that followed.

In 1997, Gorbachev starred in a Pizza Hut commercial made for the USA to
raise money for the Perestroika Archives.

Gorbachev founded the Gorbachev Foundation in 1992, and Green Cross
International in 1993. He became a member of the Club of Rome.