GORBACHEV, Mikhail Sergeyevich

Former General Secretary and First and Last President of the Soviet Union 06/29/2010

Mikhail Gorbachev (Михаил Сергеевич Горбачёв) was born March 2, 1931 in Privolnoye village in Stavropol territory. He introduced glasnost and perestroika reforms in the mid 1980s, as well as overseeing a significant improvement in Russia-US relations. Gorbachev was the seventh and final general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).

Early career

Having joined the CPSU in 1952, Gorbachev graduated with a degree in law from Moscow State University in 1955. In the late 1950s, he was first secretary of the Stavropol Komsomol City Committee.

In 1967, he completed a correspondence course and graduated from the Stavropol Agricultural Institute. Three years later he was elected to the Central Committee of the CPSU. He was appointed agriculture secretary of the Central Committee in 1978 and became a full member of the Politburo in 1980. Gorbachev was to be a member of the Politburo until 1991.
His rise was, in part, due to the support of influential ideologue Mikhail Suslov.

Under General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Yuri Andropov, from 1982 to 1984, Gorbachev was a prominent member of the Politburo, helping to bring a new generation of politicians into the top level of government. From 1984 to 1985, he served as chairman for the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Soviet Union.

In March 1985, Gorbachev became general secretary, the first leader of the Soviet Union to have been born after the October Revolution. He would serve in this position until August 24, 1991.

Perestroika

During his time as general secretary, Gorbachev introduced a range of reforms, which would radically change the economic and social fabric of the Soviet Union.

The policy of glasnost introduced greater freedom of speech, leading to wider press freedom. It also led to the rehabilitation of many opponents of Stalin and exiled political prisoners in the mid 1980s. Dissident Andrei Sakharov was invited to return to Moscow in 1986 after six years in exile in Gorky.

Perestroika followed, as the economy was overhauled with a new focus on modernization, increasing productivity and reforming Soviet bureaucracy. In 1988 Gorbachev passed a law on cooperatives which introduced private ownership to business for the first time since the New Economic Policy. Gorbachev’s economic policies were, however, to lead to a serious crisis in the late 1980s, characterized by major food shortages, a state deficit and external debt which spiraled out of control and a significant reduction in gold funds.    

Perestroika also changed the political landscape. In June 1988, Gorbachev reduced party control of the government by introducing a president and a congress of people’s deputies. Deputies were elected in free elections in 1989. There were also personel changes. In May 1985, Gorbachev replaced the old-fashioned Minister for Foreign Affairs, Andrei Gromyko, with Eduard Shevernadze.

International Relations

In January, 1986, Gorbachev made his January Proposal – a strategy to remove intermediate-range nuclear weapons (INF) from Europe and eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2000. Later the same year he began withdrawing Soviet troops from Afghanistan and Mongolia.

At a meeting in Reykavik in October 1986, Gorbachev and Reagan agreed to remove INF systems from Europe, to equal global limits of 100 INF missile warheads, and eliminate all warheads by 1996. These talks and subsequent negotiations led to the (INF) Treaty, signed in Geneva in 1987. In the same year Gorbachev was named Time Magazine's Man of the Year.

In 1988, Gorbachev announced a full Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was completed the following year. Also in 1988, Gorbachev announced reduced Soviet influence in Eastern bloc nations, abandoning the Brezhnev doctrine. This was to stimulate independence movements throughout Eastern Europe, ultimately leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev did not intervene when the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989, leaving reunification to become an issue for East and West Germany to resolve.   

Gorbachev had dramatically improved the Soviet Union’s relationship with the West through strong relationships with foreign leaders such as Chacnellor Helmut Kohl, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. He was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold in 1989 and the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.

Collapse of the Soviet Union

In March 1990, Gorbachev was elected the first President of the Soviet Union, receiving 59% of Deputies' votes. He would serve in this position until December 25, 1991.

Political crises overwhelmed the CPSU in 1990 and 1991, however, as the republics pushed further for indendence and Boris Yeltsin rose to prominence. During this period Gorbachev’s government also admitted that the NKVD had carried out the Katyn massacre in 1941.

In August 1991, CPSU hardliners organized a coup to attempt to remove Gorbachev from power. He spent three days under house arrest at a dacha in the Crimea, before being freed and restored to power. The coup and Boris Yeltsin’s key role in restoring power had, however, undermined Gorbachev’s influence. This was further dented by the arrest of coup organizers, many of whom had been close associates of Gorbachev.

In August and September 1991,  Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan declared their intention to leave the Soviet Union. Simultaneously, Boris Yeltsin ordered the CPSU to suspend its activities on the territory of Russia and closed the Central Committee building at Staraya Ploschad. Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the CPSU on 24 August and advised the Central Committee to dissolve.

Following a referendum in Ukraine which saw overwhelming support for independence in  December 1991, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus met in Belovezh Forest, near Brest, Belarus. They signed the Belavezha Accords, on 8 December, founding the Commonwealth of Independent States and declaring the end of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev resigned on 25 December 1991 and the Soviet Union was formally dissolved the following day.

Post Soviet Union

Gorbachev retained an involvement in Russian politics, criticizing Yeltsin’s reforms in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev ran an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1996 and established the Social Democratic party of Russia in the same year. He resigned in 2004 and the party was eventually banned for administrative failings in 2007. He then set up the Union of Social Democrats and the following year, along with Alexander Lebedev, founded the Independent Democratic Party of Russia. He continues to be part owner of newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the opposition newspaper he set up in 1993 with the proceeds from his Nobel Peace Prize.

Gorbachev also continues to be a prominent public figure, appearing in advertisements and releasing an album dedicated to his late wife to raise money for his charity foundations. In 1992 he became president of the International Foundation for Socio-Economic and Political Studies (also known as The Gorbachev Foundation) and the following year founded and became president of Green Cross International.

Gorbachev also continues to voice his opinion on domestic and international affairs. He opposed the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the Iraq war in 2003. Following the outbreak of the 2008 South Ossetia war, Gorbachev criticized U.S. support for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in an article for the Washington Post.   

Gorbachev has maintained that he is an atheist, although he was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church as a child. He has one daughter. His wife Raissa achieved widespread fame and recognition for her charity work, supporting Russia’s cultural heritage as well as education and health programs in Russia. She died of leukemia in 1999.

Related links:

Gorbachev Foundation Web site

Green Cross International

Gorbachev Op-ed about the South Ossetia War in the Washington Post (08/12/2008)

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