Mikhail Gorbachev
1931 – 2022 Soviet General Secretary of the Communist Party, President of the USSR
The last Soviet leader, whose reforms loosened the system and ended with the collapse of the USSR.
- Affiliations
- Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader in 1985 and launched glasnost and perestroika, opening the press and trying to restructure a stagnant economy. He wound down the Cold War, let the communist governments of Eastern Europe fall without intervention, and allowed the Berlin Wall to open. At home the reforms unleashed forces the state could not contain; nationalist movements grew, hardliners tried to seize power in the 1991 August coup, and Boris Yeltsin outflanked him. In December 1991 the Soviet Union dissolved and he resigned. Praised abroad, he is widely blamed in Russia for the breakup and the hardship that followed.
Connections
- rival of Boris Yeltsin — Outmaneuvered him and led Russia out of the Soviet Union.
- rival of Boris Yeltsin — Yeltsin outmaneuvered him and led Russia out of the union.
- mentor of Yuri Andropov — Andropov promoted him into the senior leadership.
- mentor of Yuri Andropov — Promoted Gorbachev into the senior leadership.
In the timeline
- 1985 – 1991 Glasnost and Perestroika the reforming leader
- 1986 Chernobyl disaster the Soviet leader
- 1986 Gorbachev calls Afghanistan a 'bleeding wound' mentioned
- 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall the Soviet leader who declined to intervene
- 1989 The Malta Summit declares the Cold War over mentioned
- 1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union the last Soviet leader, who resigned
- 1991 The August Coup the leader placed under house arrest
- 1991 Soviet Union formally dissolves mentioned
- 1991 The August coup and the breakup of the KGB mentioned
- 1994 Strong and Gorbachev create the Earth Charter mentioned