Historical Figure
Mikhail Gorbachev
1931–2022
Leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991
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Biography
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was a Soviet and Russian politician who was the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1985, and additionally as head of state from 1988. Ideologically, he initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism, but moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s.
In Their Own Words (5)
I express the very deepest condolences to the family of the deceased on whose shoulders rest major events for the good of the country and serious mistakes.
On the death of Boris Yeltsin, in "Russia's former president Yeltsin dies: Kremlin" in Reuters (23 April 2007) , 2007
Certain people in the United States are driving nails into this structure of our relationship, then cutting off the heads. So the Soviets must use their teeth to pull them out.
As quoted in TIME magazine (9 September 1985) , 1985
My life’s work has been accomplished. I did all that I could.
The Observer [London] (15 December 1991) , 1991
Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.
As quoted in The London Daily Telegraph (16 June 1992) , 1992
The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization.
Statement (8 June 1990), as quoted in The Economics of the Environment and Natural Resources (2004) by R. Quentin Grafton, p. 277 , 2004
Timeline
The story of Mikhail Gorbachev, told in moments.
Graduates from Moscow State University with a law degree. He'd married fellow student Raisa Titarenko in 1953. Back in Stavropol, he rises through the Communist Party bureaucracy. He's a believer. He thinks the system can be reformed from within. By 1978 he's back in Moscow as a Central Committee secretary. By 1980 he's in the Politburo.
Becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party at 54, the youngest leader since Stalin. Three elderly leaders have died in three years. He inherits a stagnating economy, an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, and a nuclear arsenal pointed at the United States. He launches glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring).
Signs the INF Treaty with Reagan, eliminating an entire class of nuclear missiles. He's already withdrawn troops from Afghanistan. He tells Eastern European leaders the Soviet Union won't intervene in their internal affairs anymore. When the Berlin Wall falls in November 1989, Soviet tanks don't move. This is his choice.
Communist hardliners launch a coup while he's on vacation in Crimea. They cut his phone lines and send tanks into Moscow. Boris Yeltsin stands on a tank and rallies the resistance. The coup collapses in three days. But Gorbachev returns to a different country. By December, the Soviet Union dissolves. He resigns on Christmas Day.
Dies in Moscow at 91. Revered in the West for ending the Cold War. Despised by many Russians for losing the empire. His wife Raisa died of leukemia in 1999. He never remarried. Putin sends condolences but doesn't attend the funeral. A few hundred people do.
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