136-396: Glasnost ( / ˈ ɡ l æ z n ɒ s t / GLAZ -nost ; Russian: гласность , IPA: [ˈɡlasnəsʲtʲ] ) is a concept relating to openness and transparency. It has several general and specific meanings, including a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information and the inadmissibility of hushing up problems. In Russian,
272-624: A collective farm before joining the Communist Party , which then governed the Soviet Union as a one-party state . Studying at Moscow State University , he married fellow student Raisa Titarenko in 1953 and received his law degree in 1955. Moving to Stavropol , he worked for the Komsomol youth organization and, after Stalin's death, became a keen proponent of the de-Stalinization reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev . He
408-618: A communal apartment . In 1961, Gorbachev pursued a second degree, in agricultural production; he took a correspondence course from the local Stavropol Agricultural Institute, receiving his diploma in 1967. His wife had also pursued a second degree, attaining a PhD in sociology in 1967 from the Moscow State Pedagogical University ; while in Stavropol she too joined the Communist Party. Stalin
544-521: A "dual pricing" system leading to the steady phasing out of state-dictated prices. Greater latitude was given to managers of state-owned factories, while capital was made available to them through a reformed banking system and through fiscal policies (in contrast to the fiscal anarchy and fall in revenue experienced by the Soviet government during perestroika ). Perestroika was expected to lead to results such as market pricing and privately sold produce, but
680-634: A "radical restructuring" of foreign policy. A major issue facing his leadership was Soviet involvement in the Afghan Civil War, which had then been going on for over five years. Over the course of the war, the Soviet Army took heavy casualties and there was much opposition to Soviet involvement among both the public and military. On becoming leader, Gorbachev saw withdrawal from the war as a key priority. In October 1985, he met with Afghan Marxist leader Babrak Karmal , urging him to acknowledge
816-606: A Vilnius court building demanding access to the 1976 trial of Sergei Kovalev , an editor of the Chronicle of Current Events and prominent rights activist. In 1986, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and his advisers adopted glasnost as a political slogan, together with the term perestroika . Alexander Yakovlev , Head of the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ,
952-648: A candidate member to a full member of the Politburo ( 25th term ), the highest decision-making authority in the Communist Party. At the time, he was the Politburo's youngest member. After Brezhnev's death in November 1982, Andropov succeeded him as General Secretary of the Communist Party , the de facto leader in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was enthusiastic about the appointment. However, although Gorbachev hoped that Andropov would introduce liberalizing reforms,
1088-521: A certain level of exposure by the mass media. Some critics, especially among legal reformers and dissidents, regarded the Soviet authorities' new slogans as vague and limited alternatives to more basic liberties. Alexei Simonov, president of the Glasnost Defence Foundation, makes a critical definition of the term in suggesting it was "a tortoise crawling towards Freedom of Speech". Between 1986 and 1991, during an era of reforms in
1224-428: A complex series of reforms to restructure society and the economy. He was concerned by the country's low productivity, poor work ethic, and inferior quality goods; like several economists, he feared this would lead to the country becoming a second-rate power. The first stage of Gorbachev's perestroika was uskoreniye ("acceleration"), a term he used regularly in the first two years of his leadership. The Soviet Union
1360-512: A complicated legacy in Russia. While in power, he had net positive approval ratings, being viewed as a reformer and changemaker. However, as the Soviet Union collapsed as a result of these reforms, so did his approval rating; contemporary Russians often deride him for weakening Russia's global influence and precipitating an economic collapse in the country . Mikhail Gorbachev also ran unsuccessfully in 1996 which, despite neoliberal reforms in Russia at
1496-550: A copy. One effect was the abrupt demand for Russian dictionaries in order to understand the content of Gorbachev's report. In an interview with Mieczyslaw Rakowski he states the success of perestroika was impossible without glasnost . During the 1980s and 1990s the United States President George H. W. Bush pledged solidarity with Gorbachev, but never brought his administration into supporting Gorbachev's reform. In fact, "no bailout for Gorbachev"
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#17327723903701632-627: A distinction; his final paper had been on the advantages of "socialist democracy" (the Soviet political system) over "bourgeois democracy" ( liberal democracy ). He was subsequently assigned to the Soviet Procurator 's office, which was then focusing on the rehabilitation of the innocent victims of Stalin's purges, but found that they had no work for him. He was then offered a place on an MSU graduate course specializing in kolkhoz law, but declined. He had wanted to remain in Moscow, where Raisa
1768-517: A dormitory in the Sokolniki District . He and other rural students felt at odds with their Muscovite counterparts, but he soon came to fit in. Fellow students recall him working especially hard, often late into the night. He gained a reputation as a mediator during disputes and was also known for being outspoken in class, although he would reveal some of his views only privately; for instance, he confided in some students his opposition to
1904-467: A failure. The purpose of reform was to prop up the centrally planned economy —not to transition to market socialism . Speaking in late summer 1985 to the secretaries for economic affairs of the central committees of the East European communist parties, Gorbachev said: "Many of you see the solution to your problems in resorting to market mechanisms in place of direct planning. Some of you look at
2040-832: A guide from the French Communist Party . He was surprised by how openly West Europeans offered their opinions and criticized their political leaders, something absent from the Soviet Union, where most people did not feel safe speaking so openly. He later related that for him and his wife, these visits "shook our a priori belief in the superiority of socialist over bourgeois democracy". Gorbachev had remained close to his parents; after his father became terminally ill in 1974, Gorbachev traveled to be with him in Privolnoe shortly before his death. His daughter, Irina, married fellow student Anatoly Virgansky in April 1978. In 1977,
2176-426: A high honour to be a member of the highly advanced, genuinely revolutionary Communist Party of Bolsheviks. I promise to be faithful to the great cause of Lenin and Stalin, to devote my entire life to the party's struggle for Communism. — Gorbachev's letter requesting membership of the Communist Party, 1950 In June 1950, Gorbachev became a candidate member of the Communist Party. He also applied to study at
2312-533: A largely ceremonial role with little influence, and moved his own ally, Eduard Shevardnadze , to Gromyko's former post in charge of foreign policy. Other allies whom he saw promoted were Yakovlev, Anatoly Lukyanov , and Vadim Medvedev. Another of those promoted by Gorbachev was Boris Yeltsin , who was made a Secretary of the Central Committee ( 26th term ) in July 1985. Most of these appointees were from
2448-472: A necessary measure to ensure perestroika by alerting the Soviet populace to the nature of the country's problems in the hope that they would support his efforts to fix them. Particularly popular among the Soviet intelligentsia , who became key Gorbachev supporters, glasnost boosted his domestic popularity but alarmed many Communist Party hardliners. For many Soviet citizens, this newfound level of freedom of speech and press—and its accompanying revelations about
2584-614: A new generation of well-educated officials who had been frustrated during the Brezhnev era. In his first year, 14 of the 23 heads of department in the Secretariat were replaced. Doing so, Gorbachev secured dominance in the Politburo within a year, faster than either Stalin, Khrushchev, or Brezhnev had achieved. Gorbachev recurrently employed the term perestroika , first used publicly in March 1984. He saw perestroika as encompassing
2720-470: A part in the difficulty of controlling the pace of restructuring, especially once the new Russian Communist Party was formed and posed a challenge to the primacy of the CPSU . Gorbachev described this process as a " parade of sovereignties " and identified it as the factor that most undermined the gradualism of restructuring and the preservation of the Soviet Union. One of the final important measures taken on
2856-521: A period of political liberalization in the Marxist–Leninist country. Although Gorbachev later stated that he had had private concerns about the invasion, he publicly supported it. In September 1969 he was part of a Soviet delegation sent to Czechoslovakia, where he found the Czechoslovak people largely unwelcoming to them. That year, the Soviet authorities ordered him to punish Fagim B. Sadygov,
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#17327723903702992-406: A philosophy professor of the Stavropol agricultural institute whose ideas were regarded as critical of Soviet agricultural policy; Gorbachev ensured that Sadykov was fired from teaching but ignored calls for him to face tougher punishment. Gorbachev later related that he was "deeply affected" by the incident; "my conscience tormented me" for overseeing Sadykov's persecution. In April 1970, Yefremov
3128-445: A potentially large domestic market. The foreign partner supplied capital, technology, entrepreneurial expertise, and in many cases, products and services of world competitive quality. Gorbachev's economic changes did not do much to restart the country's sluggish economy in the late 1980s. The reforms decentralized things to some extent, although price controls remained, as did the ruble's inconvertibility and most government controls over
3264-401: A project of mass rural collectivization which, in keeping with his Marxist–Leninist ideas, he believed would help convert the country into a socialist society . Gorbachev's maternal grandfather joined the Communist Party and helped form the village's first kolkhoz (collective farm) in 1929, becoming its chair. This farm was 19 kilometres (12 mi) outside Privolnoye village and when he
3400-494: A sensible thing to do—easing Russia's difficult transition from totalitarianism to democracy. What I had in mind in the first place, was the participation [of the West] in conversion of defense industries, the modernization of light and food industries, and Russia's inclusion on an equal-member footing in the frameworks of the international economic relations... [U]nlike some democrats, I did not expect "manna from Heaven," but counted on
3536-650: A significant shift from the previous principles of the Soviet foreign politics . This marked the end of the Cold War . Gorbachev had concluded that implementing his reforms outlined at the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in February 1986 required more than discrediting the " Old Guard ", those with a Marxist-Leninist political orientation. He changed his strategy from trying to work through
3672-459: Is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the political economy of the Soviet Union, in an attempt to end the Era of Stagnation . Perestroika allowed more independent actions from various ministries and introduced many market -like reforms. The purported goal of perestroika , however, was not to end the planned economy but rather to make socialism work more efficiently to better meet
3808-664: Is considered one of the most significant figures of the second half of the 20th century. The recipient of a wide range of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize , in the West he is praised for his role in ending the Cold War, introducing new political and economic freedoms in the Soviet Union, and tolerating both the fall of Marxist–Leninist administrations in eastern and central Europe and the German reunification . Gorbachev has
3944-516: Is considered to be the intellectual force behind Gorbachev's reform program. Glasnost was taken to mean increased openness and transparency in government institutions and activities in the Soviet Union (USSR). Glasnost reflected a commitment of the Gorbachev administration to allowing Soviet citizens to discuss publicly the problems of their system and potential solutions. Gorbachev encouraged popular scrutiny and criticism of leaders, as well as
4080-569: Is often argued to be a significant cause of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the dissolution of the Soviet Union . With respect to the foreign policy Gorbachev promoted " new political thinking ": de-ideologization of international politics, abandoning the concept of class struggle , priority of universal human interests over the interests of any class, increasing interdependence of the world, and mutual security based on political rather than military instruments. The doctrine constituted
4216-485: Is that Soviet Union faced strong secession threats from its ethnic regions and a primacy challenge by the RSFSR . Gorbachev's extension of regional autonomy removed the suppression from existing ethnic-regional tension, while Deng's reforms did not alter the tight grip of the central government on any of their autonomous regions. The Soviet Union's dual nature, part supranational union of republics and part unitary state, played
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4352-588: The Canadian Parliament . There, he met and befriended the Soviet ambassador, Aleksandr Yakovlev , who later became a key political ally. In February 1984, Andropov died; on his deathbed he indicated his desire that Gorbachev succeed him. Many in the Central Committee nevertheless thought the 53-year-old Gorbachev was too young and inexperienced. Instead, Konstantin Chernenko —a longstanding Brezhnev ally—was appointed general secretary, but he too
4488-598: The Cold War . Domestically, his policy of glasnost ("openness") allowed for enhanced freedom of speech and press , while his perestroika ("restructuring") sought to decentralize economic decision-making to improve its efficiency. Ultimately, Gorbachev's democratization measures and formation of the elected Congress of People's Deputies undermined the one-party state. When various Warsaw Pact countries abandoned Marxist–Leninist governance in 1989 , he declined to intervene militarily. Growing nationalist sentiment within constituent republics threatened to break up
4624-535: The Glasnost rally took place in Moscow, considered to be a key event in the emergence of the Soviet civil rights movement. Protesters on Pushkin Square led by Alexander Yesenin-Volpin demanded access to the closed trial of Yuly Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky . The protestors made specific requests for "glasnost", herein referring to the specific admission of the public, independent observers and foreign journalists, to
4760-549: The Komsomol , the Soviet political youth organization, becoming leader of his local group and then being elected to the Komsomol committee for the district. From primary school he moved to the high school in Molotovskoye ; he stayed there during the week while walking the 19 km (12 mi) home during weekends. As well as being a member of the school's drama society, he organized sporting and social activities and led
4896-464: The Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in February, Yeltsin called for more far-reaching reforms than Gorbachev was initiating and criticized the party leadership, although he did not cite Gorbachev by name, claiming that a new cult of personality was forming. Gorbachev then opened the floor to responses, after which attendees publicly criticized Yeltsin for several hours. After this, Gorbachev also criticized Yeltsin, claiming that he cared only for himself and
5032-519: The United States needed help with Germany's reunification , Gorbachev proved to be instrumental in bringing solutions to the "German problem" and Bush acknowledged that "Gorbachev was moving the USSR in the right direction". Bush, in his own words, even gave praise to Gorbachev "to salute the man" in acknowledgment of the Soviet leader's role as "the architect of perestroika ... [who had] conducted
5168-471: The armed forces into neighbouring Afghanistan to support its Soviet-aligned government against Islamist insurgents ; Gorbachev privately thought it a mistake. At times he openly supported the government position; in October 1980 he for instance endorsed Soviet calls for Poland's Marxist–Leninist government to crack down on growing internal dissent in that country . That same month, he was promoted from
5304-454: The judicial system . Some reforms were introduced towards reforms permitting attendance of the press and the public at trials. After some liberalization under Alexander II of Russia , the openness of trials started to be restricted again. Human rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva writes that the word glasnost has been in the Russian language for several hundred years as a common term: "It
5440-510: The president of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991. Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism but moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s. He was the only Soviet leader born after the country's foundation. Gorbachev was born in Privolnoye , Russian SFSR , to a poor peasant family of Russian and Ukrainian heritage. Growing up under the rule of Joseph Stalin in his youth, he operated combine harvesters on
5576-486: The "ideas" of late Lenin . A group of true, not imaginary reformers developed (of course, orally) the following plan: to strike with the authority of Lenin at Stalin , at Stalinism . And then, if successful, – to strike with Plekhanov and Social Democracy – at Lenin, and then – with liberalism and "moral socialism" – at revolutionarism in general... The Soviet totalitarian regime could be destroyed only through glasnost and totalitarian party discipline, while hiding behind
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5712-458: The 1985 Red Square holiday celebrations, and encouraged frank and open discussions at Politburo meetings. To the West, Gorbachev was seen as a more moderate and less threatening Soviet leader; some Western commentators however believed this an act to lull Western governments into a false sense of security. His wife was his closest adviser, and took on the unofficial role of a " first lady " by appearing with him on foreign trips; her public visibility
5848-600: The 1990s. Gorbachev's reforms were gradualist and maintained many of the macroeconomic aspects of the planned economy (including price controls, inconvertibility of the ruble, exclusion of private property ownership, and the government monopoly over most means of production). Reform was largely focused on industry and on cooperatives, and a limited role was given to the development of foreign investment and international trade. Factory managers were expected to meet state demands for goods, but to find their own funding. Perestroika reforms went far enough to create new bottlenecks in
5984-518: The CPSU as it existed and instead embraced a degree of political liberalization. In January 1987, he appealed over the heads of the party to the people and called for democratization. Earlier members of local soviets were appointed by local Communist Party branches, now they were to be elected by the people from among various candidates. The March 1989 election of the Congress of People's Deputies of
6120-776: The June 1987 plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , Gorbachev presented his "basic theses", which laid the political foundation of economic reform for the remainder of the existence of the Soviet Union. In July 1987, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union passed the Law on State Enterprise. The law stipulated that state enterprises were free to determine output levels based on demand from consumers and other enterprises. Enterprises had to fulfil state orders, but they could dispose of
6256-536: The KGB. In his new position, Gorbachev often worked twelve to sixteen hour days. He and his wife socialized little, but liked to visit Moscow's theaters and museums. In 1978, Gorbachev was appointed to the Central Committee's Secretariat for Agriculture ( 25th term ), replacing his old patron Kulakov, who had died of a heart attack. Gorbachev concentrated his attentions on agriculture: the harvests of 1979, 1980, and 1981 were all poor, due largely to weather conditions, and
6392-633: The North Caucasus; he holidayed with the head of the KGB , Yuri Andropov , who was favorable towards him and who became an important patron. Gorbachev also developed good relationships with senior figures including the Soviet prime minister, Alexei Kosygin , and the longstanding senior party member Mikhail Suslov . The government considered Gorbachev sufficiently reliable that he was sent as part of Soviet delegations to Western Europe; he made five trips there between 1970 and 1977. In September 1971 he
6528-586: The Soviet Joint Venture Law, which went into effect in June 1987, limited foreign shares of a Soviet venture to 49 percent and required that Soviet citizens occupy the positions of chairman and general manager. After potential Western partners complained, the government revised the regulations to allow majority foreign ownership and control. Under the terms of the Joint Venture Law, the Soviet partner supplied labor, infrastructure, and
6664-406: The Soviet Union marked the first time that voters of the Soviet Union ever chose the membership of a national legislative body. The results of the election stunned the ruling elite. Throughout the country, voters crossed unopposed Communist candidates off the ballot, many of them prominent party officials, taking advantage of the nominal privilege of withholding approval of the listed candidates. By
6800-513: The Soviet Union and the West. Gorbachev's interpretation of "glasnost" can best be summarised in English as "openness". While associated with freedom of speech , the main goal of this policy was to make the country's management transparent, and circumvent the holding of near-complete control of the economy and bureaucracy of the Soviet Union by a concentrated body of officials and bureaucratic personnel. During Glasnost, Soviet history under Stalin
6936-410: The Soviet Union on its irreversible, but immensely complicated road to democracy....[T]he sooner, the more quickly, and the more peacefully the Soviet Union begins to move along the road toward genuine political pluralism, respect for the rights of nations to their own integrity and to a working—that is a market—economy, the better it will be, not just for Czechs and Slovaks, but for the whole world. When
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#17327723903707072-501: The Soviet Union the " evil empire ". Perestroika Perestroika ( / ˌ p ɛr ə ˈ s t r ɔɪ k ə / PERR -ə- STROY -kə ; Russian: перестройка , IPA: [pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə] ) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associated with CPSU general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost (meaning "transparency") policy reform. The literal meaning of perestroika
7208-480: The Soviet Union's foreign economic sector with measures that Soviet economists considered bold at that time. His program virtually eliminated the monopoly that the Ministry of Foreign Trade had once held on most trade operations. It permitted the ministries of the various industrial and agricultural branches to conduct foreign trade in sectors under their responsibility, rather than having to operate indirectly through
7344-564: The Soviet Union, leading the hardliners within the Communist Party to launch an unsuccessful coup against Gorbachev in August 1991. In the coup's wake, the Soviet Union dissolved against Gorbachev's wishes. After resigning from the presidency, he launched the Gorbachev Foundation , became a vocal critic of Russian presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin , and campaigned for Russia's social-democratic movement. Gorbachev
7480-490: The Soviet economy but arguably did not go far enough to effectively streamline it. Chinese economic reform was, by contrast, a bottom-up attempt at reform, focusing on light industry and agriculture (namely allowing peasants to sell produce grown on private holdings at market prices). Economic reforms were fostered through the development of " Special Economic Zones ", designed for export and to attract foreign investment, municipally managed Township and Village Enterprises and
7616-432: The Soviet economy, namely from decreasing tax collections from declining alcohol sales, resulting in losses of up to US$ 100 billion between 1985 and 1990. Another serious problem was the strain on the Soviet healthcare system, as uneducated Soviet citizens had resorted to drinking rubbing alcohol, nail polish remover or cologne as dangerous substitutes, resulting in a rise in poisoning cases. Gorbachev later considered
7752-550: The Soviet jurisprudential norm that a confession proved guilt, noting that confessions could have been forced. During his studies, an antisemitic campaign spread through the Soviet Union, culminating in the Doctors' plot ; Gorbachev publicly defended Volodya Liberman, a Jewish student who was accused of disloyalty to the country by one of his fellows. At MSU, Gorbachev became the Komsomol head of his entering class, and then Komsomol's deputy secretary for agitation and propaganda at
7888-581: The Soviet legislature, a largely honorific position. In June he traveled to Italy as a Soviet representative for the funeral of Italian Communist Party leader Enrico Berlinguer , and in September to Sofia , Bulgaria to attend celebrations of the fortieth anniversary of its liberation from the Nazis by the Red Army. In December, he visited Britain at the request of its prime minister Margaret Thatcher ; she
8024-661: The Stavropol City Party Organization ("Gorkom"). By 1968 he was increasingly frustrated with his job—in large part because Khrushchev's reforms were stalling or being reversed—and he contemplated leaving politics to work in academia. However, in August 1968, he was named Second Secretary of the Stavropol Kraikom, making him the deputy of First Secretary Leonid Yefremov and the second most senior figure in Stavropol Krai. In 1969, he
8160-469: The Struggle for Temperance was formed to promote sobriety; it had over 14 million members within three years.Anti-alcohol propaganda was distributed, mostly by way of billboards extolling the virtues of a sober workforce. As a result, crime rates fell and life expectancy grew slightly between 1986 and 1987. However, bootleg liquor production rose considerably, and the reform imposed large costs on
8296-572: The Supreme Soviet appointed Gorbachev to chair the Standing Commission on Youth Affairs due to his experience with mobilizing young people in Komsomol. In November 1978, Gorbachev was appointed a Secretary of the Central Committee. His appointment had been approved unanimously by the Central Committee's members. To fill this position, Gorbachev and his wife moved to Moscow, where they were initially given an old dacha outside
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#17327723903708432-441: The USSR, glasnost was frequently linked with other generalised concepts such as perestroika (literally: restructuring or regrouping) and demokratizatsiya (democratisation). Gorbachev often appealed to glasnost when promoting policies aimed at reducing corruption at the top of the Communist Party and the Soviet government, and moderating the abuse of administrative power in the Central Committee . The ambiguity of "glasnost" defines
8568-479: The Union dissolved before advanced stages were reached. Another fundamental difference is that where perestroika was accompanied by greater political freedoms under Gorbachev's glasnost policies, Chinese economic reform has been accompanied by continued authoritarian rule and a suppression of political dissidents , most notably at Tiananmen Square . Gorbachev acknowledged this difference but maintained that it
8704-613: The United States and Western Europe began to be transmitted to the Soviet population, along with western popular culture. Glasnost received mixed reception in communist states, especially outside the Eastern Bloc . Glasnost had a trickle-down effect on Eastern Europe and lead to democratic reforms, namely in Poland and Czech Republic. Glasnost and similar reforms were applied in the following communist states: Furthermore, in
8840-426: The United States; he was appalled at the prospect of nuclear war , was aware that the Soviet Union was unlikely to win the arms race and thought that the continued focus on high military spending was detrimental to his desire for domestic reform. US president Ronald Reagan publicly appeared to not want a de-escalation of tensions, having scrapped détente and arms controls, initiating a military build-up, and calling
8976-483: The West's lack of aid, for example; the "in-house Gorbi-skeptics" advocacy, the expert community's consensus about the undesirability of rushing U.S. aid to Gorbachev, strong opposition to any bailout at many levels including foreign-policy conservatives, the U.S. Congress, and the American public at large. The West seemed to miss an opportunity to gain significant influence over the Soviet government. The Soviets aided in
9112-689: The Western statesmen to use their common sense. President George H.W. Bush continued to dodge helping the Russians and the President of Czechoslovakia , Václav Havel , laid bare the linkage for the Americans in his address to a joint session of Congress on 21 February 1990: ... I often hear the question: How can the United States of America help us today? My reply is as paradoxical as the whole of my life has been: You can help us most of all if you help
9248-478: The annual speech marking the birthday of the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin ; this required him re-reading many of Lenin's later writings, in which the latter had called for reform in the context of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, and encouraged Gorbachev's own conviction that reform was needed. In May 1983, Gorbachev was sent to Canada, where he met Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and spoke to
9384-507: The area and tried to improve the lives of their inhabitants; he established a discussion circle in Gorkaya Balka village to help its peasant residents gain social contacts. Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa initially rented a small room in Stavropol, taking daily evening walks around the city and on weekends hiking in the countryside. In January 1957, Raisa gave birth to a daughter, Irina, and in 1958 they moved into two rooms in
9520-417: The area around Chernobyl. Taubman noted that the disaster marked "a turning point for Gorbachev and the Soviet regime". Several days after it occurred, he gave a televised report to the nation. He cited the disaster as evidence for what he regarded as widespread problems in Soviet society, such as shoddy workmanship and workplace inertia. Gorbachev later described the incident as one which made him appreciate
9656-511: The authorities. Gorbachev became close friends with Zdeněk Mlynář , a Czechoslovak student who later became a primary ideologist of the 1968 Prague Spring . Mlynář recalled that the duo remained committed Marxist–Leninists despite their growing concerns about the Stalinist system. After Stalin died in March 1953, Gorbachev and Mlynář joined the crowds massing to see Stalin's body lying in state. At MSU, Gorbachev met Raisa Titarenko , who
9792-517: The brief tenures of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko —in 1985, the Politburo elected Gorbachev as general secretary, the de facto leader. Although committed to preserving the Soviet state and its Marxist–Leninist ideals, Gorbachev believed significant reform was necessary for its survival. He withdrew troops from the Soviet–Afghan War and embarked on summits with United States president Ronald Reagan to limit nuclear weapons and end
9928-490: The bureaucracy of trade ministry organizations. In addition, regional and local organizations and individual state enterprises were permitted to conduct foreign trade. This change was an attempt to redress a major imperfection in the Soviet foreign trade regime: the lack of contact between Soviet end users and suppliers and their foreign partners. Alexander Yakovlev was considered to be the intellectual force behind Gorbachev's reform program of glasnost and perestroika . In
10064-516: The campaign to have been an error, and it was terminated in October 1988. After it ended, it took several years for production to return to previous levels, after which alcohol consumption soared in Russia between 1990 and 1993. In the second year of his leadership, Gorbachev began speaking of glasnost , or "openness". According to Doder and Branson, this meant "greater openness and candour in government affairs and for an interplay of different and sometimes conflicting views in political debates, in
10200-498: The city. They then moved to another, at Sosnovka , before finally being allocated a newly built brick house. He was also given an apartment inside the city, but gave that to his daughter and son-in-law; Irina had begun work at Moscow's Second Medical Institute . As part of the Moscow political elite, Gorbachev and his wife now had access to better medical care and to specialized shops; they were also given cooks, servants, bodyguards, and secretaries, although many of these were spies for
10336-543: The continuation of the movement was a report from the central committee meeting of the CPSU titled "On Reorganization and the Party's Personnel Policy". Gorbachev emphasized the need of a faster political personnel turnover and of a policy of democratization that opened the political elections to multiple candidates and to non-party members. This report was in such high demand in Prague and Berlin that many people could not get
10472-460: The country had to import increasing quantities of grain. He had growing concerns about the country's agricultural management system, coming to regard it as overly centralized and requiring more bottom-up decision making; he raised these points at his first speech at a Central Committee Plenum, given in July 1978. He began to have concerns about other policies too. In December 1979, the Soviets sent
10608-516: The country's past—was uncomfortable. Some in the party thought Gorbachev was not going far enough in his reforms; a prominent liberal critic was Yeltsin. He had risen rapidly since 1985, attaining the role of party secretary in Moscow. Like many members of the government, Gorbachev was skeptical of Yeltsin, believing that he engaged in too much self-promotion. Yeltsin was also critical of Gorbachev, regarding him as patronizing. In early 1986, Yeltsin began sniping at Gorbachev in Politburo meetings. At
10744-496: The distinctive five-year period (1986–1991) at the end of the USSR's existence. There was decreasing pre-publication and pre-broadcast censorship and greater freedom of information . The "Era of Glasnost" saw greater contact between Soviet citizens and the Western world, particularly the United States: restrictions on travel were loosened for many Soviet citizens which further eased pressures on international exchange between
10880-420: The eighth leader of the Soviet Union. Few in the government imagined that he would be as radical a reformer as he proved. Although he was not a well-known figure to the Soviet public, there was widespread relief that the new leader was not elderly and ailing. Gorbachev's first public appearance as leader was at Chernenko's Red Square funeral, held on 14 March. Two months after being elected, he left Moscow for
11016-464: The expansion of Western capitalism to allow for an inflow of Western investments, but the perestroika managers failed. President Bush had the opportunity to aid the Soviet Union in a way to bring closer ties between the governments, like Harry S. Truman did for many nations in Western Europe. Early on, as perestroika was getting under way, I felt like the West might come along and find it
11152-419: The first time, traveling to Leningrad , where he spoke to assembled crowds. In June he traveled to Ukraine, in July to Belarus, and in September to Tyumen Oblast , urging party members in these areas to take more responsibility for fixing local problems. Gorbachev's leadership style differed from that of his predecessors. He would stop to talk to civilians on the street, forbade the display of his portrait at
11288-459: The harvest; the money earned allowed him to pay for a wedding. On 25 September 1953 he and Raisa registered their marriage at Sokolniki Registry Office and in October moved in together at the Lenin Hills dormitory. Raisa discovered that she was pregnant and although the couple wanted to keep the child she fell ill and required a life-saving abortion. In June 1955, Gorbachev graduated with
11424-597: The infringement of media rights in the years from 2004 to 2013 found that instances of censorship were the most commonly reported type of violation. Mikhail Gorbachev Former General Secretary of the CPSU Former President of the Soviet Union Secretariate (1985–1991) Presidency (1990–1991) Foreign policy Post-leadership [REDACTED] Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022)
11560-444: The interests of improving socialism. [...] Looking back, I can proudly say that a clever, but very simple tactic – the mechanisms of totalitarianism against the system of totalitarianism – has worked. The most significant of Gorbachev's reforms in the foreign economic sector allowed foreigners to invest in the Soviet Union in the form of joint ventures with Soviet ministries, state enterprises, and cooperatives. The original version of
11696-422: The lack of widespread public support for his government and pursue a power sharing agreement with the opposition. That month, the Politburo approved Gorbachev's decision to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan, although the last troops did not leave until February 1989. Gorbachev had inherited a renewed period of high tension in the Cold War. He believed strongly in the need to sharply improve relations with
11832-407: The latter carried out only personnel shifts rather than structural change. Gorbachev became Andropov's closest ally in the Politburo; with Andropov's encouragement, Gorbachev sometimes chaired Politburo meetings. Andropov encouraged Gorbachev to expand into policy areas other than agriculture, preparing him for future higher office. In April 1983, in a sign of growing ascendancy, Gorbachev delivered
11968-613: The law school of Moscow State University (MSU), then the most prestigious university in the country. They accepted him without asking for an exam, likely because of his worker-peasant origins and his possession of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour. His choice of law was unusual; it was not a well-regarded subject in Soviet society at that time. At age 19, he traveled by train to Moscow, the first time he had left his home region. In Moscow, Gorbachev resided with fellow MSU students at
12104-624: The law school. One of his first Komsomol assignments in Moscow was to monitor the election polling in Presnensky District to ensure the government's desire for near-total turnout; Gorbachev found that most of those who voted did so "out of fear". In 1952, he was appointed a full member of the Communist Party. As a party and Komsomol member, he was tasked with monitoring fellow students for potential subversion; some of his fellow students said that he did so only minimally and that they trusted him to keep confidential information secret from
12240-468: The law shifted control over the enterprise operations from ministries to elected workers' collectives. Gosplan 's responsibilities were to supply general guidelines and national investment priorities. The Law on Cooperatives , enacted in May 1988, was perhaps the most radical of the economic reforms during the early part of the Gorbachev era. For the first time since Vladimir Lenin 's New Economic Policy
12376-524: The market as a lifesaver for your economies. But, comrades, you should not think about lifesavers but about the ship, and the ship is socialism." Gorbachev's perestroika also entailed attempts to move away from technocratic management of the economy by increasingly involving the labor force in industrial production. He was of the view that once freed from the strong control of central planners, state-owned enterprises would act as market agents . Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders did not anticipate opposition to
12512-455: The means of production. Perestroika and Deng Xiaoping 's economic reforms have similar origins but very different effects on their respective countries' economies. Both efforts occurred in large socialist countries attempting to liberalize their economies, but while China's GDP has grown consistently since the late 1980s (albeit from a much lower level), national GDP in the USSR and in many of its successor states fell precipitously throughout
12648-491: The needs of Soviet citizens by adopting elements of liberal economics. The process of implementing perestroika added to existing shortages, and created political, social, and economic tensions within the Soviet Union. Furthermore, it is often blamed for the political ascent of nationalism and nationalist political parties in the constituent republics. Gorbachev first used the term in a speech during his visit to Tolyatti in 1986. Perestroika lasted from 1985 until 1991, and
12784-430: The next general secretary; as a longstanding party member, Gromyko's recommendation carried great weight among the Central Committee. Gorbachev expected much opposition to his nomination as general secretary, but ultimately the rest of the Politburo supported him. Shortly after Chernenko's death, the Politburo unanimously elected Gorbachev as his successor; they wanted him rather than another elderly leader. He thus became
12920-696: The perestroika reforms; according to their interpretation of Marxism, they believed that in a socialist society like the Soviet Union there would not be "antagonistic contradictions". However, there would come to be a public perception in the country that many bureaucrats were paying lip service to the reforms while trying to undermine them. He also initiated the concept of gospriyomka (state acceptance of production) during his time as leader, which represented quality control. In April 1986, he introduced an agrarian reform which linked salaries to output and allowed collective farms to sell 30% of their produce directly to shops or co-operatives rather than giving it all to
13056-603: The perversions of Stalin. He helped spread Khrushchev's anti-Stalinist message in Stavropol, but encountered many who continued to regard Stalin as a hero or who praised the Stalinist purges as just. Gorbachev rose steadily through the ranks of the local administration. The authorities regarded him as politically reliable, and he would flatter his superiors, for instance gaining favor with prominent local politician Fyodor Kulakov . With an ability to outmanoeuvre rivals, some colleagues resented his success. In September 1956, he
13192-797: The position. As head of the Stavropol region, he automatically became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( 24th term ) in 1971. According to biographer Zhores Medvedev , Gorbachev "had now joined the Party's super-elite". As regional leader, Gorbachev initially attributed economic and other failures to "the inefficiency and incompetence of cadres, flaws in management structure or gaps in legislation", but eventually concluded that they were caused by an excessive centralization of decision making in Moscow. He began reading translations of restricted texts by Western Marxist authors such as Antonio Gramsci , Louis Aragon , Roger Garaudy , and Giuseppe Boffa , and came under their influence. Gorbachev's main task as regional leader
13328-671: The press, and in Soviet culture". Encouraging reformers into prominent media positions, he brought in Sergei Zalygin as head of Novy Mir magazine and Yegor Yakovlev as editor-in-chief of Moscow News . He made the historian Yury Afanasyev dean of the State Historical Archive Faculty, from where Afansiev could press for the opening of secret archives and the reassessment of Soviet history. Prominent dissidents like Andrei Sakharov were freed from internal exile or prison. Gorbachev saw glasnost as
13464-457: The region from Voronezh several generations before; his maternal family were of ethnic Ukrainian heritage and had migrated from Chernihiv . His parents named him Viktor at birth, but at the insistence of his mother—a devout Orthodox Christian —he had a secret baptism , where his grandfather christened him Mikhail. His relationship with his father, Sergey Andreyevich Gorbachev, was close; his mother, Maria Panteleyevna Gorbacheva (née Gopkalo),
13600-591: The regional Komsomol, in which position he went out of his way to appoint women as city and district leaders. In 1961, Gorbachev played host to the Italian delegation for the World Youth Festival in Moscow; that October, he also attended the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . In January 1963, Gorbachev was promoted to personnel chief for the regional party's agricultural committee, and in September 1966 became First Secretary of
13736-434: The remaining output as they saw fit. However, at the same time the state still held control over the means of production for these enterprises, thus limiting their ability to enact full-cost accountability. Enterprises bought input from suppliers at negotiated contract prices. Under the law, enterprises became self-financing; that is, they had to cover expenses (wages, taxes, supplies, and debt service) through revenues. Finally,
13872-516: The scale of incompetence and cover-ups in the Soviet Union. From April to the end of the year, Gorbachev became increasingly open in his criticism of the Soviet system, including food production, state bureaucracy, the military draft, and the large size of the prison population. In a May 1985 speech given to the Soviet Foreign Ministry —the first time a Soviet leader had directly addressed his country's diplomats—Gorbachev spoke of
14008-460: The school's morning exercise class. Over the course of five consecutive summers from 1946 onward he returned home to assist his father in operating a combine harvester, during which they sometimes worked 20-hour days. In 1948, they harvested over 8,000 centners of grain, a feat for which Sergey was awarded the Order of Lenin and his son the Order of the Red Banner of Labour . I would consider it
14144-706: The secret police , an account that influenced the young boy. Following on from the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, in June 1941 the German Army invaded the Soviet Union. German forces occupied Privolnoye for four and a half months in 1942. Gorbachev's father had joined the Red Army and fought on the frontlines; he was wrongly declared dead during the conflict and fought in the Battle of Kursk before returning to his family, injured. After Germany
14280-704: The slowing of economic development, and inadequate living standards. The program was furthered at the 27th Congress of the Communist Party in Gorbachev's report to the congress, in which he spoke about " perestroika ", " uskoreniye " (acceleration), "human factor", " glasnost " (transparency), and "expansion of the khozraschyot " (accounting). During the initial period (1985–87) of Mikhail Gorbachev's time in power, he talked about modifying central planning but did not make any truly fundamental changes ( uskoreniye ; "acceleration"). Gorbachev and his team of economic advisors then introduced more fundamental reforms, which became known as perestroika (restructuring). At
14416-878: The socialist state of Yugoslavia , similar reforms also existed, with the first major reforms beginning in Slovenia . Glasnost or similar reforms were not applied in the following communist states: The outright prohibition of censorship was enshrined in Article 29 of the new 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation . This however has been the subject of ongoing controversy in contemporary Russia owing to heightened governmental interventions restricting access to information for Russian citizens, including internet censorship . There has also been pressure on government-operated media outlets to not publicize or discuss certain events or subjects in recent years. Monitoring of
14552-412: The state for distribution. In a September 1986 speech, he embraced the idea of reintroducing market economics to the country alongside limited private enterprise, citing Lenin's New Economic Policy as a precedent; he nevertheless stressed that he did not regard this as a return to capitalism . In the Soviet Union, alcohol consumption had risen steadily between 1950 and 1985. By the 1980s, drunkenness
14688-562: The summer of 1985, Yakovlev became head of the propaganda department of the CPSU Central Committee. He argued in favor of the reform programs and played a key role in executing those policies. After the XX Congress , in an ultra-narrow circle of our closest friends and associates, we often discussed the problems of democratization of the country and society. We chose a simple – like a sledgehammer – method of propagating
14824-537: The time of the Twenty-Eighth Party Congress in July 1990, it was clear that Gorbachev's reforms came with sweeping, unintended consequences , as nationalities of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union pulled harder than ever to break away from the Union and ultimately dismantle the Communist Party. In May 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev gave a speech in Leningrad in which he admitted
14960-636: The time, showed mass unpopularity with the results of his administration and possibly regret in the collapse of the USSR. Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in the village of Privolnoye , then in the North Caucasus Krai of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , Soviet Union . At the time, Privolnoye was divided almost evenly between ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians. Gorbachev's paternal family were ethnic Russians and had moved to
15096-467: The trial that had been legislated in the then newly issued Code of Criminal Procedure. With a few specified exceptions, Article 111 of the Code stated that judicial hearings in the USSR should be held in public. Such protests against closed trials continued throughout the post-Stalin era. Andrei Sakharov , for example, did not travel to Oslo to receive his Nobel Peace Prize due to his public protest outside
15232-549: The word glasnost has long been used to mean 'openness' and 'transparency'. In the mid-1980s, it was popularised by Mikhail Gorbachev as a political slogan for increased government transparency in the Soviet Union within the framework of perestroika , and the calque of the word entered into English in the latter meaning. In the Russian Empire of the late-19th century, the term was used in its direct meanings of "openness" and "publicity" and applied to politics and
15368-486: Was "politically illiterate". Yeltsin then resigned both as Moscow party secretary and as a member of the Politburo. From this point, tensions between the two men developed into a mutual hatred. In April 1986 the Chernobyl disaster occurred. In the immediate aftermath, officials fed Gorbachev incorrect information to downplay the incident. As the scale of the disaster became apparent, 336,000 people were evacuated from
15504-475: Was a Soviet and Russian politician and statesman who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 and additionally as head of state beginning in 1988, as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990 and
15640-497: Was a breach of standard practice and generated resentment. His other close aides were Georgy Shakhnazarov and Anatoly Chernyaev . Gorbachev was aware that the Politburo could remove him from office, and that he could not pursue more radical reform without a majority of supporters in the Politburo. He sought to remove several older members from the Politburo, encouraging Grigory Romanov , Nikolai Tikhonov , and Viktor Grishin into retirement. He promoted Gromyko to head of state,
15776-451: Was a consistent policy line of the Bush administration, further demonstrating the lack of true support from the West. President Bush had a financial policy to aid perestroika that was shaped by a minimalist approach, foreign-policy convictions that set Bush up against other U.S. internal affairs, and a frugal attitude, all influencing his unwillingness to aid Gorbachev. Other factors influenced
15912-670: Was a major social problem and Andropov had planned a major campaign to limit alcohol consumption, but died before the plan was put into action. Encouraged by his wife, Gorbachev—who believed the campaign would improve health and work efficiency—oversaw its implementation. Alcohol production was reduced by around 40%, the legal drinking age rose from 18 to 21, alcohol prices were increased, stores were banned from selling it before 2 pm, and tougher penalties were introduced for workplace or public drunkenness and home production of alcohol. The program also recommended that drinking scenes be censored from old movies. The All-Union Voluntary Society for
16048-415: Was abolished in 1928, the law permitted private ownership of businesses in the services, manufacturing, and foreign-trade sectors. The law initially imposed high taxes and employment restrictions, but it later revised these to avoid discouraging private-sector activity. Under this provision, cooperative restaurants, shops, and manufacturers became part of the Soviet scene. Gorbachev brought perestroika to
16184-644: Was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee in 1970, overseeing the construction of the Great Stavropol Canal . In 1978, he returned to Moscow to become a Secretary of the party's Central Committee ; he joined the governing Politburo ( 25th term ) as a non-voting member in 1979 and a voting member in 1980. Three years after the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev —following
16320-443: Was aware that he was a potential reformer and wanted to meet him. At the end of the visit, Thatcher said: "I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together". He felt that the visit helped to erode Andrei Gromyko 's dominance of Soviet foreign policy while at the same time sending a signal to the United States government that he wanted to improve Soviet–US relations . On 10 March 1985, Chernenko died. Gromyko proposed Gorbachev as
16456-462: Was behind the United States in many areas of production, but Gorbachev claimed that it would accelerate industrial output to match that of the US by 2000. The Five Year Plan of 1985–1990 was targeted to expand machine building by 50 to 100%. To boost agricultural productivity, he merged five ministries and a state committee into a single entity, Agroprom, although by late 1986 he acknowledged this merger as
16592-495: Was colder and punitive. His parents were poor, and lived as peasants. They had married as teenagers in 1928, and in keeping with local tradition had initially resided in Sergey's father's house, an adobe -walled hut, before a hut of their own could be built. The Soviet Union was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party , and during Gorbachev's childhood was under the leadership of Joseph Stalin . Stalin had initiated
16728-479: Was defeated, Gorbachev's parents had their second son, Aleksandr, in 1947; he and Mikhail would be their only children. The village school was closed during much of the war but re-opened in autumn 1944. Gorbachev did not want to return but when he did he excelled academically. He read voraciously, moving from the Western novels of Thomas Mayne Reid to the works of Vissarion Belinsky , Alexander Pushkin , Nikolai Gogol , and Mikhail Lermontov . In 1946, he joined
16864-598: Was elected as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and made a member of its Standing Commission for the Protection of the Environment. Cleared for travel to Eastern Bloc countries, in 1966 he was part of a delegation which visited East Germany , and in 1969 and 1974 visited Bulgaria . In August 1968 the Soviet Union led an invasion of Czechoslovakia to put an end to the Prague Spring,
17000-486: Was enrolled in a PhD program, but instead gained employment in Stavropol ; Raisa abandoned her studies to join him there. In August 1955, Gorbachev started work at the Stavropol regional procurator's office, but disliked the job and used his contacts to get a transfer to work for Komsomol, becoming deputy director of Komsomol's agitation and propaganda department for that region. In this position, he visited villages in
17136-425: Was in the dictionaries and lawbooks as long as there had been dictionaries and lawbooks. It was an ordinary, hardworking, non-descript word that was used to refer to a process, any process of justice or governance, being conducted in the open." In the mid-1960s it acquired a revived topical importance in discourse about the necessity of changing the Cold War era internal policy of the Soviet Union. On 5 December 1965
17272-561: Was in very poor health. Chernenko was often too sick to chair Politburo meetings, with Gorbachev stepping in last minute. Gorbachev continued to cultivate allies both in the Kremlin and beyond, and also gave the main speech at a conference on Soviet ideology, where he angered party hardliners by implying that the country required reform. In April 1984, Gorbachev was appointed chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of
17408-536: Was part of a delegation that traveled to Italy, where they met with representatives of the Italian Communist Party ; Gorbachev loved Italian culture but was struck by the poverty and inequality he saw in the country. In 1972, he visited Belgium and the Netherlands, and in 1973 West Germany . Gorbachev and his wife visited France in 1976 and 1977, on the latter occasion touring the country with
17544-564: Was promoted First Secretary of the Stavropol city's Komsomol, placing him in charge of it; in April 1958 he was made deputy head of the Komsomol for the entire region. At this point he was given better accommodation: a two-room flat with its own private kitchen, toilet, and bathroom. In Stavropol, he formed a discussion club for youths, and helped mobilize local young people to take part in Khrushchev's agricultural and development campaigns. In March 1961, Gorbachev became First Secretary of
17680-468: Was promoted to a higher position in Moscow and Gorbachev succeeded him as the First Secretary of the Stavropol kraikom. This granted Gorbachev significant power over the Stavropol region. He had been personally vetted for the position by senior Kremlin leaders and was informed of their decision by the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev . Aged 39, he was considerably younger than his predecessors in
17816-415: Was re-examined; censored literature in the libraries was made more widely available; and there was a greater freedom of speech for citizens and openness in the media. It was in the late 1980s when most people in the Soviet Union began to learn about the atrocities of Stalin, and learned about previously suppressed events. Information about the supposedly higher quality of consumer goods and quality of life in
17952-525: Was studying in the university's philosophy department. She was engaged to another man, but after that engagement fell apart, she began a relationship with Gorbachev; together they went to bookstores, museums, and art exhibits. In early 1953, he took an internship at the procurator's office in Molotovskoye district, but he was angered by the incompetence and arrogance of those working there. That summer, he returned to Privolnoye to work with his father on
18088-856: Was three years old, Gorbachev left his parental home and moved into the kolkhoz with his maternal grandparents. The country was then experiencing the famine of 1930–1933 , in which two of Gorbachev's paternal uncles and an aunt died. This was followed by the Great Purge , in which individuals accused of being " enemies of the people ", including those sympathetic to rival interpretations of Marxism like Trotskyism , were arrested and interned in labor camps, if not executed. Both of Gorbachev's grandfathers were arrested (his maternal in 1934 and his paternal in 1937) and spent time in Gulag labor camps before being released. After his December 1938 release, Gorbachev's maternal grandfather discussed having been tortured by
18224-769: Was to raise agricultural production levels, a task hampered by severe droughts in 1975 and 1976. He oversaw the expansion of irrigation systems through construction of the Great Stavropol Canal . For overseeing a record grain harvest in Ipatovsky district, in March 1972 he was awarded the Order of the October Revolution by Brezhnev in a Moscow ceremony. Gorbachev always sought to maintain Brezhnev's trust; as regional leader, he repeatedly praised Brezhnev in his speeches, for instance referring to him as "the outstanding statesman of our time". Gorbachev and his wife holidayed in Moscow, Leningrad, Uzbekistan, and resorts in
18360-480: Was ultimately succeeded as Soviet leader by Nikita Khrushchev , who denounced Stalin and his cult of personality in a speech given in February 1956 , after which he launched a de-Stalinization process throughout Soviet society. Later biographer William Taubman suggested that Gorbachev "embodied" the "reformist spirit" of the Khrushchev era. Gorbachev was among those who saw themselves as "genuine Marxists" or "genuine Leninists" in contrast to what they regarded as
18496-453: Was unavoidable and that perestroika would have been doomed to defeat and revanchism by the nomenklatura without glasnost , because conditions in the Soviet Union were not identical to those in China. Gorbachev cited a line from a 1986 newspaper article that he felt encapsulated this reality: "The apparatus broke Khrushchev's neck and the same thing will happen now." Another difference
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