140-662: 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) 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
280-614: 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
420-630: 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
560-633: A UN resolution to establish a nuclear-free zone in Latin America when the other Soviet-aligned countries abstained, or why in 1964 Romania opposed the Soviet-proposed "strong collective riposte" against China (and these are examples solely from the 1963–1964 period). Soviet disinformation tried to convince the West that Ceaușescu's empowerment was a dissimulation in connivance with Moscow. To an extent this worked, as some historians came to see
700-645: 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,
840-424: 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
980-513: 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
1120-466: 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
1260-827: 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,
1400-424: 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
1540-482: 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 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
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#17327720903321680-530: 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
1820-603: A nationalist, as well as privileged access to NATO counterparts and a seat at various European forums which otherwise he would not have had (for instance, Romania and the Soviet-led remainder of the Warsaw Pact formed two distinct groups in the elaboration of the Helsinki Final Act ). When Andrei Grechko assumed command of the Warsaw Pact, both Romania and Albania had for all practical purposes defected from
1960-522: 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
2100-610: 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
2240-544: A pan-German government, under conditions of withdrawal of the four powers ' armies and German neutrality, but all were refused by the other foreign ministers, Dulles (US), Eden (UK), and Bidault (France). Proposals for the reunification of Germany were nothing new: earlier on 20 March 1952, talks about a German reunification, initiated by the so-called ' Stalin Note ', ended after the United Kingdom , France , and
2380-519: 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,
2520-404: 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
2660-507: 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 the time, showed mass unpopularity with the results of his administration and possibly regret in
2800-772: A threat to the national security of the peaceable states; [...] in these circumstances the peaceable European states must take the necessary measures to safeguard their security". One of the founding members, East Germany , was allowed to re-arm by the Soviet Union and the National People's Army was established as the armed forces of the country to counter the rearmament of West Germany. The USSR concentrated on its own recovery, seizing and transferring most of Germany's industrial plants, and it exacted war reparations from East Germany, Hungary , Romania , and Bulgaria using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises. It also instituted trading arrangements deliberately designed to favour
2940-608: 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 a complicated legacy in Russia. While in power, he had net positive approval ratings, being viewed as
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#17327720903323080-584: 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
3220-919: The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in 1992, and the Shanghai Five in 1996, which was renamed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) after Uzbekistan 's addition in 2001. In November 2005, the Polish government opened its Warsaw Treaty archives to the Institute of National Remembrance , which published some 1,300 declassified documents in January 2006, yet the Polish government reserved publication of 100 documents, pending their military declassification. Eventually, 30 of
3360-606: The Czech Republic and Slovakia as separate countries), as did the Baltic states . Before the creation of the Warsaw Pact, the Czechoslovak leadership, fearful of a rearmed Germany, sought to create a security pact with East Germany and Poland. These states protested strongly against the re-militarization of West Germany . The Warsaw Pact was put in place as a consequence of the rearming of West Germany inside NATO . Soviet leaders, like many European leaders on both sides of
3500-610: The Imre Nagy government of the withdrawal of Hungary from the Warsaw Pact, Soviet troops entered the country and removed the government . Soviet forces crushed the nationwide revolt, leading to the death of an estimated 2,500 Hungarian citizens. The multi-national Communist armed forces' sole joint action was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia , another Warsaw Pact member state, in August 1968. All member countries, with
3640-532: The Iron Curtain , feared Germany being once again a military power and a direct threat. The consequences of German militarism remained a fresh memory among the Soviets and Eastern Europeans. As the Soviet Union already had an armed presence and political domination all over its eastern satellite states by 1955, the pact has been long considered "superfluous", and because of the rushed way in which it
3780-686: The Komsomol youth organization and, after Stalin's death, became a keen proponent of the de-Stalinization reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev . He 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
3920-546: 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
4060-729: The Marshall Plan ." In November 1956, Soviet forces invaded Hungary , a Warsaw Pact member state, and violently put down the Hungarian Revolution . After that, the USSR made bilateral 20-year-treaties with Poland (17 December 1956), the GDR (12 March 1957), Romania (15 April 1957; Soviet forces were later removed as part of Romania's de-satellization ), and Hungary (27 May 1957), ensuring that Soviet troops were deployed in these countries. The founding signatories of
4200-796: The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance ( TFCMA ), was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw , Poland , between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during the Cold War . The term "Warsaw Pact" commonly refers to both the treaty itself and its resultant military alliance , the Warsaw Treaty Organization ( WTO ). The Warsaw Pact
4340-602: 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
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4480-469: 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
4620-456: 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
4760-654: The American hegemony (mainly military and economic) over NATO, all decisions of the North Atlantic Alliance required unanimous consensus in the North Atlantic Council and the entry of countries into the alliance was not subject to domination but rather a natural democratic process. In the Warsaw Pact, decisions were ultimately taken by the Soviet Union alone; the countries of the Warsaw Pact were not equally able to negotiate their entry in
4900-435: 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 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
5040-595: 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 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
5180-638: The EDC was delayed but the US representatives made it clear to Adenauer that the EDC would have to become a part of NATO. Memories of the Nazi occupation were still strong, and the rearmament of Germany was feared by France too. On 30 August 1954, the French Parliament rejected the EDC, thus ensuring its failure and blocking a major objective of US policy towards Europe: to associate West Germany militarily with
5320-531: 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
5460-628: 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
5600-557: The Pact consisted of the following communist governments: [REDACTED] Mongolia : In July 1963, the Mongolian People's Republic asked to join the Warsaw Pact under Article 9 of the treaty. Due to the emerging Sino-Soviet split , Mongolia remained in an observer status. In what was the first instance of a Soviet initiative being blocked by a non-Soviet member of the Warsaw Pact, Romania blocked Mongolia's accession to
5740-422: The Pact nor the decisions taken. Although nominally a "defensive" alliance, the Pact's primary function was to safeguard the Soviet Union's hegemony over its Eastern European satellites, with the Pact's only direct military actions having been the invasions of its own member states to keep them from breaking away. Romania and, until 1968, Albania – were exceptions. Together with Yugoslavia, which broke with
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5880-439: The Pact. In the early 1960s, Grechko initiated programs meant to preempt Romanian doctrinal heresies from spreading to other Pact members. Romania's doctrine of territorial defense threatened the Pact's unity and cohesion. No other country succeeded in escaping from the Warsaw Pact like Romania and Albania did. For example, the mainstays of Romania's tank forces were locally developed models. Soviet troops were deployed to Romania for
6020-425: The Soviet Union before the Warsaw Pact was created, these three countries completely rejected the Soviet doctrine formulated for the Pact. Albania officially left the organization in 1968, in protest of its invasion of Czechoslovakia. Romania had its own reasons for remaining a formal member of the Warsaw Pact, such as Nicolae Ceaușescu 's interest of preserving the threat of a Pact invasion so he could sell himself as
6160-838: The Soviet Union arrogated the right to define socialism and communism and act as the leader of the global socialist movement. A corollary to this was the necessity of military intervention if a country appeared to be "violating" core socialist ideas, i.e. breaking away from the Soviet sphere of influence , explicitly stated in the Brezhnev Doctrine . estimates On 12 March 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO ; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia joined in March 2004; Croatia and Albania joined on 1 April 2009. The USSR's successor Russia and some other post-Soviet states joined
6300-632: The Soviet Union the " evil empire ". General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.133 via cp1102 cp1102, Varnish XID 550537193 Upstream caches: cp1102 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 05:34:50 GMT Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact ( WP ), formally
6440-431: 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
6580-548: 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
6720-578: 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
6860-477: The Soviets that it would remain in the Pact, this broke the brackets of Eastern Europe, which could no longer be held together militarily by the Warsaw Pact. Independent national politics made feasible with the perestroika and liberal glasnost policies revealed shortcomings and failures (i.e. of the soviet-type economic planning model) and induced institutional collapse of the Communist government in
7000-658: 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
7140-410: 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
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#17327720903327280-434: 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
7420-424: The USSR , and the Chief of Combined Staff of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization was also a First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces . On the contrary, the Secretary General of NATO and Chair of the NATO Military Committee are positions with fixed term of office held on a random rotating basis by officials from all member countries through consensus. Despite
7560-431: The USSR in 1991. From 1989 to 1991, Communist governments were overthrown in Albania , Poland , Hungary , Czechoslovakia , East Germany , Romania , Bulgaria , Yugoslavia , and the Soviet Union . As the last acts of the Cold War were playing out, several Warsaw Pact states (Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary) participated in the US-led coalition effort to liberate Kuwait in the Gulf War . On 25 February 1991,
7700-411: The United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies implemented strategic policies aimed at the containment of each other in Europe, while working and fighting for influence within the wider Cold War on the international stage. These included the Korean War , Vietnam War , Bay of Pigs invasion , Dirty War , Cambodian–Vietnamese War , and others. In 1956, following the declaration of
7840-421: The United States insisted that a unified Germany should not be neutral and should be free to join the European Defence Community (EDC) and rearm. James Dunn (US), who met in Paris with Eden, Konrad Adenauer (West Germany), and Robert Schuman (France), affirmed that "the object should be to avoid discussion with the Russians and to press on the European Defense Community". According to John Gaddis , "there
7980-412: The United States over the Western Bloc . All Warsaw Pact commanders had to be, and have been, senior officers of the Soviet Union at the same time and appointed for an unspecified term length: the Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization , which commanded and controlled all the military forces of the member countries, was also a First Deputy Minister of Defence of
8120-425: 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
8260-484: The Warsaw Pact was declared disbanded at a meeting of defence and foreign ministers from remaining Pact countries meeting in Hungary. On 1 July 1991, in Prague , the Czechoslovak President Václav Havel formally ended the 1955 Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance and so disestablished the Warsaw Treaty after 36 years of military alliance with the USSR. The USSR disestablished itself in December 1991. The Warsaw Treaty's organization
8400-408: The Warsaw Pact, regardless of military power, was the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989. The event, which goes back to an idea by Otto von Habsburg , caused the mass exodus of GDR citizens and the media-informed population of Eastern Europe felt the loss of power of their rulers and the Iron Curtain broke down completely. Though Poland's new Solidarity government under Lech Wałęsa initially assured
8540-449: The Warsaw Pact. The Soviet government agreed to station troops in Mongolia in 1966. At first, China , North Korea , and North Vietnam had observer status, but China withdrew in 1961 as a consequence of the Albanian-Soviet split , in which China backed Albania against the USSR as part of the larger Sino-Soviet split of the early 1960s. For 36 years, NATO and the Warsaw Pact never directly waged war against each other in Europe;
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#17327720903328680-429: The West. The US Department of State started to elaborate alternatives: West Germany would be invited to join NATO or, in the case of French obstructionism, strategies to circumvent a French veto would be implemented in order to obtain German rearmament outside NATO. On 23 October 1954 , the admission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the North Atlantic Pact was finally decided. The incorporation of West Germany into
8820-460: 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
8960-406: 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
9100-441: 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
9240-413: 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
9380-452: 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
9520-512: 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
9660-496: 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
9800-556: 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 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
9940-486: The collective security system in Europe". The Soviets then decided to make a new proposal to the governments of the US, UK, and France to accept the participation of the US in the proposed General European Agreement. As another argument deployed against the Soviet proposal was that it was perceived by Western powers as "directed against the North Atlantic Pact and its liquidation", the Soviets decided to declare their "readiness to examine jointly with other interested parties
10080-532: The complete withdrawal of the Soviet Army from its territory in 1958. The Romanian campaign for independence culminated on 22 April 1964 when the Romanian Communist Party issued a declaration proclaiming that: "Every Marxist–Leninist Party has a sovereign right...to elaborate, choose or change the forms and methods of socialist construction." and "There exists no "parent" party and "offspring" party, no "superior" and "subordinated" parties, but only
10220-512: The conflict was fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars . Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and their integration into the respective blocs. The Warsaw Pact's largest military engagement was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia , its own member state, in August 1968 (with the participation of all pact nations except Albania and Romania ), which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from
10360-402: 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
10500-564: 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
10640-529: The country. Moscow controlled the Communist parties that ruled the satellite states, and they followed orders from the Kremlin. Historian Mark Kramer concludes: "The net outflow of resources from eastern Europe to the Soviet Union was approximately $ 15 billion to $ 20 billion in the first decade after World War II, an amount roughly equal to the total aid provided by the United States to western Europe under
10780-478: 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 is considered one of the most significant figures of the second half of the 20th century. The recipient of
10920-416: 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
11060-424: 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 the Soviet Union, leading the hardliners within the Communist Party to launch an unsuccessful coup against Gorbachev in August 1991. In
11200-633: The end of the CDU's leading political role in the West German Bundestag. Consequently, Molotov, fearing that the EDC would be directed in the future against the USSR and "seeking to prevent the formation of groups of European States directed against the other European States", made a proposal for a General European Treaty on Collective Security in Europe "open to all European States without regard to their social systems", which would have included
11340-569: The establishment of a system of European collective security based on the participation of all European states irrespective of their social and political systems" established the Warsaw Pact in response to the integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into NATO, declaring that: "a remilitarized Western Germany and the integration of the latter in the North-Atlantic bloc [...] increase the danger of another war and constitutes
11480-592: The exception of the Socialist Republic of Romania and the People's Republic of Albania , participated in the invasion. The German Democratic Republic provided only minimal support. (Albania withdrew from the pact one month after this intervention.) In 1989, popular civil and political public discontent toppled the Communist governments of the Warsaw Treaty countries. The beginning of the end of
11620-417: 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
11760-445: 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 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
11900-416: The hand of Moscow behind every Romanian initiative. For instance, when Romania became the only Eastern European country to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel, some historians have speculated that this was at Moscow's whim. However, this theory fails upon closer inspection. Even during the Cold War, some thought that Romanian actions were done at the behest of the Soviets, but Soviet anger at said actions
12040-498: 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 a distinction; his final paper had been on
12180-542: 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), 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
12320-524: The intelligence and security services. Not only did Romania not participate in joint operations with the KGB, but it also set up "departments specialized in anti-KGB counterespionage". Romania was neutral in the Sino-Soviet split . Its neutrality in the Sino-Soviet dispute along with being the small Communist country with the most influence in global affairs enabled Romania to be recognized by
12460-419: 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
12600-503: The large family of communist and workers' parties having equal rights." and also "there are not and there can be no unique patterns and recipes". This amounted to a declaration of political and ideological independence from Moscow. Following Albania's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, Romania remained the only Pact member with an independent military doctrine which denied the Soviet Union use of its armed forces and avoided absolute dependence on Soviet sources of military equipment. Romania
12740-417: The last time in 1963, as part of a Warsaw Pact exercise. After 1964, the Soviet Army was barred from returning to Romania, as the country refused to take part in joint Pact exercises. Even before the advent of Nicolae Ceaușescu , Romania was in fact an independent country, as opposed to the rest of the Warsaw Pact. To some extent, it was even more independent than Cuba (a communist Soviet-aligned state that
12880-403: 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
13020-610: 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
13160-621: 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
13300-520: 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
13440-427: 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
13580-479: The organization on 9 May 1955 was described as "a decisive turning point in the history of our continent" by Halvard Lange , Foreign Affairs Minister of Norway at the time. In November 1954, the USSR requested a new European Security Treaty, in order to make a final attempt to not have a remilitarized West Germany potentially opposed to the Soviet Union, with no success. On 14 May 1955, the USSR and seven other Eastern European countries "reaffirming their desire for
13720-811: The pact less than one month later. The pact began to unravel with the spread of the Revolutions of 1989 through the Eastern Bloc, beginning with the Solidarity movement in Poland, its electoral success in June 1989 and the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989. East Germany withdrew from the pact following German reunification in 1990. On 25 February 1991, at a meeting in Hungary, the pact
13860-692: 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
14000-597: 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
14140-911: 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
14280-667: 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
14420-771: The question of the participation of the USSR in the North Atlantic bloc", specifying that "the admittance of the USA into the General European Agreement should not be conditional on the three Western powers agreeing to the USSR joining the North Atlantic Pact". Again, all Soviet proposals, including the request to join NATO, were rejected by the UK, US, and French governments shortly after. Emblematic
14560-452: The region, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. At the start of 1990, the Soviet foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze , implicitly confirmed the lack of Soviet influence over Ceaușescu's Romania. When asked whether it made sense for him to visit Romania less than two weeks after its revolution , Shevardnadze insisted that only by going in person to Romania could he figure out how to "restore Soviet influence". Romania requested and obtained
14700-586: 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
14840-514: 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
14980-457: 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
15120-703: 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
15260-409: 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
15400-461: The treaty signatories were based upon mutual non-intervention in the internal affairs of the member countries, respect for national sovereignty , and political independence. However, de facto , the Pact was a direct reflection of the USSR's authoritarianism and undisputed domination over the Eastern Bloc , in the context of the so-called Soviet Empire , which was not comparable to that of
15540-501: The unified Germany (thus rendering the EDC obsolete). But Eden, Dulles, and Bidault opposed the proposal. One month later, the proposed European Treaty was rejected not only by supporters of the EDC, but also by Western opponents of the European Defence Community (like French Gaullist leader Gaston Palewski ) who perceived it as "unacceptable in its present form because it excludes the USA from participation in
15680-460: The usage of the term "independent" to describe Romania's relations with the Soviet Union, favoring "autonomy" instead on account of the country's continued membership within both the Comecon and the Warsaw Pact along with its commitment to socialism, this approach fails to explain why in July 1963 Romania blocked Mongolia 's accession to the Warsaw Pact, why in November 1963 Romania voted in favor of
15820-434: The world as the "third force" of the Communist world. Romania's independence – achieved in the early 1960s through its freeing from its Soviet satellite status – was tolerated by Moscow because Romania was not bordering the Iron Curtain – being surrounded by socialist states – and because its ruling party was not going to abandon communism. Although certain historians such as Robert King and Dennis Deletant argue against
15960-463: Was "persuasively genuine". In truth, the Soviets were not beyond publicly aligning themselves with the West against the Romanians at times. The strategy behind the formation of the Warsaw Pact was driven by the desire of the Soviet Union to prevent Central and Eastern Europe being used as a base for its enemies. Its policy was also driven by ideological and geostrategic reasons. Ideologically,
16100-482: 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
16240-493: 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,
16380-668: 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
16520-439: 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
16660-411: 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
16800-548: Was conceived, NATO officials labeled it a "cardboard castle". The USSR, fearing the restoration of German militarism in West Germany, had suggested in 1954 that it join NATO, but this was rejected by the US. The Soviet request to join NATO arose in the aftermath of the Berlin Conference of January–February 1954. Soviet foreign minister Molotov made proposals to have Germany reunified and elections for
16940-469: Was declared at an end by the defense and foreign ministers of the six remaining member states. The USSR itself was dissolved in December 1991 , although most of the former Soviet republics formed the Collective Security Treaty Organization shortly thereafter. In the following 20 years, the Warsaw Pact countries outside the USSR each joined NATO (East Germany through its reunification with West Germany; and
17080-530: 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
17220-596: 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,
17360-483: 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
17500-610: 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
17640-502: 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
17780-410: Was little inclination in Western capitals to explore this offer" from the USSR, while historian Rolf Steininger asserts that Adenauer's conviction that "neutralization means sovietization ", referring to the Soviet Union's policies towards Finland known as finlandization , was the main factor in the rejection of the Soviet proposals. Adenauer also feared that German unification might have resulted in
17920-558: 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 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
18060-466: Was not a member of the Warsaw Pact). The Romanian regime was largely impervious to Soviet political influence, and Ceaușescu was the only declared opponent of glasnost and perestroika . On account of the contentious relationship between Bucharest and Moscow, the West did not hold the Soviet Union responsible for the policies pursued by Bucharest. This was not the case for the other countries in
18200-534: 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
18340-559: 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
18480-466: 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
18620-521: 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
18760-615: Was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), the economic organization for the Eastern Bloc states. Dominated by the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Western Bloc . There was no direct military confrontation between the two organizations; instead,
18900-616: 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 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
19040-440: Was the only non-Soviet Warsaw Pact member which was not obliged to militarily defend the Soviet Union in case of an armed attack. Bulgaria and Romania were the only Warsaw Pact members that did not have Soviet troops stationed on their soil. In December 1964, Romania became the only Warsaw Pact member (save Albania, which would leave the Pact altogether within 4 years) from which all Soviet advisors were withdrawn, including those in
19180-400: Was the position of British General Hastings Ismay , a fierce supporter of NATO expansion . He opposed the request to join NATO made by the USSR in 1954 saying that "the Soviet request to join NATO is like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force". In April 1954, Adenauer made his first visit to the United States, meeting Nixon , Eisenhower , and Dulles . Ratification of
19320-764: 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
19460-616: Was two-fold: the Political Consultative Committee handled political matters, and the Combined Command of Pact Armed Forces controlled the assigned multi-national forces, with headquarters in Warsaw , Poland. Although an apparently similar collective security alliance, the Warsaw Pact differed substantially from NATO. De jure , the eight-member countries of the Warsaw Pact pledged the mutual defense of any member who would be attacked; relations among
19600-478: 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
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