Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich (1931- )

Russian politician, leader and president of the USSR 1985-91. He attempted to revive the faltering Soviet economy through economic reforms (perestroika) and liberalize society and politics through glasnost (openness) and competition in elections, and to halt the arms race abroad through arms reduction agreements with the USA. He pulled Soviet troops out of Afghanistan and allowed the Soviet-bloc states in central Europe greater autonomy, a move which soon led to the break-up of the USSR and end of the Cold War. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1990 for promoting greater openness in the USSR and helping to end the Cold War.

Gorbachev radically changed the style of Soviet leadership, but encountered opposition to the pace of change from both conservatives and radicals. His reforms failed to improve the economy and resulted in ethnic and nationalist tensions within the USSR, culminating in demands for independence in the Baltic and Caucasus regions. Communist hardliners briefly overthrew Gorbachev in August 1991 and within months the USSR had dissolved and Gorbachev resigned as president. He contested the Russian presidential elections in June 1996, but polled only 0.5% of the vote.

Gorbachev was born in the northern Caucasus region of southern Russia. He studied law at Moscow University and joined the Communist Party in 1952. In 1955-62 he worked for the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in his home Stavropol region, before being appointed regional agriculture secretary in 1962 and Stavropol party leader in 1970. He impressed Yuri Andropov, the KGB leader who was drawn from the Stavropol region, and was brought into the Soviet Communist Party Secretariat in 1978 as agriculture secretary. He was a member of the Politburo from 1980. After Andropov became party leader in 1983, Gorbachev took broader charge of the Soviet economy, and during the Chernenko administration 1984-85, he took control over party ideology and became chair of the Foreign Affairs Commission. On Chernenko's death in 1985, Gorbachev was appointed party leader. He inherited a stagnating economy crippled by high levels of defence spending and corruption. He initiated wide-ranging reforms and broad economic restructuring, and introduced campaigns against alcoholism, corruption, and inefficiency. He was elected president of the Soviet parliament in 1988, and in March 1990 was elected executive president with greater powers.

At home Gorbachev's plans for economic reform failed to avert a food crisis in the winter of 1990-91 and his desire to preserve a single, centrally controlled Soviet state met with resistance from Soviet republics seeking more independence. Early in 1991, Gorbachev shifted to the right in order to placate the conservative wing of the party and appointed some of the hardliners to positions of power. In late spring, he produced a plan for a new union treaty to satisfy the demands of reformers. This plan alarmed the hardliners, who, on 19-21 August 1991, temporarily removed him from office. He was saved from this attempted coup mainly by the efforts of Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian republic, and the ineptitude of the plotters. Soon after his reinstatement, Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Communist Party and resigned as its leader. He renounced communism as a state doctrine and surrendered many central powers to the states. He proposed a union treaty in the hope of preventing the disintegration of the USSR, but was unable to maintain control and on 25 December 1991 resigned as president, effectively yielding power to Yeltsin.