Mikhail Gorbachev

Gorbachev was born in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. He grew up in a Kolkhoz collective farm. He did well in school and went to Moscow State University. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Reagan and Gorbachev at the Geneva Summit in 1985

Gorbachev's attempts at reform and partnership with Ronald Reagan led to the end of the Cold War. His main intent was to improve the economy of the USSR. To do this, he set in motion two major reforms:

• Perestroika: restructuring of the economy
• Glasnost: gave more freedom to the people, and allowed them to express their opinions more freely.

The Soviet Union undergo extensive political and economic reform under Gorbachev

Indirectly, this may have helped cause the end of the power of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and the break-up of the Soviet Union into smaller countries. However, it should be noted that the need to modernise the economy, and to conduct government less ruthlessly than Stalin, was agreed by the previous two leaders. They, Andropov and Chernenko, were elderly and died before real changes could be put in place.

In 1990, Gorbachev created the office of President of the Soviet Union. It was to be based on the systems in France and the United States. The office merged office of General Secretary and head of state. The President was to be elected by the Soviet People but its only holder was Gorbachev who wasn't elected. Gorbachev saw the office mainly as a position for himself to remain influential in Soviet politics. His main goal was to keep the Soviet Union together, controlled by Moscow.

After the August coup in 1991, Gorbachev resigned as leader of the Communist Party and held onto the Soviet presidency. When Union republics began to turn away from the Soviet system, Gorbachev's power was dramatically reduced. By late 1991 he had almost no influence outside of Moscow. When Russia, Ukraine and Belarus became independent, Gorbachev was basically a President of a country that only existed on paper. He resigned on December 25, 1991. After the fall Of The Berlin Wall in 1989 .

Gorbachev studied law at Lomonosov Moscow State University. He met his future wife, Raisa Gorbachova, there. Gorbachova studied sociology. After retiring from politics in 1991, Gorbachev started The Gorbachev Foundation, which is currently headed by his daughter Irina. In 2004, he traveled to the United States to represent Russia at Ronald Reagan's funeral.

Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.[7] He won a Grammy Award in 2004 with Bill Clinton and Sophia Loren for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for their recording of Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.[8]

A Russian play about Gorbachev titled Gorbachev was made in 2020.[9] The play focuses on Gorbachev and the relationship with his wife Raisa.[10]

• List of Nobel Prize winners by country
• "Tear down this wall!"

Media related to Mikhail Gorbachev at Wikimedia Commons

• Gorby80 Gorbachev 80th Birthday Gala Celebration at the Royal Albert Hall London Archived 2020-07-03 at the Wayback Machine
• The Gorbachev Foundation
• Mikhail Gorbachev on IMDb
• Green Cross International Archived 2001-07-18 at the Wayback Machine
• Column and op-ed archives Archived 2011-11-19 at the Wayback Machine at Journalisted
• Column and op-ed archives at Project Syndicate
• Column and op-ed archives at The Guardian