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Mikhail Gorbachev

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Political People

   Mikhail S. Gorbachev
   Михаил Сергеевич Горбачёв
   Mikhail Gorbachev
     __________________________________________________________________

   General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
   In office
   March 11, 1985 –  December 25, 1991
   Preceded by Konstantin Chernenko
   Succeeded by none (Soviet Union abolished, Boris Yeltsin as President
   of Russia)
     __________________________________________________________________

   Born March 2, 1931
   Stavropol, Russia
   Political party Social Democratic Party of Russia
   (formerly Communist Party of the Soviet Union)
   Spouse Raisa Gorbachyova

   Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov ( Михаи́л Серге́евич Горбачёв , Mihail
   Sergeevič Gorbačëv, IPA: [mʲɪxʌˈil sʲɪrˈgʲejɪvʲɪʨ gərbʌˈʨof], commonly
   written as Mikhail Gorbachev; born March 2, 1931) was the last leader
   of the Soviet Union, serving from 1985 until its collapse in 1991. His
   attempts at reform helped to end the Cold War, and also ended the
   political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)
   and dissolved the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in
   1990.

Early life

   Mikhail Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in the village of Privolnoye
   near Stavropol, the son of a Russian agricultural mechanic Sergey
   Gorbachyov and Maria Pantelyeva. He faced a tough childhood under the
   totalitarian leadership of Joseph Stalin; his grandparents were
   deported for being wealthy farmers known as kulaks. He lived through
   World War II, during which, starting in August 1942, German troops
   occupied Stavropol. Although they would leave by February 1943, the
   occupation increased the hardship of the community and left a deep
   impression on the young Gorbachev. From 1946 through 1950, he worked
   during the summers as an assistant combine harvester operator at the
   collective farms in his area. He would take an increasing part in
   promoting peasant labour, which he describes as "very hard" because of
   enforced state quotas and taxes on private plots. Furthermore, as
   peasants were not issued passports, their only opportunity to leave
   their peasant existence was through enlisting in 'orgnabor' (organised
   recruitment) labour projects, which prompts Gorbachev to ask "what
   difference was there between this life and serfdom?".

Political career

   Despite the hardship of his background, Gorbachev excelled in the
   fields and in the classroom. He was considered the most intelligent in
   his class, with a particular interest in history and math. After he
   left school he helped his father harvest a record crop on his
   collective farm. So, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of
   Labour, aged just 16 (1947). It was rare for someone his age to be
   given such an honour. It was almost certainly this award, coupled with
   his intelligence that helped secure his place at Moscow University,
   where he studied law from September 1950. Gorbachev may never have
   intended to practice law however, but simply have seen it as
   preparation for working in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
   (CPSU). He became a candidate member of the Party that same year. While
   living in Moscow, he met his future wife, Raisa Maksimovna Titarenko.
   They married on the 25th September 1953 and moved to Gorbachev's home
   region of Stavropol in southern Russia when he graduated in June 1955,
   where he immersed himself in party work. Upon graduating, he briefly
   worked in the Prokuratura (Soviet State Procuracy) before transferring
   to the Komsomol, or Communist Union of Youth. He served as First
   Secretary of the Stavropol City Komsomol Committee from September,
   1956, later moving up to the Stavropol Krai (regional) Komsomol
   Committee, where he worked as Second Secretary from April 1958 and as
   First Secretary from March 1961. Raisa would give birth to their first
   child, a daughter, Irina, on 6th January 1957.

   He attended the important XXIInd CPSU Party Congress in October 1961,
   where Khrushchev announced a plan to move to a communist society within
   20 years and surpass the US in per capita production. Gorbachev was
   promoted to Head of the Department of Party Organs in the Stavropol
   Agricultural Kraikom in 1963. By 1966, at age 35, he obtained a
   correspondence degree as an agronomist-economist from the Agricultural
   Institute. His career moved forward rapidly - in 1970, he was appointed
   First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Kraikom, becoming one of the
   youngest provincial party chief in the Soviet Union. In this position
   he helped to reorganize the collective farms, improve workers' living
   conditions, expand the size of their private plots, and give them a
   greater voice in planning. His work was evidently effective, because he
   was made a member of the CPSU Central Committee in 1971. In 1972, he
   headed a Soviet delegation to Belgium, and two years later, in 1974, he
   was made a Representative to the Supreme Soviet, and Chairman of the
   Standing Commission on Youth Affairs. He was subsequently appointed to
   the Central Committee Secretariat for Agriculture in 1978, replacing
   Fyodor Kulakov, who had backed his rise to power, after Kulakov died of
   a heart attack.

   In 1979, Gorbachev was promoted to the Politburo (first as a candidate
   member before receiving full membership in 1980). There, he received
   the patronage of Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB and also a native of
   Stavropol, and was promoted during Andropov's brief time as leader of
   the Party before Andropov's death in 1984. With responsibility over
   personnel, working together with Andropov, 20 percent of the top
   echelon of government ministers and regional governors were replaced,
   often with younger men. During this time Grigory Romanov, Nikolai
   Ryzhkov, and Yegor Ligachev were elevated, the latter two working
   closely with Gorbachev, Ryzhkov on economics, Ligachev on personnel. He
   was also close to Konstantin Chernenko, Andropov's successor, serving
   as second secretary.

   His positions within the new CPSU created more opportunities to travel
   abroad and this would profoundly affect his political and social views
   in the future as leader of the country. In 1975, he led a delegation to
   West Germany, and in 1983 he headed a Soviet delegation to Canada to
   meet with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and members of the Canadian
   House of Commons and Senate. In 1984, he travelled to the United
   Kingdom, where he met with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

General Secretary of the CPSU

   Gorbachev in one-on-one discussions with U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
   Enlarge
   Gorbachev in one-on-one discussions with U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

   Upon the death of Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev, at age 54,
   was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party on 11 March 1985,
   defeating Grigory Romanov who was considered the other favourite.

   He became the Party's first leader to have been born after the Russian
   Revolution of 1917. As de facto ruler of the Soviet Union, he tried to
   reform the stagnating Communist Party and the state economy by
   introducing glasnost ("openness"), perestroika ("restructuring"), and
   uskoreniye ("acceleration", of economic development), which were
   launched at the 27th Congress of the CPSU in February 1986.

Domestic reforms

   Domestically, Gorbachev implemented economic reforms that he hoped
   would improve living standards and worker productivity as part of his
   perestroika program. However, many of his reforms were considered
   radical at the time by orthodox apparatchiks in the Soviet government.

1985

   In 1985, Gorbachev announced that the Soviet economy was stalled and
   that reorganization was needed. Initially, his reforms were called "
   uskoreniye" (acceleration) but later the terms " glasnost"
   (liberalization, opening up) and " perestroika" (reconstruction) became
   much more popular.

   Gorbachev was not operating within a vacuum. Although the Brezhnev era
   is usually thought of as one of economic stagnation, a number of
   economic experiments (particularly in the organisation of business
   enterprises, and partnerships with Western companies) did take place. A
   number of reformist ideas were discussed by technocratic-minded
   managers, who often used the facilities of the Young Communist League
   as discussion forums. The so-called 'Komsomol Generation' would prove
   to be Gorbachev's most receptive audience, and the nursery of many
   post-communist businessmen and politicians, particularly in the Baltic
   States.

   After becoming General Secretary, Gorbachev proposed a "vague programme
   of reform", which was adopted at the April Plenum of the Central
   Committee. He made a speech in May in Leningrad advocating widespread
   reforms. The reforms began in personnel changes; the most notable
   change was the replacement of Andrei Gromyko with Eduard Shevardnadze
   as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Gromyko, disparaged as 'Mr. Nyet' in
   the West, had served for 28 years as Minister of Foreign Affairs and
   was considered an 'old thinker'. Robert D. English notes that, despite
   Shevardnadze's diplomatic inexperience, Gorbachev "shared with him an
   outlook" and experience in managing an agricultural region of the
   Soviet Union (Georgia), which meant that both had weak links to the
   power military-industrial complex.

   The first major reform programme introduced under Gorbachev was the
   1985 alcohol reform, which was designed to fight wide-spread alcoholism
   in the Soviet Union. Prices of vodka, wine and beer were raised, and
   their sales were restricted. People who were caught drunk at work or in
   public were prosecuted. Drinking on long-distance trains and in public
   places was banned. Many famous wineries were destroyed. Scenes of
   alcohol consumption were cut out from the movies. The reform did not
   have any significant effect on alcoholism in the country, but
   economically it was a serious blow to the state budget (a loss of
   approximately 100 billion rubles according to Alexander Yakovlev) after
   alcohol production migrated to the black market economy.

1986

   Perestroika and its attendant radical reforms were enunciated at the
   XXVIIth Party Congress between February and March 1986. Nonetheless,
   many found the pace of reform too slow. Many historians, including
   Robert D. English, have explained this by the rapid estrangement of the
   'New Thinkers' and conservatives in the Soviet elite; conservatives
   deliberately blocked the process of change. This was exposed in the
   aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. As English states, Gorbachev and
   his allies were "misinformed by the military-industrial complex" and
   "betrayed" by conservatives, who blocked information concerning the
   incident and thus delayed an official response. Jack F. Matlock Jr.
   stresses that Gorbachev told the authorities to give "full information"
   but the "Soviet bureaucracy blocked the flow". This brought
   international ire for the Soviets and many blamed Gorbachev. Despite
   this, English suggests that there was a "positive fallout" to
   Chernobyl, as Gorbachev and his fellow reformers received an increased
   impetus for domestic and international reform.

   Domestic changes continued apace. In a bombshell speech during Armenian
   SSR's Central Committee Plenum of the Communist Party the young First
   Secretary of Armenia's Hrazdan Regional Communist Party, Hayk
   Kotanjian, criticised rampant corruption in the Armenian communist
   party highest echelons implicating Armenian SSR Communist Party First
   Secretary Karen Demirchian and called for the latter's resignation.
   Symbolically, exiled intellectual Andrei Sakharov was invited to return
   to Moscow by Gorbachev in December 1986 after six years exiled in
   Gorky. During the same month, however, signs of the nationalities
   problem that would haunt the later years of the Soviet Union surfaced
   as riots occurred in Kazakhstan after Dinmukhamed Kunayev was replaced
   as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan.

1987

   The Central Committee Plenum in January 1987 would see the
   crystallisation of Gorbachev's political reforms, including proposals
   for multi-candidate elections and the appointment of non-Party members
   to government positions. He also first raised the idea of expanding
   co-operatives at the plenum. Later that year, May would be a month of
   crisis. In an incredible incident, a young West German, Mathias Rust,
   managed to fly a plane into Moscow and land near Red Square without
   being stopped. This massively embarrassed the military and Gorbachev
   made sweeping personnel changes, beginning at the top, where he
   appointed Dmitry Yazov as Minister of Defence.

   Economic reforms took up much of the rest of 1987, as a new law giving
   enterprises more independence was passed in June and Gorbachev released
   a book, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World, in
   November, elucidating his main ideas for reform. Nevertheless, at the
   same time, the personal and professional acrimony between Gorbachev and
   Boris Yeltsin increased; after Yeltsin criticised Gorbachev and others
   at the October Plenum, he was replaced as First Secretary of the Moscow
   Gorkom Party. This move only temporarily removed Yeltsin's influence.

1988

   1988 would see Gorbachev's introduction of glasnost, which gave new
   freedoms to the people, such as a greater freedom of speech. This was a
   radical change, as control of speech and suppression of government
   criticism had previously been a central part of the Soviet system. The
   press became far less controlled, and thousands of political prisoners
   and many dissidents were released. Gorbachev's goal in undertaking
   glasnost was to pressure conservatives within the CPSU who opposed his
   policies of economic restructuring, and he also hoped that through
   different ranges of openness, debate and participation, the Soviet
   people would support his reform initiatives. At the same time, he
   opened himself and his reforms up for more public criticism, evident in
   Nina Andreyeva's critical letter in a March edition of Sovetskaya
   Rossiya.

   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, 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 these were later revised to
   avoid discouraging private-sector activity. Under this provision,
   cooperative restaurants, shops, and manufacturers became part of the
   Soviet scene. It should be noted that some of the SSRs ignored these
   restrictions. In Estonia, for example, co-operatives were permitted to
   cater to the needs of foreign visitors and forge partnerships with
   foreign companies. The large 'All-Union' industrial organisations
   started to be restructured. Aeroflot, for example, was split into a
   number of independent enterprises, some of which became the nucleus for
   future independent airlines. These newly autonomous business
   organisations were encouraged to seek foreign investment.

   In June 1988, at the CPSU's XIXth Party Conference, Gorbachev launched
   radical reforms meant to reduce party control of the government
   apparatus. He proposed a new executive in the form of a presidential
   system, as well as a new legislative element, to be called the Congress
   of People's Deputies.

1989

   Elections to the Congress of People's Deputies were held throughout the
   Soviet Union in March and April 1989. On March 15, 1990, Gorbachev was
   elected as the first executive President of the Soviet Union with 59%
   of the Deputies' votes being an unopposed candidate. The Congress met
   for the first time on the 25th May. Their first task was to elect
   representatives from Congress to sit on the Supreme Soviet.
   Nonetheless, the Congress posed problems for Gorbachev - its sessions
   were televised, airing more criticism and encouraging people to expect
   evermore rapid reform. In the elections, many Party candidates were
   defeated. Furthermore, Yeltsin was elected in Moscow and returned to
   political prominence to become an increasingly vocal critic of
   Gorbachev.

   The rest of 1989 was taken up by the increasingly problematic
   nationalities question and the dramatic collapse of the Eastern Bloc.
   Despite international detente reaching unprecedented levels, with the
   Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan completed in January and US-Soviet
   talks continuing between Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush, domestic
   reforms were suffering from increasing divergence between reformists,
   who criticised the pace of change, and conservatives, who criticised
   the extent of change. Gorbachev states that he tried to find the centre
   ground between both groups, but this would draw more criticism towards
   him. The story from this point on moves away from reforms and becomes
   one of the nationalities question and the eventual collapse of the
   Soviet Union.

Collapse of the Soviet Union

   While Gorbachev's political initiatives were positive for freedom and
   democracy in the Soviet Union and its Eastern bloc allies, the economic
   policy of his government gradually brought the country close to
   disaster. By the end of the 1980s, severe shortages of basic food
   supplies (meat, sugar) led to the reintroduction of the war-time system
   of distribution using food cards that limited each citizen to a certain
   amount of product per month. Compared to 1985, the state deficit grew
   from 0 to 109 billion rubles; gold funds decreased from 2,000 to 200
   tons; and external debt grew from 0 to 120 billion dollars.

   Furthermore, the democratization of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
   had irreparably undermined the power of the CPSU and Gorbachev himself.
   Gorbachev's relaxation of censorship and attempts to create more
   political openness had the unintended effect of re-awakening
   long-suppressed nationalist and anti-Russian feelings in the Soviet
   republics. Calls for greater independence from Moscow's rule grew
   louder, especially in the Baltic republics of Estonia, Lithuania, and
   Latvia, which had been annexed into the Soviet Union by Stalin in 1940.
   Nationalist feeling also took hold in the Soviet republics of Georgia,
   Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Gorbachev had unleashed a force that
   would ultimately destroy the Soviet Union.

Emerging Nationalism in the Republics, 1986-90

   In December 1986, the first signs of the nationalities problem that
   would haunt the later years of the Soviet Union's existence surfaced as
   riots occurred in Alma Ata and other areas of Kazakhstan after
   Dinmukhamed Kunayev was replaced as First Secretary of the Communist
   Party of Kazakhstan. Nationalism would then surface in Russia in May
   1987, as 600 members of Pamyat, a nascent Russian nationalist group,
   demonstrated in Moscow and were becoming increasingly linked to Boris
   Yeltsin, who received their representatives at a meeting.

   Glasnost hastened the development of the nationalities problem.
   Violence erupted in Nagorno-Karabakh - an Armenian-populated enclave
   within Azerbaijani SSR - between February and April, when Armenians
   living in the area began a new wave of protests for the arbitrary
   transfer of the historically Armenian region from Armenia to Azerbaijan
   in 1920 upon Joseph Stalin's decision. Armenians were also protesting
   against the underdevelopment and deteriorating living conditions in the
   Armenian-populated areas of Azerbaijan. In retaliation, Armenians were
   massacred in Sumgait, Azerbaijan. A temporary solution imposed by
   Gorbachev from Moscow did not last, as fresh trouble arose in
   Nagorno-Karabakh between June and July. Turmoil would once again return
   in December, this time in Armenia itself, when the Leninakan Earthquake
   hit the region on December 7th. Poor local infrastructure magnified the
   hazard and some 25,000 people died. Gorbachev was forced to break off
   his trip to the United States and cancel his planned travels to Cuba
   and Britain.

   Elections to the Congress of People's Deputies, which took place
   throughout the Soviet Union in March and April 1989, returned many
   pro-independence republicans, as many CPSU candidates were rejected.
   The televised Congress debates allowed the dissemination of
   pro-independence propositions. Indeed, 1989 would see numerous
   nationalistic expressions protests. Initiated by the Baltic States in
   January, laws were passed in most non-Russian republics giving symbolic
   precedence for the republican language over Russian. April would see
   violent crackdown of nationalist demonstration by the Soviet troops in
   Tbilisi, Georgia. There would be further bloody protests in Uzbekistan
   in June, where Uzbeks and Meskhetian Turks clashed in Fergana. Apart
   from this violence, three major events that altered the face of the
   nationalities issue occurred in 1989. Firstly, Estonia and Lithuania
   officially declared their sovereignty in May, followed by Latvia in
   July (the Communist Party of Lithuania would also declare its
   independence from the CPSU in December). This brought the Union and the
   republics into clear confrontation and would form a precedent for other
   republics. Following this, in July, on the eve of the anniversary of
   the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, it was formally revealed that the
   treaty did indeed include a plan for the annexation of the Baltic
   States to the Soviet Union (as happened in World War Two) and the
   division of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union. The Soviet
   Union's unsavoury past was exposed and gave impetus to the nationalists
   within the Baltic States who could now even more legitimately claim
   that they were subject to oppression from Moscow. Finally, the Eastern
   Bloc collapsed spectacularly in 1989, raising hopes that Gorbachev
   would extend his non-interventionist doctrine to the internal workings
   of the Soviet Union.

Crisis of the Union, 1990-91

   1990 began with nationalist turmoil in January. Azerbaijanis rioted and
   troops needed to be sent in to restore order; many Moldavians protested
   in favour of unification with the newly-democratic Romania; and
   Lithuanian demonstrations continued. The same month, in a hugely
   significant move, Armenia asserted its right to veto laws coming from
   the All-Union level, thus intensifying the 'war of laws' between
   republics and Moscow.

   Soon after, the CPSU, which had already lost much of its control, began
   to lose even more power as Gorbachev deepened political reform. The
   February Central Committee Plenum advocated multi-party elections;
   local elections held between February and March returned a large amount
   of pro-independence candidates. The Congress of People's Deputies then
   amended the Soviet Constitution in March, removing Article 6, which
   guaranteed the monopoly of the CPSU. The process of political reform
   was therefore coming from above and below, and was gaining a momentum
   that would augment republican nationalism. Soon after the
   constitutional amendment, Lithuania declared independence and elected
   Vytautas Landbergis as President.

   On March 15th, Gorbachev himself was elected as the first and only
   President of the Soviet Union by the Congress of People's Deputies and
   chose a Presidential Council of 15 politicians. Gorbachev was
   essentially creating his own political support base independent of CPSU
   conservatives and radical reformers. The new Executive was designed to
   be a powerful position to guide the spiralling reform process, and the
   Supreme Soviet and Congress of People's Deputies had already given
   Gorbachev increasingly presidential powers in February. This would be
   again a source of criticism from reformers. Despite the apparent
   increase in Gorbachev's power, he was unable to stop the process of
   nationalistic assertion. Further embarrassing facts about Soviet
   history were revealed in April, when the government admitted that the
   NKVD had carried out the infamous Katyn Massacre of Polish army
   officers during World War II; previously, the Soviets had blamed the
   Nazis. More significantly for Gorbachev's position, Boris Yeltsin was
   reaching a new level of prominence, as he was elected Chairman of the
   Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR in May, effectively
   making him the de jure leader of the Russian Soviet Federative
   Socialist Republic. Problems for Gorbachev would once more come from
   the Russian parliament in June, when it declared the precedence of
   Russian laws over All-Union level legislation.

   Gorbachev's personal position continued changing. At XXVIIIth CPSU
   Congress in July, Gorbachev was re-elected General Secretary but this
   position was now completely independent of Soviet government, and the
   Politburo had no say in the ruling of the country. Gorbachev further
   reduced Party power in the same month, when he issued a decree
   abolishing Party control of all areas of the media and broadcasting. At
   the same time, Gorbachev was working to consolidate his Presidential
   position, culminating in the Supreme Soviet granting him special powers
   to rule by decree in September in order to pass a much needed economic
   plan for transition to the market. However, the Supreme Soviet could
   not agree on which programme to adopt. Gorbachev pressed on with
   political reform - his proposal for setting up a new Soviet government,
   with a Soviet of the Federation consisting of representatives from all
   15 republics, was passed through the Supreme Soviet in November. In
   December, Gorbachev was once more granted increasing executive power by
   the Supreme Soviet, arguing that such moves were necessary to counter
   "the dark forces of nationalism". Such moves led to Eduard
   Shevardnadze's resignation; Gorbachev's former ally warned of an
   impending dictatorship. This move was a serious blow to Gorbachev
   personally and to his efforts for reform.

   Meanwhile, Gorbachev was losing further ground to nationalists. October
   1990 saw the founding of DemoRossiya, the Russian nationalist party; a
   few days later, both Ukraine and Russia declared their laws completely
   sovereign over Soviet level laws. The 'war of laws' had become an open
   battle, with the Supreme Soviet refusing to recognise the actions of
   the two republics. Gorbachev would publish the draft of a new union
   treaty in November - which envisioned a continued union called the
   Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics - but, going into 1991, the actions
   of Gorbachev were steadily being overtaken by the centrifugal
   secessionist forces.

   January and February would see a new level of turmoil in the Batlic
   States. On January 10, 1991 Gorbachev issued an ultimatum-like request
   addressing the Lithuanian Supreme Council demanding the restoration of
   the validity of the constitution of the Soviet Union in Lithuania and
   the revoking of all anti-constitutional laws. In his Memoirs, Gorbachev
   asserts that, on January 12th, he convened the Council of the
   Federation and political measures to prevent bloodshed were agreed,
   including sending representatives of the Council of the Federation on a
   "fact-finding mission" to Vilnius. However, before the delegation
   arrived, the local branches of the KGB and armed forces had worked
   together to seize the TV tower in Vilnius; Gorbachev asked the heads of
   these power industries if they had approved such action, and there is
   no evidence that they, or Gorbachev, ever approved this move. Gorbachev
   cites documents found in the RSFSR Prokuratura after the August Coup,
   which only mentioned that "some 'authorities'" had sanctioned the
   actions. A book called Alpha - the KGB's Top Secret Unit also suggests
   that a "KGB operation co-ordinated with the military" was undertaken by
   the KGB Alpha Group. Archie Brown, in The Gorbachev Factor, uses the
   memoirs of many people around Gorbachev and in the upper echelons of
   the Soviet political landscape, to implicate General Valentin
   Varennikov, a member of the August coup plotters, and General Viktor
   Achalov, another August coup conspirator and later a putschist against
   Yeltsin in 1993. These persons were characterized as individuals "who
   were prepared to remove Gorbachev from his presidential office
   unconstitutionally" and "were more than capable of using unauthorised
   violence against nationalist separatists some months earlier". Brown
   criticises Gorbachev for "a conscious tilt in the direction of the
   conservative forces he was trying to keep within an increasingly
   fragile... coalition" who would later betray him; he also criticises
   Gorbachev "for his tougher line and heightened rhetoric against the
   Lithuanians in the days preceding the attack and for his slowness in
   condemning the killings" but notes that Gorbachev did not approve any
   action and was seeking political solutions.

   As a result of continued violence, at least 14 civilians were killed
   and more than 600 injured from January 11th-13th, 1991 in Vilnius,
   Lithuania. The strong Western reaction and the actions of Russian
   democratic forces put the president and government of the Soviet Union
   into an awkward situation, as news of support for Lithuanians from
   Western democracies started to appear. Further problems surfaced in
   Riga, Latvia, on the 20th and 21st January, where OMON (special
   Ministry of the Interior) troops killed 4 people. Brown suggests that
   Gorbachev's response this time was better, condemning the rogue action,
   sending his condolences and suggesting that secession could take place
   if it went through the procedures outlined in the Soviet constitution.
   According to Gorbachev's aide, Shakhnazarov (quoted by Brown),
   Gorbachev was finally beginning to accept the inevitability of losing
   the Baltic States, although he would try all political means to
   preserve the Union. Brown believes that this put him in "imminent
   danger" of being overthrown by hard-liners against the secession.

   Gorbachev thus continued to draw up a new treaty of union which would
   have created a truly voluntary federation in an increasingly
   democratised Soviet Union. The new treaty was strongly supported by the
   Central Asian republics, who needed the economic power and markets of
   the Soviet Union to prosper. However, the more radical reformists, such
   as Russian SFSR President Boris Yeltsin, were increasingly convinced
   that a rapid transition to a market economy was required and were more
   than happy to contemplate the disintegration of the Soviet Union if
   that was required to achieve their aims. Nevertheless, a referendum on
   the future of the Soviet Union was held in March (with a referendum in
   Russia on the creation of a presidency), which returned an average of
   76.4% in the 9 republics where it was taken, with a turn-out of 80% of
   the adult population. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Armenia, Georgia and
   Moldova did not participate. Following this, an April meeting at
   Novo-Ogarevo between Gorbachev and the heads of the 9 republics issued
   a statement on speeding up the creation of a new Union treaty.
   Meanwhile, Boris Yeltsin was elected President of the Russian
   Federation by 57.3% of the vote (with a turnout of 74%).

The August 1991 Coup

   In contrast to the reformers' lukewarm approach to the new treaty, the
   hard-line apparatchiks, still strong within the CPSU and military
   establishment, were completely opposed to anything which might lead to
   the breakup of the Soviet motherland. On the eve of the treaty's
   signing, the hardliners struck.

   Hard-liners in the Soviet leadership, calling themselves the ' State
   Emergency Committee', launched the August Coup in 1991 in an attempt to
   remove Gorbachev from power and prevent the signing of the new union
   treaty. During this time, Gorbachev spent three days (August 19 to 21)
   under house arrest at a dacha in the Crimea before being freed and
   restored to power. However, upon his return, Gorbachev found that
   neither union nor Russian power structures heeded his commands as
   support had swung over to Yeltsin, whose defiance had led to the coup's
   collapse. Furthermore, Gorbachev was forced to fire large numbers of
   his Politburo and, in several cases, arrest them. Those arrested for
   high treason included the " Gang of Eight" that had led the coup,
   including Kryuchkov, Yazov and Yanayev. Pugo and Akhromeyev committed
   suicide. Most of these men had been former allies of Gorbachev's or
   promoted by him, which drew fresh criticism.

Aftermath of the Coup and the Final Collapse

   Between the last day of the coup and September 22nd, Estonia, Latvia,
   Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kirgizia, Uzbekistan,
   Tajikstan and Armenia declared their independence. Simultaneously,
   Boris Yeltsin ordered the CPSU to suspend its activities on the
   territory of Russia and closed the Central Committee building at
   Staraya Ploschad. Symbolically, the Russian flag now flew beside the
   Soviet flag at the Kremlin. In light of these circumstances, Gorbachev
   resigned as General Secretary of the CPSU on August 24th and advised
   the Central Committee to dissolve itself. Gorbachev's hopes of a new
   Union were further hit when the Congress of People's Deputies dissolved
   itself on September 5th. Though Gorbachev and the representatives of 8
   republics (excluding Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldavia, Ukraine and the
   Baltic States) signed an agreement on forming a new economic community
   on 18 October, events were overtaking Gorbachev.

   The final blow to Gorbachev's vision was effectively dealt by a
   Ukrainian referendum on December 1st, where the Ukrainian people voted
   for independence. The Presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus met in
   Belovezh Forest, near Minsk, Belarus, on December 8th, founding the
   Commonwealth of Independent States and declaring the end of the Soviet
   Union in the Belavezha Accords. Gorbachev was presented with a fait
   accompli and reluctantly agreed with Yeltsin, on December 17th, to
   dissolve the Soviet Union. Gorbachev resigned on Christmas Day and the
   Soviet Union ceased to exist on the 1st January 1992. Gorbachev
   suffered the indignity of Yeltsin taking over his office on December
   27th.

   Gorbachev had aimed to maintain the CPSU as a united party but move it
   in the direction of social democracy. The inherent contradictions in
   this approach - praising Lenin, admiring Sweden's social model and
   seeking to maintain the annexation of the Baltic states by military
   force - were difficult enough. But when the CPSU was proscribed after
   the August coup, Gorbachev was left with no effective power base beyond
   the armed forces. In the end Yeltsin won them around with promises of
   more money.

'New Thinking' Abroad

   In contrast to his controversial domestic reforms, Gorbachev was
   largely hailed in the West for his 'New Thinking' in foreign affairs.
   During his tenure, he sought to improve relations and trade with the
   West by reducing Cold War tensions. He established close relationships
   with several Western leaders, such as West German Chancellor Helmut
   Kohl, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher - who
   famously remarked: "I like Mr Gorbachev - we can do business together".

   Gorbachev understood the link between achieving international detente
   and domestic reform and thus began extending 'New Thinking' abroad
   immediately. On April 8, 1985, he announced the suspension of the
   deployment of SS-20s in Europe as a move towards resolving
   intermediate-range nuclear weapons (INF) issues. Later that year, in
   September, Gorbachev proposed that the Soviets and Americans both cut
   their nuclear arsenals in half. He went to France on his first trip
   abroad as Soviet leader in October. November saw the Geneva Summit
   between Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan - though no concrete agreement was
   made, Gorbachev and Reagan struck a personal relationship and decided
   to hold further meetings.
   Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Raisa Gorbachyova and Mikhail Gorbachev
   December 8, 1987, after the signing of the INF Treaty.
   Enlarge
   Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Raisa Gorbachyova and Mikhail Gorbachev
   December 8, 1987, after the signing of the INF Treaty.

   January 1986 would see Gorbachev make his boldest international move so
   far, when he announced his proposal for the elimination of
   intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe and his strategy for
   eliminating all nuclear weapons by the year 2000 (often referred to as
   the 'January Proposal'). He also began the process of withdrawing
   troops from Afghanistan and Mongolia on the 28th July. Nonetheless,
   many observers, such as Jack F. Matlock Jr. (despite generally praising
   Gorbachev as well as Reagan), have criticised Gorbachev for taking too
   long to achieve withdrawal from the Afghanistan War, citing it as an
   example of lingering elements of 'old thinking' in Gorbachev.

   On October 11, 1986, Gorbachev and Reagan met in Reykjavík, Iceland to
   discuss reducing intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe. To the
   immense surprise of both men's advisors, the two agreed in principle to
   removing INF systems from Europe and to equal global limits of 100 INF
   missile warheads. Incredibly, they also essentially agreed in principle
   to eliminate all nuclear weapons in 10 years (by 1996), instead of by
   the year 2000 as in Gorbachev's original outline. Continuing trust
   issues, particularly over reciprocity and Reagan's Strategic Defense
   Initiative (SDI), meant that the summit is often regarded as a failure
   for not producing a concrete agreement immediately, or for leading to a
   staged elimination of nuclear weapons. In the long term, nevertheless,
   this would culminate in the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear
   Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987, after Gorbachev had proposed this
   elimination on 22nd July 1987 (and it was subsequently agreed on in
   Geneva on the 24th November).

   In February 1988, Gorbachev announced the full withdrawal of Soviet
   forces from Afghanistan. The withdrawal was completed the following
   year, although the civil war continued as the Mujahedin pushed to
   overthrow the pro-Soviet Najibullah regime. An estimated 15,000 Soviets
   were killed between 1979 and 1989 as a result of the Afghanistan War.

   Also during 1988, Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union would
   abandon the Brezhnev Doctrine, and allow the Eastern bloc nations to
   determine their own internal affairs. Jokingly dubbed the " Sinatra
   Doctrine" by Gorbachev's Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov,
   this policy of non-intervention in the affairs of the other Warsaw Pact
   states proved to be the most momentous of Gorbachev's foreign policy
   reforms. Moscow's abrogation of the Brezhnev Doctrine led to a string
   of revolutions in Eastern Europe throughout 1989, in which Communism
   collapsed. With the exception of Romania, the popular upheavals against
   the pro-Soviet Communist regimes were all peaceful ones. (See
   Revolutions of 1989)

   It is unlikely that Gorbachev ever intended for the complete
   dismantling of Communism in the Warsaw Pact countries. Rather, it is
   far more probable that he intended merely to throw his support behind
   progressive Communists eager to implement perestroika and glasnost in
   their own countries. Nevertheless, the loosening of Soviet hegemony
   over Eastern Europe effectively ended the Cold War, and for this,
   Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 15, 1990.

Political activities after resignation

   Gorbachev founded the Gorbachev Foundation (
   http://www.gorby.ru/en/default.asp) in 1992. In 1993, he also founded
   Green Cross International, with which he was one of three major
   sponsors of the Earth Charter. He also became a member of the Club of
   Rome.

   1995 saw Gorbachev receive an Honorary Doctorate from Durham University
   for his contribution to "the cause of political tolerance and an end to
   cold war-style confrontation".

   In 1996, Gorbachev re-ran for President in Russia, but only received
   half of 1% of the vote, most likely due to animosity following the
   Soviet Union's collapse. While on a pre-election tour at that time he
   was given a punch in the face by an unknown man.

   In 1997, Gorbachev starred in a Pizza Hut commercial made for the USA
   to raise money for the Perestroika Archives.

   On November 26, 2001, Gorbachev also founded the Social Democratic
   Party of Russia—which is a union between several Russian social
   democrat parties. He resigned as party leader in May 2004 over a
   disagreement with the party's chairman over the direction taken in the
   December 2003 election campaign.

   In early 2004, Gorbachev moved to trademark his famous port wine
   birthmark, after a vodka company featured the mark on labels of one of
   their drinks to capitalize on its fame. The company now no longer uses
   the trademark.

   In June 2004, Gorbachev represented Russia at the funeral of Ronald
   Reagan.

   In September 2004, following Chechen militant attacks across Russia,
   President Vladimir Putin launched an initiative to replace the election
   of regional governors with a system whereby they would be directly
   appointed by the President and approved by regional legislatures.
   Gorbachev, together with Boris Yeltsin, criticized Putin's actions as a
   step away from democracy.

   In 2005, Gorbachev was awarded the Point Alpha Prize for his role in
   supporting German reunification. He also received an honorary Doctorate
   from the University of Münster.

   In November 2006, Gorbachev was admitted to a hospital in Germany after
   he reported that he was not feeling well. He had an operation on a
   blood vessel.

Trivia

     * In the West, Gorbachev was colloquially known as 'Gorby', in part
       because of a perception that he was less austere than his
       predecessors.
     * The ё letter is often replaced by е in writing, hence Gorbachev is
       a common English transliteration even though it's universally
       pronounced as Gorbachyov.
     * In 1987, Gorbachev acknowledged that his liberalizing policies of
       glasnost and perestroika owed a great deal to Alexander Dubček's
       "socialism with a human face". When asked what the difference was
       between the Prague Spring and his own reforms, Gorbachev replied,
       "Nineteen years".
     * In 1989, during an official visit to China during the
       demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, shortly before the imposition
       of martial law in Beijing, Gorbachev was asked for his opinion on
       the Great Wall of China: "It's a very beautiful work", he replied,
       "but there are already too many walls between people". A journalist
       asked him, "would you like the Berlin Wall to be taken down?"
       Gorbachev replied very seriously, "Why not?"
     * Lithuania reestablished its independence on 11 March 1990, on
       Gorbachev's 5th anniversary as General Secretary of the Communist
       Party.
     * Gorbachev was ranked #95 on Michael H. Hart's list of the most
       influential figures in history.
     * Gorbachev currently resides in Moscow.
     * On October 25, 2005, in an event organized by the Frank Foundation
       Child Assistance International (
       http://www.frankfoundationcai.org/en/), Gorbachev marked 20 Years
       of Perestroika. The event was held at the US Chamber of Commerce in
       Washington D.C. Among others, in attendance were President Clinton,
       Madeleine Albright, Ted Turner, Colin Powell, Shirley MaClaine,
       Nobel Laureate Betty Williams, former US Ambassador to Moscow Jack
       Matlock, and former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci.
     * Gorbachev has a cameo appearance in the video game series Street
       Fighter II and in Street Fighter Alpha 2. He can be seen in the
       ending of the Russian wrestler Zangief. In his ending in the Street
       Fighter II series, Zangief is congratulated by Mikhail Gorbachev
       and dances with him. He is referred to as erai hito (or "great
       man").
     * The Bad Religion song "Atomic Garden" Has a line in it that goes
       "and I'm glad I'm not Gorbachev cause..."
     * Famous Spanish pop group Locomia released a song called "Gorbachov"
       where they described him as a superstar for daring to change the
       Soviet Union.

Religious affiliation

   Gorbachev was baptized in the Russian Orthodox church as a child. He
   campaigned for establishment of freedom of religion laws in the former
   Soviet Union.

   Gorbachev has also expressed pantheistic views, saying, in an interview
   with the magazine Resurgence, "Nature is my god."

   At the end of a November 1996 interview on CSPAN's Booknotes, Gorbachev
   described his plans for future books. He made the following reference
   to God: "I don't know how many years God will be giving me, [or] what
   his plans are.".

Naevus flammeus

   Gorbachev is the most famous person in modern times with visible naevus
   flammeus. The crimson birthmark on the top of his bald head was the
   source of much satire among critics and cartoonists. (Among his
   official photos there was at least one on which this birthmark was
   removed.) Contrary to some accounts, it is not rosacea.
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