Who Was Mikhail Gorbachev?

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev Is a Russian and former Soviet politician.

The eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, he was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991.

Gorbachev was also the country’s head of state from 1988 until 1991, serving as the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990, and president of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991.

Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to the prevailing interpretation of Marxism–Leninism, although he had moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s.

Gorbachev was born in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, 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 according to the prevailing interpretation of Marxist–Leninist doctrine.

While studying at Moscow State University, he married fellow student Raisa Titarenko in 1953 prior to receiving his law degree in 1955.

Moving to Stavropol, he worked for the Komsomol youth organization and, after Stalin’s death, became a keen proponent of the de-Stalinization reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

He was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee in 1970, in which position he oversaw the construction of the Great Stavropol Canal.