Mikhail Gorbachev played a key role in ending the Soviet Union’s post-World War II domination of eastern Europe. Shortly thereafter Gorbachev restructured the Soviet government to include a bicameral parliament. Perestroika was an attempt to modernise and ‘rebuild’ the Soviet state. This effectively undermined all attempts by Gorbachev to establish a Union of Sovereign Socialist Republics. Capital investment was to improve the technological basis of the Soviet economy as well as promote certain structural economic changes. Limited force was used in Georgia, Azerbaijan, and the Baltic states to quell nationality problems, though Gorbachev was never prepared to use systematic force in order to reestablish the centre’s control. After two years, however, Gorbachev came to the conclusion that deeper structural changes were necessary. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. General secretary of the CPSU: perestroika to the fall of the Soviet Union, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mikhail-Gorbachev, Academy of Achievement - Biography of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Spartacus Educational - Biography of Mikhail Gorbachev, Age of the Sage - Transmitting the Wisdoms of the Ages - Biography of Mikhail Gorbachev, The Cold War Museum - Biography of Mikhail Gorbachev, RT Russiapedia - Biography of Mikhail Gorbachev, Mikhail Gorbachev - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Mikhail Gorbachev - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). The Congress elected a new Supreme Soviet, and Gorbachev, who had opted for an executive presidency modeled on the U.S. and French systems, became the Soviet president, with broad powers. Events outpaced him, however, and the Russian government under Yeltsin readily assumed the functions of the collapsing Soviet government as the various republics agreed to form a new commonwealth under Yeltsin’s leadership. Chernenko died on March 10, 1985, and the following day the Politburo elected Gorbachev general secretary of the CPSU. Mikhail Gorbachev, in full Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, (born March 2, 1931, Privolye, Stavropol kray, Russia, U.S.S.R.), Soviet official, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1985 to 1991 and president of the Soviet Union in 1990–91. Gorbachev also did not trust Reagan's promise to share the technology with the Soviet Union once it was developed. Accordingly, under changes made to the constitution in December 1988, a new bicameral parliament called the U.S.S.R. Congress of People’s Deputies was created, with some of its members directly elected by the people in contested (i.e., multicandidate) elections. He demanded the reinstatement of Gorbachev as U.S.S.R. president, but, when Gorbachev returned from house arrest in Crimea, Yeltsin set out to demonstrate that he was the stronger leader. This had been a goal of Russian leaders since Peter the Great unleashed the first great wave of modernization and Westernization. His goal was quite plain: to bring the Soviet Union up to par economically with the West. The new leaders, headed by former vice-president Gennady Yanayev have declared a state of emergency. When Brezhnev died in 1982, most elite groups understood that the Soviet economy was in trouble. At that time, Boris Yeltsin was president of Russia. Gorbachev was the single most important initiator of a series of events in late 1989 and 1990 that transformed the political fabric of Europe and marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War. The coup was carried out by hard-line Communist Party, KGB, and military officials attempting to avert a new liberalized union treaty and return to the old-line party values. This meant that all the republics, including first and foremost Russia, could have a similar type of presidency. He owed a great deal of his steady rise in the party to the patronage of Mikhail Suslov, the leading party ideologue. He proved less willing to release the Soviet economy from the grip of centralized state direction, however. In this important book, Judy Shelton, one of America's leading experts on the Soviet economy, demonstrates that rampant inflation and a huge budget deficit, theoretically impossible under Marxism, have ravaged the Soviet economy and are forcing Mikhail Gorbachev into a … As democratically elected, noncommunist governments came to power in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia in late 1989–90, Gorbachev agreed to the phased withdrawal of Soviet troops from those countries. Gorbachev served as the last general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1985–91) as well as the last president of the Soviet Union (1990–91). Under his new policy of glasnost (“openness”), a major cultural thaw took place: freedoms of expression and of information were significantly expanded; the press and broadcasting were allowed unprecedented candour in their reportage and criticism; and the country’s legacy of Stalinist totalitarian rule was eventually completely repudiated by the government. In 1989 the newly elected Congress of People’s Deputies elected from its ranks a new U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet that, in contrast to its predecessor of that name, was a real standing parliament with substantial legislative powers. Born in the agricultural region of Stavropol, Gorbachev studied law at Moscow State Univ., where in 1953 he married a philosophy student, Raisa Maksimovna Titorenko (1932?–99). Gorbachev’s policies ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990–91. Smith, Hedrick. His primary domestic goal was to resuscitate the stagnant Soviet economy after its years of drift and low growth during Leonid Brezhnev’s tenure in power (1964–82). This time is no different: Mikhail Gorbachev — yes, that Gorbachev, a.k.a. Even in his dotage, stooped and tissue-skinned and walker-dependent, the former (and final) Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev is an imposing, even … When he took office, Yegor Ligachev was made head of the party’s Central Committee Secretariat, one of the two main centres of power (with the Politburo) in the Soviet Union. Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. Mikhail Gorbachev was a Soviet politician. He proved a promising Komsomol member, and in 1952 he entered the law school of Moscow State University and became a member of the Communist Party. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. At the June 1987 plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Gorbachev presented his "basic theses", which laid the political foundation of economic reform for the remainder of the existence of the Soviet Union. New York: Random House, 1990. In October 1988 General Secretary Gorbachev was elected to the chairmanship of the presidium of the national legislature (the Supreme Soviet). On the other hand, Gorbachev’s policies deprived the Soviet Union of ideological enemies, which in turn weakened the hold of Soviet ideology over the people. This responsibility was to pass to the local soviets. After the August Coup of 1991, Gorbachev understood that influence and support had shifted to Boris Yeltsin. In July 1987, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union passed the Law on State Enterprise. Glasnost also allowed the media more freedom of expression, and editorials complaining of depressed conditions and of the government’s inability to correct them began to appear. But, in part because his economic reforms were being obstructed by the Communist Party, Gorbachev tried to restructure the government’s legislative and executive branches in order to release them from the grip of the CPSU. He became a constitutional dictator—but only on paper. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan at the Geneva Summit 1985. Gorbachev was the son of Russian peasants in Stavropol territory (kray) in southwestern Russia. In addition, he believed that the path to economic and social recovery required the inclusion of people in the political process. It seems that initially even Gorbachev believed that the basic economic structure of the U.S.S.R. was sound and therefore only minor reforms were needed. Yeltsin for the first time had a national platform. Please select which sections you would like to print: Corrections? It was replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a free association of sovereign states founded by the elected leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus (Belorussia). Gorbachev’s bid for the presidency was unsuccessful: he earned less than 1 percent of the vote. Yeltsin came into conflict with the more conservative members of the Politburo and was eventually removed from the Moscow post in late 1987. Strongly believing that the Soviet Union needed massive liberalization in order to revitalize both the Soviet economy and society, Gorbachev immediately began implementing reforms. As the U.S.S.R.’s economic problems became more serious (e.g., rationing was introduced for some basic food products for the first time since Stalin) and calls for faster political reforms and decentralization began to increase, the nationality problem became acute for Gorbachev. Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich mēkhəyēl´ sĭrgā´yəvich gərbəchof´ [ key], 1931–, Soviet political leader. Agreeing with Cohen's assessment of the conservative character of the Soviet population is Benn, David Wedgewood, “ Gorbachev's Progress II: Confronting the Conservatives, ” The World Today 44 (June 1988): 94 – 95 Google Scholar. Mr Gorbachev famously stated: “The most puzzling development in modern politics is the apparent determination of western European leaders to re-create the Soviet Union in western Europe.” He used his newfound legitimacy to promote Russian sovereignty, to advocate and adopt radical economic reform, to demand Gorbachev’s resignation, and to negotiate treaties with the Baltic republics, in which he acknowledged their right to independence. The Congress elected a new Supreme Soviet, and Gorbachev, who had opted for an executive presidency modeled on the U.S. and French systems, became the Soviet president, with broad powers. Gorbachev, however, never succeeded in making the jump from the command economy to even a mixed economy. The consequences of this form of a semi-mixed economy with the contradictions of the reforms themselves brought economic chaos to the country and great unpopularity to Gorbachev. In 1979–80 Gorbachev joined its supreme policy-making body (the Politburo), and in 1985 he was elected general secretary of the CPSU. When the Congress of People’s Deputies elected the Supreme Soviet as a standing parliament, Yeltsin was not chosen, since the Congress had an overwhelmingly Communist majority. Due to senility, Brezhnev had not been in effective control of the country during his last few years, and Kosygin had died in 1980. There were increasing complaints that the “Soviets” had destroyed the Russian environment and had impoverished Russia in order to maintain their empire and subsidize the poorer republics. The CIS began operations in early 1992. His team was more heavily Russian than that of his predecessors. Gorbachev understood that the defense burden, perhaps equivalent to 25 percent of the gross national product, was crippling the country. They were, and they chose Yeltsin. However, a Siberian deputy stepped down in his favour. In the later Gorbachev years, the opinion that the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and establishment of the U.S.S.R. were mistakes that had prevented Russia from continuing along the historical path traveled by the countries of western Europe and had made Russia more economically backward vis-à-vis the West gained greater acceptance. He believed that the opening up of the political system—essentially, democratizing it—was the only way to overcome inertia in the political and bureaucratic apparatus, which had a big interest in maintaining the status quo. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Dissatisfaction with the Yeltsin administration prompted Gorbachev to run for president of Russia in 1996. He was elected general secretary in 1985. The most significant anti-coup role was played by Yeltsin, who brilliantly grasped the opportunity to promote himself and Russia. The Russian government under Yeltsin assumed many of the responsibilities of the former Soviet Union. Gorbachev quickly set about consolidating his personal power in the Soviet leadership. The Russian parliament passed radical reforms that would introduce a market economy, and Yeltsin also cut funding to a large number of Soviet agencies based on Russian soil. The intimate, poetic and revealing documentary explores the world of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union. Upon his accession, he was still the youngest member of the Politburo. When Gorbachev became head of the Communist Party in 1985, he launched perestroika (“restructuring”). In March 1991, when Gorbachev launched an all-union referendum about the future Soviet federation, Russia and several other republics added some supplementary questions. (From left to right) Nancy and Ronald Reagan and Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev on the Reagans' ranch near Santa Barbara, Calif., 1992. By the summer of 1988, however, Gorbachev had become strong enough to emasculate the Central Committee Secretariat and take the party out of the day-to-day running of the economy. The new body superseded the Supreme Soviet as the highest organ of state power. Clearly, Yeltsin wished to rid Russia of the encumbrance of the Soviet Union and to seek the disbandment of that body. In 1988–89 he oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan after their nine-year occupation of that country. Soviet television has since been broadcasting regular condemnations of Mr Gorbachev's policies. Gorbachev launched glasnost (“openness”) as the second vital plank of his reform efforts. Mikhaïl Sergueïevitch Gorbatchev ou Gorbatchov1 (en russe : Михаил Сергеевич Горбачёв, [mʲɪxɐˈil sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvʲɪtɕ ɡərbɐˈtɕɵf]2 Écouter), né le 2 mars 1931 à Privolnoïe (ru) dans l'actuel kraï de Stavropol, est un homme d'État soviétique et russe qui dirigea l'URSS entre 1985 et 1991. Over the course of Yury Andropov’s 15-month tenure (1982–84) as general secretary of the Communist Party, Gorbachev became one of the Politburo’s most highly active and visible members; and, after Andropov died and Konstantin Chernenko became general secretary in February 1984, Gorbachev became a likely successor to the latter. One of the Russian questions was whether the voters were in favour of a directly elected president. Omissions? In 1985 Gorbachev brought Boris Yeltsin to Moscow to run that city’s party machine. Reagan insisted the SDI initiative should not be considered a space weapon, but merely a defensive technology. “Dallas” was a hit show on CBS that started in the late 1970s, and was one of the most successful television series ever made. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. In foreign affairs, Gorbachev from the beginning cultivated warmer relations and trade with the developed nations of both West and East. (Perceptive journalistic account.) Well, it turns out it might have been successful at a lot more things than just entertaining American audiences! Mikhail Gorbachev, in full Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, (born March 2, 1931, Privolye, Stavropol kray, Russia, U.S.S.R.), Soviet official, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1985 to 1991 and president of the Soviet Union in 1990–91. In part because he ended the Soviet Union’s postwar domination of eastern Europe, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1990. Andropov believed that the economic stagnation could be remedied by greater worker discipline and by cracking down on corruption. Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. His policies were simply not put into practice. In March of that year the Congress of People’s Deputies elected him to the newly created post of president of the U.S.S.R., with extensive executive powers. Gorbachev initiated his new policy of perestroika(literally 'restructuring') and its attendant radical reforms in 1986; they were sketched, but not fully spelled out, at the XXVIIth Party Congress in February–March 1986. That same day, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. He became a candidate member of the Politburo in 1979 and a full member in 1980. When these superficial changes failed to yield tangible results, Gorbachev in 1987–88 proceeded to initiate deeper reforms of the Soviet economic and political system. Mikhail Gorbachev resigned the presidency of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991. Gorbachev was also the first general secretary of the Communist Party not to have served in the armed forces during World War II. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). In 1989 the parliament elected from its ranks a new Supreme Soviet and made Gorbachev its chairman. In the face of a collapsing economy, rising public frustration, and the continued shift of power to the constituent republics, Gorbachev wavered in direction, allying himself with party conservatives and the security organs in late 1990. Nobody knows that burden like Mikhail Gorbachev, the final leader of the Soviet Union. With Yuri Andropov, James Baker, Leonid Brezhnev, Konstantin Chernenko. Russia systematically laid claim to most Soviet property on its territory. He thus pursued an economic policy that aimed to increase economic growth while increasing capital investment. He did not regard the structure of the Soviet economic system itself to be a cause of the country’s growing economic problems. An ill-conceived, ill-planned, and poorly executed coup attempt occurred August 19–21, 1991, bringing an end to the Communist Party and accelerating the movement to disband the Soviet Union. He returned to public life as an elected deputy from Moscow to the Congress of People’s Deputies in 1989. 1983 Textile and Light Industry Workers' Union. Russians began to view the Soviet system as one that worked for its own political and economic interests at Russia’s expense. Mikhail Gorbachev and the End of Soviet Power London: Macmillan, 1993. Both as general secretary and as president, Gorbachev supported democratic reforms. Yeltsin’s politics reflected the rise of Russian nationalism. Gorbachev was conspicuously successful in dismantling the totalitarian aspects of the Soviet state and in moving his country along the path toward true representative democracy. From a strictly legal point of view, this should have been done by court order, not by presidential decree. The new policy of "reconstruction" was introduced in an attempt to overcome the economic stagn… Gorbachev realised military spending had to be reduced and this meant ending the arms race with the USA. Yeltsin appeared to be willing to go along with this vision but, in reality, wanted Russia to dominate the new union and replace the formal leading role of the Soviet Union. Good pages, light soiling on top edge. Consequently, Yeltsin and his supporters demanded Russian control over Russia and its resources. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. His changes in foreign policy led to the democratization of eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War. Former Soviet Union leader Michael Gorbachev has said he hopes President-Elect Joe Biden's victory in last week's U.S. election will lead to better Washington, D.C.-Moscow ties, though has … Ronald Reagan (left) and Mikhail Gorbachev in Red Square, Moscow, 1988. Mikhail Gorbachev (left), general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with Erich Honecker, first secretary of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party of Germany, 1986. Gorbachev also moved quickly to shift fundamental political powers to the Soviet Union’s constituent republics. In 1988 Gorbachev became Soviet president and chief of state. Ligachev subsequently became one of Gorbachev’s opponents, making it difficult for Gorbachev to use the party apparatus to implement his views on perestroika. The reign of Peter I (the Great; 1689–1725), The reign of Catherine II (the Great; 1762–96), Government administration under Catherine, Education and social change in the 18th century, The Civil War and War Communism (1918–21), The Gorbachev era: perestroika and glasnost, Ethnic relations and Russia’s “near-abroad”, Consolidation of power, Syria, and campaign against the West. Mansky has known Gorbachev for more than 20 years. Under perestroika, some limited free-market mechanisms also began to be introduced into the Soviet economy, but even these modest economic reforms encountered serious resistance from party and government bureaucrats who were unwilling to relinquish their control over the nation’s economic life. Mikhail Gorbachev (centre) in East Berlin, 1986. Gorbachev’s radical economists, headed by Grigory A. Yavlinsky, counseled him that Western-style success required a true market economy. Moreover, Gorbachev radically changed Soviet political life when he removed the constitutional article according to which the only legal political organization was the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. To this end, he called for rapid technological modernization and increased worker productivity, and he tried to make the cumbersome Soviet bureaucracy more efficient and responsive. Gorbachev has appeared in Lous Vuitton print advertisements. In December 1987 he signed an agreement with U.S. President Ronald Reagan for their two countries to destroy all existing stocks of intermediate-range nuclear-tipped missiles. He traveled abroad extensively and was brilliantly successful in convincing foreigners that the U.S.S.R. was no longer an international threat. As the economic and political situation began to deteriorate, Gorbachev concentrated his energies on increasing his authority (that is to say, his ability to make decisions). Soviet attempts to discourage Baltic independence led to a bloody confrontation in Vilnius in January 1991, after which Yeltsin called upon Russian troops to disobey orders that would have them shoot unarmed civilians. Gorbachev worked with U.S. President Ronald Reagan to lessen the political and military tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. In response, Gorbachev used military force to suppress bloody interethnic strife in several of the Central Asian republics in 1989–90, while constitutional mechanisms were devised that could provide for the lawful secession of a republic from the U.S.S.R. With the CPSU waning in power and steadily losing prestige in the face of the mounting impetus for democratic political procedures, Gorbachev in 1990 further accelerated the transfer of power from the party to elected governmental institutions. 1984 The City Where We Live: the Soviet State and Trade Unions. In May 1989 Gorbachev was elected chairman of this Supreme Soviet and thereby retained the national presidency. He joined the Komsomol (Young Communist League) in 1946 and drove a combine harvester at a state farm in Stavropol for the next four years. Directed by Werner Herzog, André Singer. The life of Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and final President of the Soviet Union in chronological order. Updates? On This Day: Gorbachev removed in coup On Aug. 19, 1991, a coup orchestrated by hard-line Communists removed Mikhail Gorbachev as president of the Soviet Union. Throughout 1989 he had seized every opportunity to voice his support for reformist communists in the Soviet-bloc countries of eastern Europe, and, when communist regimes in those countries collapsed like dominoes late that year, Gorbachev tacitly acquiesced in their fall. Mikhail Gorbachev (right) meeting with Ronald Reagan at the White House, Washington, D.C., 1987. Dallas, with its portrayals of Western wealth, success and power; may have played a role in the collapse of the Soviet Union, former leader Mikhail Gorbachev believes. 1987 Gorbachev: October and Perestroika. Gorbachev won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children in 2004, along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton.