Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 and was the second-to-last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, serving from 1985 until 1991, and the last head of state of the USSR, serving from 1988 until its collapse in 1991. He was the only Soviet leader to have been born after the October Revolution of 1917.
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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. Video hosted on Google. Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant family, and in his teens operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While in college, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and soon became very active within it. In 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Kraikom, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of Politburo in 1979. After the deaths, within three years, of Soviet Leaders Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko, Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by Politburo in 1985. Already before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level. Gorbachev's attempts at reform as well as summit conferences with United States President Ronald Reagan and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War, ended the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. In September 2008 Gorbachev and billionaire Alexander Lebedev announced they would form the Independent Democratic Party of Russia together, and in May 2009 Gorbachev announced that the launch was imminent. This is Gorbachev's third attempt to establish a political party of significance in Russian politics after having started the Social Democratic Party of Russia in 2001 and the Union of Social-Democrats in 2007.
Following his resignation and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev remained active in Russian politics. Especially during the early years of the post-Soviet era, he expressed criticism at the reforms carried out by Russian president Boris Yeltsin. When president Yeltsin called a referendum for 25 April 1993 in an attempt to achieve even greater powers as president, Gorbachev did not vote, and instead called for new presidential elections to happen soon.
Following a failed run for the presidency in 1996, Gorbachev established the Social Democratic Party of Russia, a union between several Russian social democratic 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. The party was later banned in 2007 by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation due to its failure to establish local offices with at least 500 members in the majority of Russian regions, which is required by Russian law for a political organisation to be listed as party. Later that year, Gorbachev founded a new political party, called the Union of Social-Democrats. In June 2004, Gorbachev represented Russia at the funeral of Ronald Reagan.
Gorbachev has also appeared in numerous media events since his resignation from office. In 1993, Gorbachev appeared as himself in the Wim Wenders film, Faraway, So Close!, the sequel to Wings of Desire. In 1997, Gorbachev appeared with his granddaughter Anastasia in an internationally-screened television commercial for Pizza Hut. The US corporation's fee for the 60-second ad went to his not-for-profit Gorbachev Foundation. In 2007, French luxury brand Louis Vuitton announced that Gorbachev would be shown in an ad campaign for their signature luggage.
On June 16, 2009, Gorbachev announced that he had recorded an album of old Russian romantic ballads entitled Songs for Raisa to raise money for a charity dedicated to his late wife. On the album, he sings the songs himself accompanied by Russian musician Andrei Makarevich.
Since his resignation, Gorbachev has remained involved in world affairs. He founded the Gorbachev Foundation in 1992, headquartered in San Francisco, California. He later 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 and the Club of Madrid.
In the decade that followed the Cold War, Gorbachev opposed both the U.S.-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the U.S.-led Iraq War in 2003. On 27 July 2007, Gorbachev criticised U.S. foreign policy: “What has followed are unilateral actions, what has followed are wars, what has followed is ignoring the U.N. Security Council, ignoring international law and ignoring the will of the people, even the American people,” he said. That same year, he visited New Orleans, Louisiana, a spot hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina, and promised to that he would return in 2011 to personally lead a local revolution if the U.S. government had not repaired the levees by that time. He said that revolutionary action should be a last resort.
Collapse of Soviet Union
While Gorbachev’s political initiatives were positive for freedom and democracy of the Soviet Union, the economic policy of his government brought the country close to disaster. By the end of 1980s, there were severe shortages of basic food supplies that led to a limited supply of food distributed to every citizen. Apart from it, the democratization of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had undermined the power of the CPSU and Gorbachev himself. Freedom of speech and the relaxation of censorship had re-awakened the nationalist anti-Russian feelings in the Soviet Union and led to the riots, named Jeltoqsan, in December 1986. Violence erupted at many places and amid all these election to the Congress of People’s Deputies took place in 1989. Apart from this violence, three major events took place in 1989. Estonia had declared independence in November, 1988, to be followed by Lithuania in May 1989 and by Latvia in July and finally Eastern Bloc collapsed in the autumn of 1989. 1990 began with the nationalist turmoil in January. The COSU began to loose even more power with Gorbachev’s deepened political reforms. The Congress of People’s Deputies amended the Soviet Constitution in March, removing the article 6, which guaranteed the monopoly of CPSU.
The August Coup and Final Collapse
Hardliners were opposed to anything, which might lead to the break up of Soviet Union, and launched the August Coup in 1991 in an attempt to remove Gorbachev from power and prevent the signing of the new union treaty. They called themselves the State Emergency Committee and were still string within the CPSU and military establishment. Gorbachev was house arrested in Crimea for 3 days (19, 20 and 21 August), before being freed and restored to power. Meanwhile things had changed and the support was shifted to Yestin, whose defiance had led to the coup’s collapse.
After his return to power, he was forced to fire a number of people, who were his former ally or promoted by him. Between 21 August and 22 September, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia and a number of other countries declared their independence and CPSU was ordered to suspend its activities on the territory of Russia. Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the CPSU on 24 August and advised the Central Committee to dissolve. Congress of People’s Deputies dissolved itself on 5 September. Gorbachev agreed with Yestin on 17 December, to dissolve the Soviet Union and resigned on 25 December. The Soviet Union was formally dissolved the next day.
Activities after Resignation
He remained active in Russian politics after his resignation and collapse of The Soviet Union. Following his failed run for the Presidency in1996, he founded the Social Democratic party of Russia and eventually resigned from the party after a dispute with the party’s chairman. Later Gorbachev founded a new party Union of Social-Democrats. In September 2008, Gorbachev has announced to make a come back to the Russian politics. In 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his leading role in the peace process.
From: Wikipedia.
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