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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev

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

In May 2004, Gorbachev presented Bee Gees singer Robin Gibb with a Lifetime Achievement Award. The next month, he attended the funeral of Ronald Reagan.

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

Baptized in the Russian Orthodox church as a child, Gorbachev is an atheist. Nevertheless, he maintains respect for the faiths of people of all religions, as evidenced by his leading role in the establishment of freedom of religion laws in the former Soviet Union.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev

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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (born March 2, 1931), was leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. His attempts at reform led to the end of the Cold War, but also inadvertently caused the end of the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Mikhail Gorbachev studied law at Moscow University, where he met his future wife, Raisa. They were married in September 1953 and moved to Mr. Gorbachev's home region of Stavropol in southern Russia when he graduated in 1955.

Mikhail Gorbachev joined the CPSU in 1952 at the age of 21. In 1966, at age 35, he graduated from the Agricultural Institute as an agronomist-economist. His career moved forward rapidly, and in 1970 he was appointed First Secretary for Agriculture and the following year made a member of the Central Committee. 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 elevated to the Politburo in 1979. 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 his death in 1984.
On October 11, 1986, Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan met in Reykjavik, Iceland, to discuss reducing intermediate nuclear missile arsenals in Europe. This led to the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 1987. In 1988, Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union would abandon the Brezhnev Doctrine, and allow the Eastern bloc nations to turn to democracy, if they wished. He jokingly called his new doctrine the Sinatra Doctrine.

Gorbachev's foreign policy reforms led to the string of revolutions in Eastern Europe throughout 1989 in which communism collapsed. With the exception of Romania, the democratic revolutions were all peaceful ones. The collapse of the pro-Soviet regimes in Eastern Europe coincided with the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. These events effectively ended the Cold War, and for this Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel peace prize on October 15, 1990.

Gorbachev was elected as the first executive president of the Soviet Union on March 15, 1990 but would later resign on December 25, 1991. Gorbachev is generally well regarded in the West for having ended the Cold War. However in Russia, his reputation is very low because it is perceived that he brought about the collapse of the country and is responsible for the misery that followed. Nevertheless polls indicate that a majority of Russians are pleased with the result of the individual aims of perestroika, Gorbachev's chief legislative legacy.

 

 

 

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