Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich

I

Introduction

Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich (1931- ), leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1985 to 1991, the last leader of that country and the key figure in the liberalization and subsequent disintegration of Soviet and Eastern European Communism. Gorbachev set out to reinvigorate the Soviet system but inadvertently destroyed it. His policies aimed at relaxing tensions with the West, particularly the United States, made a crucial contribution to the end of the Cold War, which had divided the world since the late 1940s.

II

Early Years

Gorbachev was born to peasant parents in the village of Privolnoye, in the agrarian Stavropol Territory in south-western Russia. As a child he lived through many of the horrors of Soviet life under dictator Joseph Stalin: one third of the residents of Privolnoye perished during the famine of the early 1930s, caused by the rapid collectivization of Soviet agriculture; both of Gorbachev’s grandfathers were arrested arbitrarily and later released by Stalin’s secret police; and Gorbachev’s home region was occupied by the German army from 1942 to 1943, during World War II, then reoccupied by Soviet forces. Despite this, the young Gorbachev kept faith in the Soviet system. A model schoolboy, Gorbachev joined the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in 1946, and two years later he won a state medal for his work bringing in the grain harvest.

Gorbachev was admitted to law school at Moscow State University in 1950, partly because of his ability and hard work and partly because of his humble origins and his status as a probationary member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), a rarity for one so young. He became a full member of the party in 1952. In 1951 Gorbachev met Raisa Titarenko, a philosophy student from Siberia; the two were married in 1953. On graduating in 1955, the couple moved to Stavropol, the main city of Gorbachev’s native region, with all their possessions in a pair of suitcases. Their daughter Irina was born several years later.

III

Building a Career

Gorbachev began his political career in the Komsomol, the traditional training ground for Soviet party officials. In 1956 he became first secretary of the Komsomol organization for the city of Stavropol. In 1958 he accepted a position in the propaganda department of the Komsomol committee for Stavropol Territory. Thriving in the political environment, Gorbachev rose swiftly, becoming first secretary of the Komsomol regional committee by 1961. In 1962 he transferred into the Stavropol branch of the CPSU, specializing in the farm sector and winning the trust of the regional first secretary, Fyodor Kulakov. In 1966 Gorbachev was promoted to first secretary of the Stavropol city committee of the CPSU and in 1968 to second secretary of the party committee of Stavropol Territory.

In April 1970, having been recommended to CPSU general secretary Leonid Brezhnev by Kulakov (then a member of the Soviet leadership), Gorbachev became first secretary of the Stavropol Territory CPSU committee, the youngest regional first secretary in the Soviet Union. The following year he was granted a seat on the CPSU Central Committee. As party chief of Stavropol Territory, Gorbachev experimented with techniques for encouraging agricultural workers and farm managers to improve productivity. He worked to improve the living conditions of workers in the region and to allow farming collectives to play a greater role in planning.

Gorbachev owed his political advancement to his vigorous performance in office and also to personal connections. In addition to Fyodor Kulakov, Gorbachev enjoyed the confidence of Mikhail Suslov, who served as senior secretary for ideology of the CPSU, and of Yuri Andropov, the chairman of the KGB, the Soviet secret police. Suslov had served as first secretary of the Stavropol Territory committee of the CPSU in the 1940s; Andropov was a native of the area and often took holidays there.

In November 1978, shortly after Kulakov’s death, Gorbachev moved to Moscow to succeed Kulakov as Central Committee secretary responsible for Soviet agriculture. In 1979 he also became a candidate (non-voting) member of the CPSU’s Politburo, its top policy-making body. In October 1980, at the age of 49, Gorbachev was made a full member of the Politburo, thus becoming the youngest member of the Communist Party’s inner circle.

IV

Soviet Leader

Gorbachev climbed to the top of the Communist hierarchy in an atmosphere of political intrigue and growing anxiety among the Soviet elite, who were concerned that the country’s economic and other problems were becoming more grave. Brezhnev, who died in November 1982, was briefly succeeded by Yuri Andropov and then by Konstantin Chernenko. Andropov, the more dynamic of the two, made Gorbachev his second-in-command, and Gorbachev took on an increasingly active role within the Politburo. Although Andropov saw Gorbachev as his heir apparent, the Soviet leader was unable to move Chernenko out of the line of succession before his health gave out in February 1984. Chernenko replaced Andropov as Soviet leader, but he too died little more than one year after taking office. Following Chernenko’s death, Gorbachev quickly won the endorsement of the Politburo and Central Committee and was appointed general secretary of the CPSU—and thus the new leader of the Soviet Union—on March 11, 1985.