Mikhail Gorbachev

1985-1991  Leader of the Soviet Union.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of Soviet Union, started out as a great reformer, but the process went out of hand and resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Background
Born: 1931
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born in the village of Privolnoye in Stavropol. His grandfather had been arrested and tortured during Stalin’s Purges. His parents worked at the local kolkhoz, and young Mikhail also worked as a combine harvester operator.

Career
Mikhail Gorbachev married Raisa Titarenko in 1953. He received his law degree from Moscow University in 1955 and worked several years at the Prokuratura and Komsomol in the town of Stavropol.

He finished his second degree at the Stavropol Agricultural Institute and was appointed First Secretary of Stavropol.

There he was noticed by Yuri Andropov, on whom he made a very favorable impression, and made a member of the Central Committee in 1971. He then began a promising career in the party hierarchy as the Agriculture Secretary. In 1980, he became the youngest Politburo member, and by 1984 he was one of Konstantin Chernenko’s deputies.

First Secretary
When Chernenko died in March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected the new leader of the Soviet Union. He immediately began replacing old Politburo members with young reformists and started a large scale reform plan called Perestroika that drove the country to its collapse in 1991.

Later life
Mikhail Gorbachev received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.