Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, Gorbachev rarely follow more closely the Russian pronunciation, born March 2, 1931, is a statesman of Soviet and Russian who led the USSR between 1985 and 1991.
Strongly reformist, he engaged in outside towards the end of the Cold War and launched within the economic liberalization and cultural policy known by the names of perestroika and glasnost. Powerless to control the changes he himself had switched his resignation marked the end point of the implosion of the Soviet Union, preceded by two years by the collapse of democracies in Eastern Europe.
Biography
Born of parents kolkhoz Gorbachev Sergei Andreevich (1909-1976) and Maria born Panteleievna VOLODKO (1911-1993), he is originally from the North Caucasus (he was born in Stavropol Krai) and studied law at the University Lomonosov Moscow where he met his future wife, Raisa. He joined the Communist Party in 1952 and became its leader for the city of Stavropol in 1962. Between 1964 and 1967 he studied at the Stavropol Agricultural Institute and specializes in agricultural issues. It is noticed by Yuri Andropov, who was vacationing in the area, therefore accelerating his career: he was elected to the Central Committee in 1971 at age 40 and the Politburo in 1980 to 49 years.
The cause of his coming to power
In the late 1970s, the KGB led by Yuri Andropov, confidential, conducted an investigation to assess the Soviet GNP by Western and qualitative criteria not only in volume as was the Soviet tradition. The result was very poor and provided evidence of the decline of the Soviet Union which had seen its economy exceeded by those of Japan and West Germany, former enemies of the USSR. Moreover, from 1978, China led by Deng Xiaoping, began a revolution in economic restored because of the rules of capitalist and market economy in the Chinese economy, which will effectively give a considerable momentum.
The USSR and was facing a new geopolitical situation and worrying:
* Japan and West Germany had now each economy more powerful than his.
* China began an exceptional economic growth.
* The United States increasing the gap between the two countries.
No longer able to financially support a frenetic pace of the arms race, in a context of economic stagnation and declining oil prices, the USSR has no choice but to consider a relaxation disarmament.
His rise to power and the beginnings of perestroika
Aware of the danger, the aging leadership of the CPSU power in a representative of a new generation - Gorbachev 54 years - but trained and tested at the school party. Since December 1984, Gorbachev was able to make its debut on the international diplomatic scene, visiting Britain on a visit to Margaret Thatcher: the number two Soviet there was other distinguished leaders of Moscow, for its image of opening and announcing that the USSR was ready for a bilateral reduction of nuclear armaments.
Arrived as Secretary General of Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1985, Gorbachev tried to breathe new life to the economy of the USSR. He tries to save the system by structural reforms very high compared to conventional Leninist principles.
Gorbachev takes its inspiration from Aleksandr Yakovlev, former Ambassador to Canada, which made him aware of the collapse of the Soviet system in agriculture and, more generally, in its strategy of confrontation with the West. It gradually became the eminence grise and inspires him successively glasnost and perestroika, and finally German reunification.
His second NEP fails, meeting an opposition within the party. Gorbachev sets up a policy of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) from 1985 to renew the country.
Turning to foreign policy
Gorbachev proposes to open dialogue with Ronald Reagan. In 1985, Gorbachev proposed the "zero option", U.S. President Ronald Reagan, about nuclear weapons, the author of the slogan "America is back" reject this proposal. It introduces disarmament treaties caused the disruption of the balance of terror, installed since 1945. In 1986, Gorbachev proposed a plan to eliminate nuclear weapons by 2000. The same year he met U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Geneva. The "superpowers" agree to reduce 50% of their nuclear arsenals, even if the Americans refuse to abandon the IDS. In a New Year message, Bush sent a short message broadcast to the entire USSR, while President of the USSR did the same on U.S. television. The project attracted, each of the two presidents is very moderate in his message, the gorbymania begins to hit the United States. A survey will reveal itself, at a time that Gorbachev was more popular in the United States than Reagan himself. Time magazine awarded him the title of Man of the Year in 1987 and Man of the Decade in 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In February 1988, he decided to withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The decision became effective one year later.
In 1989 an official visit to China during the events of Tiananmen Square (before Punishment), we seek its opinion on the Wall of China: "Very fine work," he said, "but there are already too many walls between people. " A reporter asked: "Would you like us to remove the Berlin? Gorbachev replied very seriously, "Why not? . About demonstrators Democrats who disturb his stay, he said: "The USSR has its hotheads who want socialism change overnight. "
In 1990 he received the Nobel Prize for Peace for his contribution to the end of the Cold War. However, on 1 May of that year he was booed by some of his fellow citizens. Indeed it is very unpopular in the eyes of the faithful who see communism as the gravedigger of the Soviet regime.
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