Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (1931–2022) served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from March 1985 and as the first (and only) President of the USSR from March 1990 until his resignation on 25 December 1991. He came to power after the deaths of Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko, inheriting a stagnant economy, a costly war in Afghanistan, and rising arms-race expenditures.
His domestic program had two pillars:
- Perestroika ("restructuring") — partial liberalization of the planned economy, allowing limited private cooperatives and enterprise autonomy.
- Glasnost ("openness") — relaxation of censorship, greater press freedom, and acknowledgement of past Soviet abuses, including a 1990 admission of Soviet responsibility for the Katyn massacre.
In foreign policy, Gorbachev pursued détente with the West. He met U.S. President Ronald Reagan at summits in Geneva (1985), Reykjavík (1986), Washington (1987) and Moscow (1988), producing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed in December 1987. He completed the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989 and declined to use force to preserve communist governments in Eastern Europe during the 1989 revolutions — a posture sometimes called the "Sinatra Doctrine." He signed the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) in 1990 and START I in July 1991.
Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. However, his reforms unleashed forces he could not control: nationalist movements in the Baltic states, economic contraction, and a failed August 1991 coup by hardliners. After Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus signed the Belovezha Accords in December 1991, the USSR was formally dissolved and Gorbachev resigned, transferring authority to Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
He is remembered abroad largely as a peacemaker and within Russia more ambivalently, often blamed for the loss of superpower status.
Example
In December 1987, Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the INF Treaty in Washington, eliminating an entire class of ground-launched nuclear missiles.
Frequently asked questions
No. He sought to reform and preserve a renewed federal union, proposing a New Union Treaty in 1991, but the August coup attempt and subsequent Belovezha Accords made dissolution unavoidable.
Keep learning