Better understand | Who is Mikhail Gorbachev?

The last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, died on August 30 at the age of 91. To better understand the politician, here are some explanations

The man

Mikhail Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931. He acceded to the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on March 11, 1985. However, in December 1984, Gorbachev imposed himself on the international scene by meeting Margaret Thatcher. He was elected Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on 1^er October 1988. Then he was appointed Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on May 25, 1989. Finally, he was elected President of the USSR on March 15, 1990, a position he held until December 25, 1991. The next day, the Russian Federation is proclaimed.

Perestroika and glasnost

In the mid-1980s, the perestroika is the program that was to restructure the social and economic policies of the Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev offered companies to self-finance. He also wanted to raise the USSR to the economic level of capitalist countries like Japan and the United States. The economic bureaucracy, however, opposed this reform, fearing to lose powers.

The glasnost is known as the politics of transparency. Established in the late 1980s, the glasnost began the democratization of the Soviet Union. This policy also allowed for criticism of government officials and allowed the media to report news more freely.

German reunification and fall of the USSR

Mikhail Gorbachev is the main actor who brought about a change on the European political scene. The change that marked the end of the Cold War. Non-Communist governments were elected in East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia (now two countries: the Czech Republic and Slovakia). In the summer of 1990 he approved German reunification. That year he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

He remains an unpopular political figure in Russia. His reforms were opposed by conservatives in his party and he was judged as a gravedigger of Soviet heritage.

the after

Mikhail Gorbachev remained active. He attempted a return to politics in 1996. However, this attempt proved unsuccessful. In the elections, he won less than 1% of the vote. In 2006, with ex-lawyer Alexandre Lebedev, he acquired the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Critic of the Kremlin, he however supported, in 2014, the annexation of Crimea to Russia.

With Britannica and Wikipedia