Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachyov Михаил Горбачёв
Gorbachev in 1987
Born	2 March 1931 Privolnoye, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Died	30 August 2022 Moscow, Russian Federation
Nationality	Russian
Political orientation	Anti-communism Revisionism Social democracy

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who is known for organizing the overthrow of the Soviet Union. He supported the 1989 CIA-backed riots in Beijing and advocated for the overthrow of remaining socialist states in Asia and the rest of the world. Gorbachev lacked experience in the military, foreign affairs, industry, science, and trade unions and did not understand Marxism or Soviet history.

Early life

Gorbachev was born in the farming village of Privolnoye, south of Stavropol. German invaders killed seven of his relatives during the Great Patriotic War. He moved to Moscow in 1950 to study at Lomonosov State University and joined the CPSU in college. He returned to Stavropol after graduating and supported Alexander Dubček's revisionist policies in Czechoslovakia.

Political career

In 1970, Gorbachev became First Secretary of Stavropol Krai and was elected to the Supreme Soviet. He became a member of the Central Committee in 1971 and became its head of agriculture in 1978. In 1979, he became a member of the Politburo. He visited Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and West Germany in the 1970s during the peak of Eurocommunism.

General Secretary

Early leadership

Gorbachev became General Secretary in 1985 and initially followed Andropov's line, continuing the anti-alcohol campaign and encouraging new cadre. He increased support for Nicaragua and Afghanistan while trying to improve relations with the West. Within a year, he replaced half of all Politburo members and the leaders of five republics and promoted his supporters to Foreign Minister and Premier. Beginning in the fall of 1985, he reduced assistance to Afghanistan.

By the 27th congress of the CPSU in 1986, counterrevolutionaries controlled much of the party leadership. Gorbachev worked with other traitors including Alexander Yakovlev, Eduard Shevardnadze, and Boris Yeltsin to overthrow socialism. He ended Soviet nuclear tests and reduced strategic arms by 50% while receiving no concessions from the United States and reduced government planning of enterprises.

Gorbachev removed deputies from the Central Asian and Caucasian republics from the Politburo. In December 1986, he replaced Kazakh General Secretary Dinmukhamed Kunaev with Gennady Kolbin, an ethnic Russian, which caused nationalist riots in Kazakhstan.

Dismantling of socialism

In 1988, Gorbachev began dismantling central planning and abandoned international solidarity. He and Yakovlev sabotaged the media to air criticisms of Stalin and central planning and demonize their political opponents. Gorbachev replaced worker co-ops with crime-infested private enterprises. In March 1988, Nina Andreyeva published a letter condemning Gorbachev and his followers as well as Russian nationalists. Following the release of the letter, Gorbachev and Yakovlev stripped anti-revisionist Yegor Ligachyov of his authority and purged supporters of the letter from the Politburo.

At a party conference in June 1988, Gorbachev proposed a new form of government with an executive president and a Congress of People's Deputies replacing the Council of Ministers and Supreme Soviet. The proposal reduced the CPSU from a vanguard party to an electoral party in a parliamentary system. Against the wishes of the Afghan government and other Soviet allies, he withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan in early 1989 and allowed the Taliban to take over.

Later life

In 1996, Gorbachev ran for president of Russia but received less than 1% of the vote.

Political positions

Gorbachev promoted a policy of glasnost (openness), which resulted in communists being purged from the CPSU and mass media. He established market reforms called perestroika (restructuring), which diminished state support for the working class. He reduced assistance to less developed parts of the Soviet Union, increasing national conflict, and rejected the Leninist concept of the vanguard party.

In spite of Gorbachev's differences with Deng Xiaoping, who disagreed with his glasnost policy and generally pro-Western stance, Gorbachev was interested in resolving the Sino-Soviet split. The two leaders signed the Sino-Soviet Joint Communiqué on May 15th of 1989 in Beijing, which formally normalized relations between China and the Soviet Union.