Mikhail Gorbachev - wikipedia Mikhail Gorbachev `` Gorbachev '' redirects here. For other people with the surname, see Gorbachev ( surname ). This name uses Eastern Slavic naming customs ; the patronymic is Sergeyevich and the family name is Gorbachev. Mikhail Gorbachev Михаил Горбачёв President of the Soviet Union In office 15 March 1990 -- 25 December 1991 Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov Valentin Pavlov Ivan Silayev Vice President Gennady Yanayev Preceded by Himself as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union Succeeded by Office abolished General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union In office 10 March 1985 -- 24 August 1991 Deputy Vladimir Ivashko Preceded by Konstantin Chernenko Succeeded by Vladimir Ivashko ( acting ) Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union In office 25 May 1989 -- 15 March 1990 Deputy Anatoly Lukyanov Preceded by Himself as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Succeeded by Himself as President of the Soviet Union Anatoly Lukyanov as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union In office 1 October 1988 -- 25 May 1989 Preceded by Andrei Gromyko Succeeded by Himself as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Acting In office 9 February 1984 -- 10 March 1985 Preceded by Konstantin Chernenko Succeeded by Yegor Ligachev Personal details Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev ( 1931 - 03 - 02 ) 2 March 1931 ( age 87 ) Privolnoye, North Caucasus Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union Nationality Soviet ( 1931 -- 1991 ) Russian ( since 1991 ) Political party Independent ( 1991 -- 2001 ; 2004 -- 2007 ; 2014 -- present ) Other political affiliations Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( 1950 -- 1991 ) Social Democratic Party of Russia ( 2001 -- 2004 ) Union of Social Democrats ( 2007 -- 2014 ) Spouse ( s ) Raisa Gorbachova ( m. 1953 ; d. 1999 ) Children One Alma mater Moscow State University Signature Website Official website Central institution membership 1980 -- 1991 : Full member, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th Politburo 1979 -- 1980 : Candidate member, 25th Politburo 1978 -- 1991 : Member, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th Secretariat 1971 -- 1991 : Full member, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th Central Committee Other offices held 2001 -- 2004 : Chairman, Social Democratic Party of Russia 1985 -- 1991 : Chairman, Defense Council 1970 -- 1978 : First Secretary, Stavropol Regional Committee Leader of the Soviet Union ← Chernenko Last leader Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev ( born 2 March 1931 ) is a Russian and formerly Soviet politician. He was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. He was the country 's head of state from 1988 until 1991 ( titled as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990, and as President of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991 ). Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai in 1931 into a peasant Ukrainian -- Russian family, and in his teens, operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While he was at the university, he joined the Communist Party, and soon became very active within it. In 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a candidate member of the Politburo in 1979. Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief `` interregna '' of Andropov and Chernenko, Gorbachev was elected general secretary by the Politburo in 1985. Before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in Western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level. Gorbachev 's policies of glasnost ( `` openness '' ) and perestroika ( `` restructuring '' ) and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War. Under this program, the role of the Communist Party in governing the state was removed from the constitution, which inadvertently led to crisis - level political instability with a surge of regional nationalist and anti-communist activism culminating in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev later expressed regret for his failure to save the Soviet state, though he has insisted that his policies were not failures but rather were vitally necessary reforms, which were sabotaged and exploited by opportunists. He was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 1989, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, and the Harvey Prize in 1992, as well as honorary doctorates from various universities. Contents 1 Early life 2 Rise in the Communist Party 3 General Secretary of the CPSU 3.1 Domestic reforms 3.1. 1 Perestroika 3.1. 2 Glasnost 3.2 Presidency of the Soviet Union 3.2. 1 Foreign engagements 3.2. 1.1 Bold arms control proposal 3.2. 1.2 Withdrawal from Afghanistan 3.2. 1.3 Relinquishing control of East Block 3.2. 2 Dissolution of the Soviet Union 3.2. 2.1 Crisis of the Union : 1990 -- 1991 3.2. 2.2 Coup of August 1991 3.2. 2.3 Final collapse 4 Post-presidency 4.1 Criticism of Vladimir Putin 4.2 Call for global restructuring 5 Honours and accolades 5.1 Soviet Union and Russia decorations 5.2 Foreign decorations and awards 6 Personal life 6.1 Attitude to religion 6.2 Port - wine birthmark 7 Works 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links Early life Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, into a mixed Russian - Ukrainian family of migrants from Voronezh and Chernigov Governorates. As a child, Gorbachev experienced the Soviet famine of 1932 -- 1933. He recalled in a memoir that `` In that terrible year ( in 1933 ) nearly half the population of my native village, Privolnoye, starved to death, including two sisters and one brother of my father. '' Both of his grandfathers were arrested on false charges in the 1930s ; his paternal grandfather Andrey Moiseyevich Gorbachev ( Андрей Моисеевич Горбачёв ) was sent to exile in Siberia. Gorbachev and his Ukrainian maternal grandparents, late 1930s His father, Sergey Andreyevich Gorbachev, was a combine harvester operator and Red Army veteran. According to Gorbachev, during World War II his father `` defended Kursk, forded the Dnieper knee - deep in blood and was wounded in Czechoslovakia. '' His mother, Maria Panteleyevna Gorbacheva ( née Gopkalo ), was a kolkhoz worker. He was brought up mainly by his Ukrainian maternal grandparents. In his teens, he became a leader in the Komsomol, a Communist youth organization. He operated combine harvesters on collective farms and won the Red Labor Banner in 1949 for helping his father break harvesting records. He entered Moscow State University in 1950 and graduated in 1955 with a degree in law. While at the university, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( CPSU ) and soon became very active within the party. He also became close friends with Zdeněk Mlynář, who would become the primary ideologist of the Prague Spring in 1968. The two men influenced each other as they became disillusioned with Stalinism. In 1967 he qualified as an agricultural economist via a correspondence master 's degree at the Stavropol Institute of Agriculture. Gorbachev met his future wife, Raisa Titarenko, daughter of a Ukrainian railway engineer, at Moscow State University. They married on 25 September 1953 and moved to Stavropol upon graduation. She gave birth to their only child, daughter Irina Mikhailovna Virganskaya ( Ири́на Миха́йловна Вирга́нская ), in 1957. Raisa Gorbacheva died of leukemia in 1999. Gorbachev has two granddaughters ( Ksenia and Anastasia ) and one great granddaughter ( Aleksandra ). Rise in the Communist Party Gorbachev attended the important twenty - second Party Congress in October 1961, where Nikita Khrushchev announced a plan to surpass the U.S. in per capita production within twenty years. Gorbachev rose in the Communist League hierarchy and worked his way up through territorial leagues of the party. He was promoted to Head of the Department of Party Organs in the Stavropol Regional Committee in 1963. In 1970, he was appointed First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, a body of the CPSU, becoming one of the youngest provincial party chiefs in the nation. In this position he helped reorganise the collective farms, improve workers ' living conditions, expand the size of their private plots, and gave them a greater voice in planning. Mikhail Gorbachev 's voice recorded November 2012 Problems playing this file ? See media help. He was made a member of the Communist Party Central Committee in 1971. Three years later, in 1974, he was made a Deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and Chairman of the Standing Commission on Youth Affairs. He was subsequently appointed to the Central Committee 's Secretariat for Agriculture in 1978, replacing Fyodor Kulakov after he died of a heart attack. In 1979, Gorbachev was elected a candidate ( non-voting ) member of the Politburo, the highest authority in the country, and received full membership in 1980. Gorbachev owed his steady rise to power to the patronage of Mikhail Suslov, the powerful chief ideologist of the CPSU. During Yuri Andropov 's tenure as general secretary ( 1982 -- 1984 ), Gorbachev became one of the Politburo 's most visible and active members. With responsibility over personnel, working together with Andropov, 20 percent of the top echelon of government ministers and regional governors were replaced, often with younger men. During this time Grigory Romanov, Nikolai Ryzhkov, and Yegor Ligachev were elevated, the latter two working closely with Gorbachev, Ryzhkov on economics, Ligachev on personnel. Gorbachev 's positions within the CPSU created more opportunities to travel abroad, and this would profoundly affect his political and social views in the future as leader of the country. In 1972, he headed a Soviet delegation to Belgium, and three years later he led a delegation to West Germany ; in 1983 he headed a delegation to Canada to meet with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and members of the Commons and Senate. In 1984, he travelled to the United Kingdom, where he met British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Andropov died in 1984, and indicated that he wanted Gorbachev to succeed him as general secretary. Instead, the aged Konstantin Chernenko took power, even though he himself was terminally ill. After Chernenko 's death the following year, it became clear to the party hierarchy that younger leadership was needed. Gorbachev was elected general secretary by the Politburo on 11 March 1985, only three hours after Chernenko 's death. Upon his accession at age 54, he was the youngest member of the Politburo. He was also the first person to be elected party leader after having initially failed in a previous bid for the post. General Secretary of the CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev was the Party 's first leader to have been born after the Revolution. As de facto ruler of the USSR, he tried to reform the stagnating Party and the state economy by introducing glasnost ( `` openness '' ), perestroika ( `` restructuring '' ), demokratizatsiya ( `` democratization '' ), and uskoreniye ( `` acceleration '' of economic development ), which were launched at the 27th Congress of the CPSU in February 1986. Domestic reforms Gorbachev 's primary goal as general secretary was to revive the Soviet economy after the stagnant Brezhnev years. In 1985, he announced that the economy was stalled and that reorganization was needed. Gorbachev proposed a `` vague programme of reform '', which was adopted at the April Plenum of the Central Committee. He called for fast - paced technological modernization and increased industrial and agricultural productivity, and tried to reform the Soviet bureaucracy to be more efficient and prosperous. Gorbachev soon came to believe that fixing the Soviet economy would be nearly impossible without reforming the political and social structure of the Communist nation. He also initiated the concept of gospriyomka ( state acceptance of production ) during his time as leader, which represented quality control. Gorbachev in 1966 In a speech in May 1985 in Leningrad ( now Saint Petersburg ), he advocated widespread reforms. The reforms began with personnel changes, most notably by replacing Andrei Gromyko with Eduard Shevardnadze as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Gromyko, disparaged as `` Mr Nyet '' in the West, had served in the post for 28 years and was considered an ' old thinker '. Robert D. English notes that, despite Shevardnadze 's diplomatic inexperience, Gorbachev `` shared with him an outlook '' and experience in managing an agricultural region of the Soviet Union ( Georgia ), which meant that both had weak links to the powerful military - industrial complex. A number of reformist ideas were discussed by Politburo members. One of the first reforms Gorbachev introduced was the anti-alcohol campaign, begun in May 1985, which was designed to fight widespread alcoholism in the Soviet Union. Prices of vodka, wine, and beer were raised, and their sales were restricted. It was pursued vigorously and cut both alcohol sales and government revenue. As a result, alcohol production migrated to the black market economy and dealt a blow to state revenue -- a loss of approximately 100 billion rubles, according to Alexander Yakovlev. However, the program proved to be a useful symbol for change in the country. U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev shaking hands at the Soviet - U.S. summit in Washington, D.C., in 1987 The purpose of reform was to prop up the centrally planned economy -- not to transition to market socialism. Speaking in late summer 1985 to the secretaries for economic affairs of the central committees of the East European communist parties, Gorbachev said : `` Many of you see the solution to your problems in resorting to market mechanisms in place of direct planning. Some of you look at the market as a lifesaver for your economies. But, comrades, you should not think about lifesavers but about the ship, and the ship is socialism. '' Perestroika Main article : Perestroika Gorbachev at the Brandenburg Gate in 1986 during a visit to East Germany. Gorbachev initiated his new policy of perestroika ( literally `` restructuring '' in Russian ) and its attendant radical reforms in 1986 ; they were sketched, but not fully spelled out, at the XXVIIth Party Congress in February -- March 1986. The `` reconstruction '' was proposed in an attempt to overcome the economic stagnation by creating a dependable and effective mechanism for accelerating economic and social progress. According to Gorbachev, perestroika was the `` conference of development of democracy, socialist self - government, encouragement of initiative and creative endeavor, improved order and discipline, more glasnost, criticism and self - criticism in all spheres of our society. It is utmost respect for the individual and consideration for personal dignity ''. Domestic changes continued. In a bombshell speech during Armenian SSR 's Central Committee Plenum of the Communist Party, the young First Secretary of Armenia 's Hrazdan Regional Communist Party, Hayk Kotanjian, criticised rampant corruption in the Armenian Communist Party 's highest echelons, implicating Armenian SSR Communist Party First Secretary Karen Demirchyan and calling for his resignation. Symbolically, intellectual Andrei Sakharov was invited to return to Moscow by Gorbachev in December 1986 after six years of internal exile in Gorky. During the same month, however, signs of the nationalities problem that would haunt the later years of the Soviet Union surfaced as riots, named Jeltoqsan, occurred in Kazakhstan after Dinmukhamed Kunayev was replaced as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan. The Central Committee Plenum in January 1987 saw the crystallisation of Gorbachev 's political reforms, including proposals for multi-candidate elections and the appointment of non-Party members to government positions. He also first raised the idea of expanding co-operatives. Economic reforms took up much of the rest of 1987, as a new law giving enterprises more independence was passed in June and Gorbachev released a book, Perestroika : New Thinking for Our Country and the World, in November, elucidating his main ideas for reform. In 1987, he rehabilitated many opponents of Joseph Stalin -- another part of the De-Stalinization, which began in 1956, when Lenin 's Testament was published. Glasnost Main article : Glasnost Gorbachev with Erich Honecker of East Germany 1988 would see Gorbachev 's introduction of glasnost, which gave the Soviet people freedoms that they had never previously known, including greater freedom of speech. The press became far less controlled, and thousands of political prisoners and many dissidents were released. Gorbachev 's goal in undertaking glasnost was to pressure conservatives within the CPSU who opposed his policies of economic restructuring, and he also hoped that through different ranges of openness, debate and participation, the Soviet people would support his reform initiatives. At the same time, he opened himself and his reforms up for more public criticism, evident in Nina Andreyeva 's critical letter in a March edition of Sovetskaya Rossiya. Gorbachev acknowledged that his liberalising policies of glasnost and perestroika owed a great deal to Alexander Dubček 's `` Socialism with a human face ''. Indeed, when one reporter asked him what was the difference between his policies and the Prague Spring, Gorbachev replied, `` Nineteen years ''. The Law on Cooperatives, enacted in May 1988, was perhaps the most radical economic reform of the early Gorbachev era. For the first time since Vladimir Lenin 's New Economic Policy, the law permitted private ownership of businesses in the service, manufacturing, and foreign - trade sectors. The law initially imposed high taxes and employment restrictions, although these were ignored by some Soviet Socialist Republics ( SSRs ). Later, the restrictions were revised to avoid discouraging private - sector activity. Under the provision for private ownership, cooperative restaurants, shops, and manufacturers became part of the Soviet scene. Under the new law, the restructuring of large `` All - Union '' industrial organizations also began. Aeroflot was split up, eventually becoming several independent airlines. These newly autonomous business organisations were encouraged to seek foreign investment. In June 1988, at the CPSU 's Party Conference, Gorbachev launched radical reforms meant to reduce party control of the government apparatus. He proposed a new executive in the form of a presidential system, as well as a new legislative element, to be called the Congress of People 's Deputies. Elections to the Congress of People 's Deputies were held throughout the Soviet Union in March and April 1989. This was the first free election in the Soviet Union since 1917. Gorbachev became Chairman of the Supreme Soviet ( or head of state ) on 25 May 1989. Presidency of the Soviet Union On 15 March 1990, Gorbachev was elected as the first executive President of the Soviet Union with 59 % of the Deputies ' votes. He was the sole candidate on the ballot. The Congress of People 's Deputies met for the first time on 25 May in order to elect representatives from the Congress to sit on the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, the Congress posed problems for Gorbachev : Its sessions were televised, airing more criticism and encouraging people to expect ever more rapid reform. Perestroika meant changing the planned economy into a more active, self - financed system, where the duration of central planning would not exceed five years, and which would be more able to react to economic needs. Communist rule in the Soviet Union weakened, and centralized power from Moscow was unable to combat centrifugal forces in the South. In the elections, many Party candidates were defeated. Furthermore, Boris Yeltsin was elected as mayor of Moscow and returned to political prominence to become an increasingly vocal critic of Gorbachev. Gorbachev chose a vice president ; but when first Shevardnadze, then Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, turned it down, Gorbachev chose Gennady Yanayev, the head of the All - Union Central Council of Trade Unions and a known hardliner. This decision would come back to haunt Gorbachev later. Foreign engagements Gorbachev meets Romanian leader Nicolae Ceauşescu, 1985 In contrast to the controversy at home over his domestic reforms, Gorbachev was largely hailed in the West for his ' New Thinking ' doctrine in foreign affairs. During his tenure, he sought to improve relations and trade with the West by reducing Cold War tensions. He established close relationships with several Western leaders, such as West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who famously remarked, `` I like Mr. Gorbachev ; we can do business together ''. Gorbachev understood the link between achieving international détente and domestic reform and thus began extending `` New Thinking '' abroad immediately. On 8 April 1985, he announced the suspension of the deployment of SS - 20 missiles in Europe as a move towards resolving intermediate - range nuclear weapons ( INF ) issues. Later that year, in September, Gorbachev proposed that the Soviets and Americans both cut their nuclear arsenals in half. He went to France on his first trip abroad as Soviet leader in October. November saw the Geneva Summit between Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. Though no concrete agreement was made, Gorbachev and Reagan struck a personal relationship and decided to hold further meetings. Reagan and Gorbachev with wives ( Nancy and Raisa, respectively ) attending a dinner at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, 9 December 1987 Bold arms control proposal January 1986 would see Gorbachev make his boldest international move so far, when he announced his proposal for the elimination of intermediate - range nuclear weapons in Europe and his strategy for eliminating all of the Soviet nuclear arsenal by the year 2000 ( often referred to as the ' January Proposal ' ). He also began the process of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and Mongolia on 28 July. Nonetheless, many observers, such as Jack F. Matlock, Jr. ( despite generally praising Gorbachev as well as Reagan ), have criticized Gorbachev for taking too long to achieve withdrawal from the Afghanistan War, citing it as an example of lingering elements of `` old thinking '' in Gorbachev. On 11 October 1986, Gorbachev and Reagan met at Höfði house in Reykjavík, Iceland, to discuss reducing intermediate - range nuclear weapons in Europe. To the immense surprise of both men 's advisers, the two agreed in principle to removing INF systems from Europe and to equal global limits of 100 INF missile warheads. They also essentially agreed in principle to eliminate all nuclear weapons in 10 years ( by 1996 ), instead of by the year 2000 as in Gorbachev 's original outline. The US 's rejection of the Gorbachev proposal, particularly Reagan 's insistence of continued unlimited testing of Strategic Defense Initiative ( SDI ) systems, meant that the summit is often regarded as a failure for not producing a concrete agreement immediately, or for leading to a staged elimination of nuclear weapons. Reagan was persuaded by Richard Perle to reject limits on SDI testing because Perle thought that the far - reaching arms control deal proposed by the Soviets would improve the Soviet domestic economy and have a beneficial impact on the Soviet standard of living. In the long term, nevertheless, this would culminate in the signing of the Intermediate - Range Nuclear Forces ( INF ) Treaty in 1987, after Gorbachev had proposed this elimination on 22 July 1987 ( and it was subsequently agreed on in Geneva on 24 November ). Withdrawal from Afghanistan In February 1988, Gorbachev announced the full withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. The withdrawal was completed the following year, although the civil war continued as the Mujahedin pushed to overthrow the pro-Soviet Najibullah government. An estimated 14,453 Soviets were killed between 1979 and 1989 as a result of the Afghanistan War. Gorbachev in one - on - one discussions with Reagan Relinquishing control of East block Also during 1988, Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union would abandon the Brezhnev Doctrine, and allow the Eastern bloc nations to freely determine their own internal affairs. Jokingly dubbed the `` Sinatra Doctrine '' by Gorbachev 's Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov, this policy of non-intervention in the affairs of the other Warsaw Pact states proved to be the most momentous of Gorbachev 's foreign policy reforms. In his 6 July 1989 speech arguing for a `` common European home '' before the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, Gorbachev declared : `` The social and political order in some countries changed in the past, and it can change in the future too, but this is entirely a matter for each people to decide. Any interference in the internal affairs, or any attempt to limit the sovereignty of another state, friend, ally, or another, would be inadmissible. '' A month earlier, on 4 June 1989, elections had taken place in Poland and the communist government had already been deposed. Moscow 's abandonment of the Brezhnev Doctrine allowed the rise of popular upheavals in Eastern Europe throughout 1989, in which Communism was overthrown. By the end of 1989, revolts had spread from one Eastern European capital to another, ousting the regimes built in Eastern Europe after World War II. Except in Romania, the popular upheavals against the pro-Soviet regimes were all peaceful ( see Revolutions of 1989 ). The loosening of Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe effectively ended the Cold War, and for this, Gorbachev was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold in 1989 and the Nobel Peace Prize on 15 October 1990. Reagan and President - elect Bush meeting with Gorbachev on Governors Island, New York City, 7 December 1988 On 9 November, people in East Germany ( the German Democratic Republic, GDR ) were suddenly allowed to cross through the Berlin Wall into West Berlin, following a peaceful protest against the country 's dictatorial administration, including a demonstration by some one million people in East Berlin on 4 November. Unlike earlier riots which were ended by military force with the help of the USSR, Gorbachev now decided not to interfere with the process in Germany. He stated that German reunification was an internal German matter. The rest of 1989 was taken up by the increasingly problematic question of nationalities and the dramatic fragmentation of the Eastern Bloc. Despite unprecedented international détente, due to Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan completed in January and continuing talks between Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush, domestic reforms suffered from increasing divergence between reformists, who wanted faster change, and conservatives, who wanted to limit change. Gorbachev states that he tried to find middle ground between both groups, but this would draw more criticism towards him. The story from this point on moves away from reforms and becomes one of the nationalities question and the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush, 1990 Coit D. Blacker wrote in 1990 that the Soviet leadership `` appeared to have believed that whatever loss of authority the Soviet Union might suffer in Eastern Europe would be more than offset by a net increase in its influence in Western Europe ''. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Gorbachev ever intended for the dismantling of Communism in Warsaw Pact countries. Rather, he assumed that the Communist parties of Eastern Europe could be reformed in a similar way to the reforms he hoped to achieve in the CPSU. Just as perestroika was aimed at making the USSR more efficient economically and politically, Gorbachev believed that the Comecon and Warsaw Pact could be reformed into more effective entities. Alexander Yakovlev, a close advisor to Gorbachev, would later state that it would have been `` absurd to keep the system '' in Eastern Europe. In contrast to Gorbachev, Yakovlev had come to the conclusion that the Soviet - dominated Comecon was inherently unworkable and that the Warsaw Pact had `` no relevance to real life ''. Dissolution of the Soviet Union Main article : Dissolution of the Soviet Union By the end of the 1980s, severe shortages of basic food supplies ( meat, sugar ) led to the reintroduction of the war - time system of distribution using food cards that limited each citizen to a certain amount of product per month. Compared to 1985, the state deficit grew from 0 to 109 billion rubles ; gold funds decreased from 2,000 to 200 tons ; and external debt grew from 0 to 120 billion dollars. Furthermore, the democratisation of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had irreparably undermined the power of the CPSU and Gorbachev himself. The relaxation of censorship and attempts to create more political openness had the unintended effect of re-awakening long - suppressed nationalist and anti-Russian feelings in the Soviet republics. Calls for greater independence from Moscow 's rule grew louder, especially in the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, which had been annexed into the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin in 1940. Nationalist feeling also took hold in Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. In December 1986, the first signs of the nationalities problem that would haunt the later years of the Soviet Union 's existence surfaced as riots, named Jeltoqsan, occurred in Alma Ata and other areas of Kazakhstan after Dinmukhamed Kunayev was replaced as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan. Nationalism would then surface in Russia in May 1987, as 600 members of Pamyat, a nascent Russian nationalist group, demonstrated in Moscow and were becoming increasingly linked to Boris Yeltsin, who received their representatives at a meeting. Violence erupted in Nagorno - Karabakh between February and April, when Armenians living in the area began a new wave of demands to transfer of NKAO from Azerbaijan to Armenia which eventually led to full scale Nagorno - Karabakh War. Gorbachev imposed a temporary solution, but it did not last, as fresh trouble arose in Nagorno - Karabakh between June and July. Turmoil would once again return in late 1988, this time in Armenia itself, when the Spitak earthquake hit the region on 7 December. Poor local infrastructure magnified the hazard and some 25,000 people died. Gorbachev was forced to break off his trip to the United States and cancel planned travel to Cuba and the UK. In March and April 1989 elections to the Congress of People 's Deputies took place throughout the Soviet Union. This returned many pro-independence republicans, as many CPSU candidates were rejected. The televised Congress debates allowed the dissemination of pro-independence propositions. Indeed, 1989 would see numerous nationalistic protests ; for example, beginning with the Baltic republics in January, laws were passed in most non-Russian republics giving precedence for the local language over Russian. Gorbachev addressing the United Nations General Assembly in December 1988. During the speech he dramatically announced deep unilateral cuts in Soviet military forces in Eastern Europe. 9 April would see the crackdown on nationalist demonstrations by Soviet troops in Tbilisi, Georgia. There would be further bloody protests in Uzbekistan in June, when Uzbeks and Meskhetian Turks clashed in Fergana, Uzbekistan. Apart from this violence, three major events that altered the face of the nationalities issue occurred in 1989. Estonia had declared its sovereignty on 16 November 1988, to be followed by Lithuania in May 1989 and by Latvia in July ( the Communist Party of Lithuania would also declare its independence from the CPSU in December ). This brought the Union and the republics into clear confrontation and would form a precedent for other republics. Around the 50th anniversary of the signing of the 1939 Molotov -- Ribbentrop Pact in July 1989, the Soviet government formally acknowledged that the plan had included the placing of the Baltic states into the Soviet sphere of influence, which paved the way for their annexation into the USSR in 1940. The revelation supported the long - denied proposition that the Baltic states had been involuntarily brought into the Soviet Union, and so it boosted the Baltic aspirations to reestablish their independence. Finally, the Eastern bloc fragmented in the autumn of 1989, and Gorbachev made the decision not to use military force in order to maintain the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. This raised hopes that Gorbachev would extend his non-interventionist doctrine to the internal workings of the USSR. Crisis of the Union : 1990 -- 1991 1990 began with nationalist turmoil in January. Azerbaijanis rioted and troops were sent in to restore order ; many Moldovans demonstrated in favour of unification with post-Communist Romania ; and Lithuanian demonstrations continued. The same month, in a hugely significant move, Armenia asserted its right to veto laws coming from the All - Union level, thus intensifying the `` war of laws '' between the republics and Moscow. Soon after, the CPSU, which had already lost much of its control, began to lose even more power as Gorbachev deepened political reform. The February Central Committee Plenum advocated multi-party elections ; local elections held between February and March returned a large number of pro-independence candidates. The Congress of People 's Deputies then amended the Soviet Constitution in March, removing Article 6, which guaranteed the monopoly of the CPSU. Soon after the constitutional amendment, Lithuania declared independence and elected Vytautas Landsbergis as Chairman of the Supreme Council ( head of state ). On 15 March, Gorbachev himself was elected as the first -- and as it turned out, only -- President of the Soviet Union by the Congress of People 's Deputies and chose a Presidential Council of 15 politicians. Gorbachev was essentially creating his own political support base independent of CPSU conservatives and radical reformers. The new Executive was designed to be a powerful position to guide the spiraling reform process, and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and Congress of People 's Deputies had already given Gorbachev increasingly presidential powers in February. This was again criticized by reformers. Despite the apparent increase in Gorbachev 's power, he was unable to stop the process of nationalistic assertion. Further embarrassing facts about Soviet history were revealed in April, when the government admitted that the NKVD had carried out the infamous Katyn massacre of Polish army officers during World War II ; previously, the USSR had blamed Nazi Germany. More significantly for Gorbachev 's position, Boris Yeltsin reached a new level of prominence, as he was elected Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR in May, effectively making him the de jure leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Problems for Gorbachev once again came from the Russian parliament in June, when it declared the precedence of Russian laws over All - Union - level legislation. Anti-Armenian and anti-government Dushanbe riots in Tajikistan, 1990 Meanwhile, Gorbachev 's personal political position continued to change. At the 28th CPSU Congress in July, Gorbachev was re-elected general secretary, but this position was now completely independent of Soviet government, and the Politburo had no say in the ruling of the country. Gorbachev further reduced Party power in the same month, when he issued a decree abolishing Party control of all areas of the media and broadcasting. At the same time, Gorbachev worked to consolidate his presidential position, culminating in the Supreme Soviet granting him special powers to rule by decree in September in order to pass a much - needed plan for transition to a market economy. However, the Supreme Soviet could not agree on which program to adopt. Gorbachev pressed on with political reform ; his proposal for setting up a new Soviet government, with a Soviet of the Federation consisting of representatives from all 15 republics, was passed through the Supreme Soviet in November. In December, Gorbachev was once more granted increased executive power by the Supreme Soviet, arguing that such moves were necessary to counter `` the dark forces of nationalism ''. Such moves led to Eduard Shevardnadze 's resignation ; Gorbachev 's former ally warned of an impending dictatorship. This move was a serious blow to Gorbachev personally and to his efforts for reform. Meanwhile, Gorbachev was losing further ground to nationalists. October 1990 saw the founding of DemRossiya, the Russian pro-reform coalition ; a few days later, both Ukraine and Russia declared their laws completely sovereign over Soviet laws. The ' war of laws ' had become an open battle, with the Supreme Soviet refusing to recognise the actions of the two republics. Gorbachev would publish the draft of a new union treaty in November, which envisioned a continued union called the Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics, but, going into 1991, Gorbachev 's actions were steadily overpowered by secessionism. Berlin Wall, `` Thank you, Gorbi ! '', October 1990 January and February 1991 would see a new level of turmoil in the Baltic republics. On 10 January 1991, Gorbachev issued an ultimatum - like request addressing the Lithuanian Supreme Council demanding the restoration of the validity of the constitution of the Soviet Union in Lithuania and revocation of all anti-constitutional laws. In his Memoirs, Gorbachev asserts that on 12 January he convened the Council of the Federation which agreed to political measures to prevent bloodshed, including sending representatives of the Council of the Federation on a `` fact - finding mission '' to Vilnius. However, before the delegation arrived, the local branches of the KGB and armed forces had worked together to seize the TV tower in Vilnius ; Gorbachev asked the heads of the KGB and military if they had approved such action, and there is no evidence that they, or Gorbachev, ever did. Gorbachev cites documents found in the RSFSR Prokuratura after the August coup, which only mentioned that `` some ' authorities ' '' had sanctioned the actions. The book Alpha -- the KGB 's Top Secret Unit also suggests that a `` KGB operation co-ordinated with the military '' was undertaken by the KGB Alpha Group. Archie Brown, in The Gorbachev Factor, uses the memoirs of many people around Gorbachev and in the upper echelons of the Soviet political landscape, to implicate General Valentin Varennikov, a member of the August coup plotters, and General Vladislav Achalov, another August coup conspirator. These persons were characterised as individuals `` who were prepared to remove Gorbachev from his presidential office unconstitutionally '' and `` were more than capable of using unauthorised violence against nationalist separatists some months earlier ''. Brown criticises Gorbachev for `` a conscious tilt in the direction of the conservative forces he was trying to keep within an increasingly fragile coalition '' who would later betray him ; he also criticises Gorbachev `` for his tougher line and heightened rhetoric against the Lithuanians in the days preceding the attack and for his slowness in condemning the killings '' but notes that Gorbachev did not approve any action and was seeking political solutions. In continued violence, at least 14 civilians were killed and more than 600 injured from 11 -- 13 January 1991 in Vilnius, Lithuania. News of support for the Lithuanians from Western governments began to appear. The strong Western reaction and the actions of Russian democratic forces put the Soviet president and government into a very awkward position. Further problems surfaced in Riga, Latvia, on 20 and 21 January, where OMON ( special Ministry of the Interior troops ) killed 4 people. Archie Brown suggests that Gorbachev 's response this time was better, condemning the rogue action, sending his condolences and suggesting that secession could take place if it went through the procedures outlined in the Soviet constitution. According to Gorbachev 's aide, Shakhnazarov, Gorbachev was finally beginning to accept the inevitability of `` losing '' the Baltic republics, although he would try all political means to preserve the Union. Brown believes that this put him in `` imminent danger '' of being overthrown by hard - liners opposing secession. Gorbachev continued to work on drafting a new treaty of union which would have created a truly voluntary federation in an increasingly democratised Soviet Union. The new treaty was strongly supported by the Central Asian republics, who needed the economic power and markets of the Soviet Union to prosper. However, the more radical reformists, such as Russian SFSR President Boris Yeltsin, were increasingly convinced that a rapid transition to a market economy was required and were more than happy to contemplate the disintegration of the Soviet Union if that was required to achieve their aims. Nevertheless, a referendum on the future of the Soviet Union was held in March ( with a referendum in Russia on the creation of a presidency ), which returned an average of 76.4 % in the nine republics where it was taken, with a turnout of 80 % of the adult population. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Armenia, Georgia and Moldova did not participate. Following this, an April meeting at Novo - Ogarevo between Gorbachev and the heads of the nine republics issued a statement on speeding up the creation of a new Union treaty. In May, a hardline newspaper published `` Architect amidst the Ruins '', an open letter criticizing Yakovlev ( often referred to as the `` architect of perestroika '' ) which was signed by Gennady Zyuganov. Many also saw this publication as the start of a campaign to oust Gorbachev. Meanwhile, on 12 June 1991 Boris Yeltsin was elected President of the Russian Federation by 57.3 % of the vote ( with a turnout of 74 % ). Coup of August 1991 Main article : 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt In contrast to the reformers ' moderate approach to the new treaty, the hard - line apparatchiks, still strong within the CPSU and military establishment, completely opposed anything which might lead to the break - up of the Soviet Union. On the eve of the treaty 's signing, hardline Soviet leaders, calling themselves the ' State Committee on the State of Emergency ', launched the August coup in an attempt to remove Gorbachev from power and prevent the signing of the new union treaty. Under the pretense that Gorbachev was ill, his vice president, Yanayev, took over as president. Gorbachev spent three days ( 19, 20, and 21 August ) under house arrest at his dacha in the Crimea before being freed and restored to power. However, upon his return, Gorbachev found that neither Union nor Russian power structures heeded his commands, as support had swung over to Yeltsin, whose defiance had led to the coup 's collapse. Furthermore, Gorbachev was forced to fire large numbers of his Politburo and, in several cases, arrest them. Those arrested for high treason included the `` Gang of Eight '' that had led the coup, including Kryuchkov, Yazov, Pavlov and Yanayev. Pugo killed his wife and then shot himself after the coup. Akhromeyev, who had offered his assistance but was never implicated, was found hanging in his Kremlin office. Most of these men had been former allies of Gorbachev or had been promoted by him, which drew fresh criticism. Final collapse For all intents and purposes, the coup destroyed Gorbachev politically. On 24 August, he advised the Central Committee to dissolve, resigned as general secretary and dissolved all party units within the government. Shortly afterward, the Supreme Soviet suspended all Party activities on Soviet territory. In effect, Communist rule in the Soviet Union had ended. Gorbachev 's hopes of a new Union were further hit when the Congress of People 's Deputies dissolved itself on 5 September. Though Gorbachev and the representatives of eight republics ( excluding Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia ) signed an agreement on forming a new economic community on 18 October, events were overtaking him. The Soviet Union collapsed with dramatic speed during the latter part of 1991, as one republic after another declared independence. By the autumn, Gorbachev could no longer influence events outside Moscow, and he was challenged even there by Yeltsin. Following the coup, Yeltsin suspended all CPSU activities on Russian territory and closed the Central Committee building at Staraya Square. He also ordered the Russian flag raised alongside the Soviet flag at the Kremlin. In the waning months of 1991, Russia began taking over what remained of the Soviet government, including the Kremlin. With the country in a state of near collapse, Gorbachev 's vision of a renewed union effectively received a fatal blow by a Ukrainian referendum on 1 December, where the Ukrainian people overwhelmingly voted for independence. Ukraine had been the second most powerful republic in the Soviet Union after Russia, and its secession ended any realistic chance of the Soviet Union staying united even on a limited scale. The presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus met in Belovezh Forest, near Brest, Belarus, on 8 December and signed the Belavezha Accords, which declared the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and formed the Commonwealth of Independent States as its successor. Gorbachev initially denounced this move as illegal. Nonetheless, there was no longer any doubt that the Soviet Union, in the words of the Accords ' preamble, no longer existed `` as a subject of international law or geopolitical reality. '' However, on 12 December, the RSFSR Supreme Soviet ratified the Belevezha Accords and denounced the 1922 Union Treaty. It was now apparent that the momentum towards dissolution could not be stopped. Shortly after the RSFSR ratified the Accords, Gorbachev hinted that he was considering stepping aside. On 17 December, he accepted the fait accompli and reluctantly agreed with Yeltsin to dissolve the Soviet Union. Four days later, the leaders of 11 of the 12 remaining republics -- all except Georgia ( the Baltic states had already seceded in August ) -- signed the Alma - Ata Protocol which formally established the CIS. They also preemptively accepted Gorbachev 's resignation. When Gorbachev learned what had transpired, he told CBS that he would resign as soon as he saw that the CIS was indeed a reality. On the night of 25 December, in a nationally televised speech, Gorbachev announced his resignation as president -- as he put it, `` I hereby discontinue my activities at the post of President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. '' He declared the office extinct and handed over its functions -- including control of the Soviet nuclear codes -- to Yeltsin. That same night after he left office, the flag of the Soviet Union was lowered from the Kremlin and was replaced with the Russian tricolor flag. The next day, 26 December, the Soviet of the Republics, the upper chamber of the Supreme Soviet, declared that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist as a functioning state, and formally voted both itself and the Union out of existence. Two days after Gorbachev left office, on 27 December 1991, Yeltsin moved into Gorbachev 's old office. Gorbachev had aimed to maintain the CPSU as a united party but move it in the direction of Scandinavian - style social democracy. But when the CPSU was proscribed after the August coup, Gorbachev was left with no effective power base beyond the armed forces. In the aftermath of the coup, his rival Yeltsin quickly worked to consolidate his hold on the Russian government as well as the remnants of the Soviet armed forces, paving the way for Gorbachev 's downfall. Post-presidency Gorbachev visiting Ronald Reagan, both in western wear, at Rancho del Cielo, 1992 Gorbachev with Indian spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy Following his resignation and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev remained active in Russian politics. During the early years of the post-Soviet era, he expressed criticism at the reforms carried out by Russian president Boris Yeltsin. When Yeltsin called a referendum for 25 April 1993 in an attempt to achieve even greater powers as president, Gorbachev did not vote and instead called for new presidential elections. Following a failed run for the presidency in 1996, Gorbachev established the Social Democratic Party of Russia, a union between several Russian social democratic parties. He resigned as party leader in May 2004 following a disagreement with the party 's chairman over the direction taken in the 2003 election campaign. The party was later banned in 2007 by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation due to its failure to establish local offices with at least 500 members in the majority of Russian regions, which is required by Russian law for a political organization to be listed as a party. Later that year, Gorbachev founded a new political party, called the Union of Social Democrats. In June 2004, he represented Russia at the funeral of Ronald Reagan. Gorbachev appeared in numerous media channels after his resignation from office. In 1993, he appeared as himself in the Wim Wenders film Faraway, So Close !, the sequel to Wings of Desire. In 1997, Gorbachev appeared with his granddaughter Anastasia in an internationally screened television commercial for Pizza Hut. The U.S. corporation 's payment for the 60 - second ad went to Gorbachev 's non-profit Gorbachev Foundation. In 2007, French luxury brand Louis Vuitton announced that Gorbachev would be shown in an ad campaign, shot by Annie Leibovitz, for their signature luggage. In February 2014, during the winter Olympic Games held in Sochi, Russia, 82 - year - old Gorbachev made a rare appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in a segment where he was tracked down and interviewed by comedic correspondent Jason Jones on location from Moscow. Gorbachev, daughter Irina and his wife 's sister Lyudmila at the funeral of Raisa, 1999 Following Boris Yeltsin 's death on 23 April 2007, Gorbachev released a eulogy for him, stating that Yeltsin was to be commended for assuming the `` difficult task of leading the nation into the post-Soviet era '', and `` on whose shoulders are both great deeds for the country and serious errors ''. On 16 June 2009, Gorbachev announced that he had recorded an album of old Russian romantic ballads entitled Songs for Raisa to raise money for a charity dedicated to his late wife. On the album, he sings the songs himself accompanied by Russian musician Andrei Makarevich. Since his resignation, Gorbachev has remained involved in world affairs. He founded the Gorbachev Foundation in 1992, headquartered in Moscow. He later founded Green Cross International, with which he was one of three major sponsors of the Earth Charter. He also became a member of the Club of Rome and the Club of Madrid, an independent non-profit organization composed of 81 democratic former presidents and Prime Ministers from 57 different countries. Gorbachev ( left ) with former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at the funeral of Ronald Reagan, 11 June 2004 In the decade that followed the Cold War, Gorbachev opposed both the U.S. - led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the U.S. - led Iraq War in 2003. On 27 July 2007, Gorbachev criticized U.S. foreign policy : `` What has followed are unilateral actions, what has followed are wars, what has followed is ignoring the UN Security Council, ignoring international law and ignoring the will of the people, even the American people '', he said. That same year, he visited New Orleans, a city hard - hit by Hurricane Katrina, and promised he would return in 2011 to personally lead a local revolution if the U.S. government had not repaired the levees by that time. He said that revolutionary action should be a last resort. In May 2008, The Telegraph ( UK ) published an article, `` Gorbachev : US could start new Cold War, '' which quotes Gorbachev saying, `` The Americans promised that NATO would n't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises ? It shows they can not be trusted. '' Concerning the 2008 South Ossetia war, started by a Georgian attack on Tskhinvali, the capital of pro-Russian South Ossetia, in a 12 August 2008 op - ed essay in The Washington Post, Gorbachev criticized the United States ' support for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and for moving to bring the Caucasus into the sphere of its national interest. He later said the following : Russia did not want this crisis. The Russian leadership is in a strong enough position domestically ; it did not need a little victorious war. Russia was dragged into the fray by the recklessness of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili... The decision by the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, to now cease hostilities was the right move by a responsible leader. The Russian president acted calmly, confidently and firmly... The planners of this campaign clearly wanted to make sure that, whatever the outcome, Russia would be blamed for worsening the situation. The West then mounted a propaganda attack against Russia, with the American news media leading the way. In September 2008, Gorbachev and business oligarch Alexander Lebedev announced they would form the Independent Democratic Party of Russia, and in May 2009 Gorbachev announced that the launch was imminent. This was Gorbachev 's third attempt to establish a political party, having started the Social Democratic Party of Russia in 2001 and the Union of Social Democrats in 2007. These plans, however, never panned out. Gorbachev ( right ) being introduced to Barack Obama by Joe Biden, 20 March 2009 On 20 March 2009, Gorbachev met with United States President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in efforts to `` reset '' strained relations between Russia and the United States. On 27 March 2009, Gorbachev visited Eureka College, Illinois, which is the alma mater of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan with whom he had negotiated historic nuclear arms reduction treaties. Gorbachev toured the Reagan Museum on campus, met with students, and spoke at a convocation in the Reagan Center ; he then traveled to the nearby Peoria Civic Center in Peoria, Illinois, as the keynote speaker at the combined George Washington / Ronald Reagan Day Dinner where college president J. David Arnold named him an Honorary Reagan Fellow of Eureka College. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Gorbachev accompanied former Polish leader Lech Wałęsa and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a celebration in Berlin on 9 November 2009. On 7 June 2010, Gorbachev gave an interview before `` almost an annual pilgrimage '' to London for a summer gala to raise money for the Raisa Gorbachev Foundation, which funds cancer care for children. The clinic in St. Petersburg can house 80 child patients. In the interview, his wife, Raisa, was mentioned : `` Her death, after several years of ill - health, left Gorbachev bereft. He lives in Moscow, has not remarried and finds solace with his daughter and grand - daughters. He would not be coaxed to talk about Raisa, except fleetingly in the context of the charity. '' Gorbachev has defended the referendum that led to Russia 's annexation of Crimea in March 2014 : `` While Crimea had previously been joined to Ukraine ( in 1954 ) based on the Soviet laws, which means ( Communist ) party laws, without asking the people, now the people themselves have decided to correct that mistake. '' On 10 October 2014, it was reported that Gorbachev was in hospital and in deteriorating health. However, on 16 October he granted an interview with Russian state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, opining on the Ukraine crisis and calling for a repeal of the sanctions. On 8 November 2014, Gorbachev attended an event near the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin to mark 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. He warned that the conflict in Ukraine had brought the world to the brink of a new cold war, and he charged western powers, particularly the United States, with adopting an attitude of `` triumphalism '' towards Russia. Speaking on the war in eastern Ukraine, Gorbachev said in December 2014 that `` Both sides in the Ukrainian conflict are breaching the ceasefire. Both sides are guilty of using especially dangerous types of weapons and breaching human rights. '' Gorbachev reiterated his support of Russia 's 2014 annexation of Crimea in May 2016, which led him being banned from entering Ukraine for five years. In July 2016, Gorbachev criticized the North Atlantic Treaty Organization amid escalating tensions between the military alliance and the Russian Federation. Gorbachev welcomed the 2018 Russia -- United States summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Helsinki, Finland. Criticism of Vladimir Putin Inauguration of Vladimir Putin, 7 May 2000 Although he has credited Vladimir Putin for stabilizing Russia in the aftermath of the initial and turbulent years of the post-Soviet era, Gorbachev has become critical of both Putin and Dmitry Medvedev since at least March 2011. His main grievances about the `` tandem '' are backsliding on democracy, corruption and the dominance of security officers. Gorbachev is also dissatisfied by the fact that he has not been allowed to register his social democratic party. When being interviewed by the BBC to reflect on the 20th anniversary of the August Coup, Gorbachev again announced his dissatisfaction with the policies and rule of Putin. Speaking of the status of democracy in the Russian Federation, he proclaimed : `` The electoral system we had was nothing remarkable but they have literally castrated it ''. Gorbachev also stated that he believed that Putin should not have sought a third term as the Russian president in 2012. In response to the 2011 Russian protests as a result of United Russia 's controversial victory in the 2011 legislative election, he called on the authorities to hold a new election, citing electoral irregularities and ballot box stuffing. In a political lecture delivered to the RIA - Novosti news agency in April 2013, Gorbachev decried Putin 's retreat from democracy, noting that in Russia `` politics is increasingly turning into imitation democracy '' with `` all power in the hands of the executive branch ''. Gorbachev addressed Putin directly, stating that `` to go further on the path of tightening the screws, having laws that limit the rights and freedoms of people, attacking the news media and organisations of civil society, is a destructive path with no future ''. Call for global restructuring Gorbachev calls for a kind of perestroika or restructuring of societies around the world, starting in particular with that of the United States, because he is of the view that the financial crisis of 2007 -- 2008 shows that the Washington Consensus economic model is a failure that will sooner or later have to be replaced. According to Gorbachev, countries that have rejected the Washington Consensus and the International Monetary Fund approach to economic development, such as Brazil and China, have done far better economically on the whole and achieved far fairer results for the average citizen than countries that have accepted it. Gorbachev is also a member of the Club of Madrid, a group of more than 80 former leaders of democratic countries, which works to strengthen democratic governance and leadership. Gorbachev was co-chair of Earth Charter International Commission. Honours and accolades Former President of the United States Ronald Reagan awards Gorbachev the first ever Ronald Reagan Freedom Award at the Reagan Library, 4 May 1992 Soviet Union and Russia decorations Order of St. Andrew ( 2011 ), the highest state decoration of Russia, awarded for work during USSR leadership Order of Honour ( 2001 ) Order of Lenin ( 1971, 1973, 1981 ) Order of October Revolution ( 1978 ) Order of the Badge of Honour ( 1966 ) Order of the Red Banner of Labour ( 1947 ). He was awarded when he was only 16 and was one of the youngest recipients of the award. Medal `` For Labour Valour '' Medal `` For Strengthening Military Cooperation '' Medal `` In Commemoration of the 1500th Anniversary of Kiev '' Jubilee Medal `` Forty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941 -- 1945 '' Foreign decorations and awards In 1987, Gorbachev was awarded the Indira Gandhi Prize from Government of India. In 1989, Gorbachev was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold of the United Nations Association of Germany ( DGVN ) in Berlin for `` his contributions to nuclear disarmament of the great powers and the creation of a fundamentally new political order in Europe ''. In 1990, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for `` his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community ''. On 4 May 1992, Gorbachev was awarded the first ever Ronald Reagan Freedom Award at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. On 6 May 1992, Gorbachev was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. In 1993 Gorbachev was awarded a Legum Doctor, honoris causa from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He was also given an honorary degree from The University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. In the same year, he was conferred with the Freedom of the City of Aberdeen. Gorbachev on 12 March 2013 Gorbachev was the 1994 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for ideas improving world order, awarded by the University of Louisville, Kentucky. In 1995, Gorbachev received an Honorary Doctorate from Durham University, County Durham, England for his contribution to `` the cause of political tolerance and an end to Cold War - style confrontation ''. In 1995 he was awarded the Grand - Cross of the Order of Liberty by Portuguese President Mário Soares. For his historic role in the evolution of glasnost, and for his leadership in the disarmament negotiations with the United States during the Reagan administration, Gorbachev was awarded the Courage of Conscience award 20 October 1996. In 1998, Gorbachev received the Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. In 2002, Gorbachev received the Freedom of the City of Dublin from the Dublin City Council, the Capital of Ireland. In 2002, Gorbachev received an honorary degree of a Doctor in Laws ( LL. D. ) `` in recognition of his political service and contribution to peace '' from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. In 2002, Gorbachev was awarded the Charles V Prize by the European Academy of Yuste Foundation. Gorbachev, together with Bill Clinton and Sophia Loren, were awarded the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for their recording of Sergei Prokofiev 's Peter and the Wolf for PENTATONE. In 2005, Gorbachev was awarded the Point Alpha Prize for his role in supporting German reunification. He also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Münster. In 2011, Gorbachev was awarded a honoris causa doctorate from University of Liège in Liège, Belgium. Personal life In September 1990 the former U.S. President Ronald Reagan visited Moscow and told journalists `` I think, frankly, ( that ) President Gorbachev and I discovered a sort of a bond, a friendship between us, that we thought could become such a bond between all the people. '' Attitude to religion At the end of a November 1996 interview on C - SPAN 's Booknotes, Gorbachev described his plans for future books. He made the following reference to God : `` I do n't know how many years God will be giving me, ( or ) what His plans are ''. Gorbachev at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, 16 June 1992 In 2005, he praised Pope John Paul II, saying `` his devotion to his followers is a remarkable example to all of us. '' In a 1989 meeting, he had told him : `` We appreciate your mission on this high pulpit, we are convinced that it will leave a great mark on history. '' Gorbachev was the recipient of the Athenagoras Humanitarian Award of the Order of St. Andrew Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople on 20 November 2005. In 2013, the Lubbock Avalanche - Journal reported a 1992 meeting between Gorbachev and Otis Gatewood, a Christian minister sent with a relief effort for orphans and elderly people in Russia by Churches of Christ in Texas. In the meeting, Gorbachev reportedly claimed that he was `` indeed a Christian and had been baptized by his grandfather in the Volga River many years before ''. On 19 March 2008, during a surprise visit to pray at the tomb of Saint Francis in Assisi, Italy, Gorbachev made an announcement which has been interpreted to the effect that he was a Christian. Gorbachev stated : `` St Francis is, for me, the alter Christus, another Christ. His story fascinates me and has played a fundamental role in my life ''. He added : `` It was through St Francis that I arrived at the Church, so it was important that I came to visit his tomb ''. However, a few days later, he told the Russian news agency Interfax : `` Over the last few days some media have been disseminating fantasies -- I ca n't use any other word -- about my secret Catholicism, (... ) To sum up and avoid any misunderstandings, let me say that I have been and remain an atheist ''. Port - wine birthmark The official Soviet portrait of Gorbachev had been retouched to remove the birthmark. When asked in the DR2 show Den 11. time in 2007 about the prominent crimson port - wine stain birthmark on his forehead, Gorbachev answered that it appeared only after he lost his hair. Although someone had suggested that he might have the mark surgically removed, he opted not to, as he believed it would be perceived as his being more concerned with his appearance than other more important issues. Works Gorbachev, Mikhail. Memoirs. Doubleday ( 1996 ). ISBN 0 - 385 - 40668 - 1. Gorbachev, Mikhail and Daisaku Ikeda ( 2005 ). Moral Lessons of the Twentieth Century : Gorbachev and Ikeda on Buddhism and Communism. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1 - 85043 - 976 - 1. Gorbachev, Mikhail. The New Russia. Polity ( 2016 ). ISBN 978 - 1 - 5095 - 0387 - 2. Gorbachev, Mikhail. In a changing world. ( 2018 ). See also April 9 Tragedy -- Soviet crackdown on Georgian protests in 1989 Black January -- Soviet crackdown on Azerbaijani protests in 1990 Index of Soviet Union - related articles List of peace activists Sergei M. Plekhanov -- former Gorbachev advisor on the United States and Canada Ruhollah Khomeini 's letter to Mikhail Gorbachev References Footnotes Jump up ^ UK : / ˈɡɔːrbətʃɒf /, US : / - tʃ ɔː f / ; Russian : Михаи́л Серге́евич Горбачёв, IPA : ( mjɪxɐˈil sjɪrˈɡjejɪvjɪtɕ ɡərbɐˈtɕɵf ) ( listen ) Citations Jump up ^ `` Gorbachev ''. Random House Webster 's Unabridged Dictionary. Jump up ^ Profile of Mikhail Gorbachev Jump up ^ Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, Daisaku Ikeda ( 2005 ). `` Moral Lessons of the Twentieth Century : Gorbachev and Ikeda on Buddhism and Communism ''. I.B. Tauris. p. 11. ISBN 1 - 85043 - 976 - 1 Jump up ^ Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev ( 2006 ). `` Manifesto for the Earth : action now for peace, global justice and a sustainable future ''. CLAIRVIEW BOOKS. p. 10. ISBN 1 - 905570 - 02 - 3 Jump up ^ Mikhail Gorbachev ( 2000 ). Gorbachev : On My Country and the World. George Shriver ( Translator ). New York : Columbia University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978 - 0 - 231 - 11515 - 5. ^ Jump up to : `` Biography of Mikhail Gorbachev ''. The Gorbachev Foundation. Retrieved 13 January 2012. Jump up ^ Irwin Abrams ( 2001 ). `` The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates : An Illustrated Biographical History, 1901 - 2001 ''. Science History Publications / USA. p. 286. ISBN 0881353884 ^ Jump up to : `` A definitive biography shows a Soviet leader changing his mind '', Max Boot, Wall Street Journal, 3 September 2017 Jump up ^ `` Raisa Gorbachyova 's Biography on the Gorbachyov Foundation website ''. ^ Jump up to : Current Biography, 1985. New York : The H.W. Wilson Co. 1985. ^ Jump up to : Gorbachev, M.S., Memoirs, 1996 ( London : Bantam Books ) ^ Jump up to : `` Mikhail Gorbachev ''. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2 April 2009. Jump up ^ Roxburgh, Angus ( 1991 ). The Second Russian Revolution : The Struggle for Power in the Kremlin. London : BBC Books. ^ Jump up to : `` Union of Soviet Socialist Republics -- historical state, Eurasia ''. Jump up ^ `` Mikhail Gorbachev Biography : Glasnost, Perestroika, and Leadership ''. American Academy of Achievement. 1 February 2005. Archived from the original on 12 February 2009. Retrieved 2 April 2009. Jump up ^ `` Михаил Сергеевич Горбачёв ( Mikhail Sergeyevičh Gorbačhëv ) ''. Archontology.org. 27 March 2009. Retrieved 3 April 2009. Jump up ^ Chiesa, Giulietto ( 1991 ). Time of Change : An Insider 's View of Russia 's Transformation. I.B. Tauris. p. 30. ISBN 978 - 1 - 85043 - 305 - 7. Jump up ^ Hosking, Geoffrey Alan ( 1991 ). The Awakening of the Soviet Union. Harvard University Press. p. 139. ISBN 978 - 0 - 674 - 05551 - 3. Jump up ^ English, R., D, Russia and the Idea of the West : Gorbachev, Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War, 2000 ( Columbia University Press ) ^ Jump up to : Hough, Jerry F. ( 1997 ), pp. 124 -- 125 Jump up ^ Bialer, Seweryn, and Joan Afferica. `` The Genesis of Gorbachev 's World '', Foreign Affairs 64, no. 3 ( 1985 ) : 605 -- 644. ^ Jump up to : Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika ( New York : Harper Collins, 1987 ), quoted in Mark Kishlansky, ed., Sources of the West : Readings in Western Civilization, 4th ed., vol. 2 ( New York : Longman, 2001 ), p. 322. Jump up ^ Sebetsyen, Victor ( 2009 ). Revolution 1989 : The Fall of the Soviet Empire. New York City : Pantheon Books. ISBN 0 - 375 - 42532 - 2. Jump up ^ Thomas, Vladimir ; Michael H. Hunt, The World Transformed 1945 to the present, p. 316 Jump up ^ `` Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader ''. BBC News. March 1985. Retrieved 22 May 2006. ^ Jump up to : Matlock, J.F. Jr., Reagan and Gorbachev : How the Cold War Ended, 2004 Jump up ^ Jay Winik, `` On the Brink : Dramatic Behind - the - Scenes of the Saga of the Reagan Era and the Men and Women Who Won the Cold War, '' ( New York : Simon & Schuster, 1996 ), p. 515 Jump up ^ `` Reuters, Moscow could have started WW3 over Berlin Wall : Gorbachev by Guy Faulconbridge ''. Reuters. 3 November 2009. Retrieved 11 July 2009. Jump up ^ Coit D. Blacker. `` The Collapse of Soviet Power in Europe '', Foreign Affairs 1990. Jump up ^ Steele, Jonathan. Eternal Russia : Yeltsin, Gorbachev and the Mirage of Democracy ( Boston : Faber, 1994 ). Jump up ^ `` CIA -- The World Factbook -- Armenia ''. Retrieved 27 January 2007. Jump up ^ DR Radio reported 12 January 1991, in its news broadcast on P3 at 13 : 00 hrs that the ultimatum required a reply within three days. Jump up ^ Boltunov, M., Alfa -- Sverkhsekretnyi Otryad KGB ( Alpha -- The KGB 's Top - Secret Unit ), 1992, ( Moscow : Kedr ) ^ Jump up to : Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor, 1996, ( New York : Oxford University Press ). ISBN 0 - 19 - 288052 - 7 Jump up ^ Clines, Francis X. ( 13 December 1991 ). `` Gorbachev is Ready to Resign as Post-Soviet Plan Advances ''. The New York Times. Jump up ^ Clines, Francis X. ( 22 December 1991 ). `` 11 Soviet States Form Commonwealth Without Clearly Defining Its Powers ''. The New York Times. Jump up ^ Klein, Naomi ( 2008 ). The Shock Doctrine : The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Picador. ISBN 0 - 312 - 42799 - 9 p. 276 Jump up ^ Maurizio Giuliano, Müssen schnell wählen ( interview ), Profil, nr. 19. 10 May 1993, page 61 Jump up ^ Mosnews.com ^ Jump up to : `` Gorbachev sets up Russia movement ''. BBC News. 20 October 2007. Retrieved 20 October 2007. Jump up ^ `` '' ( 1 April 2006 ). `` Pizza Hut -- Gorbachev ''. YouTube. Retrieved 3 November 2010. Jump up ^ Mikhail Gorbachev appears in Pizza Hut advertising campaign, PR Newswire, 23 December 1997. Retrieved 3 August 2007. Jump up ^ `` Why Are There Hidden Messages in the New Louis Vuitton Ad ? ''. www.adweek.com. Retrieved 20 April 2015. Jump up ^ `` ' The Daily Show ' Scores An Interview With Gorbachev ''. Retrieved 29 October 2014. Jump up ^ `` Ex-Russian Leader Boris Yeltsin Dies ''. CBS News. 23 April 2007. Jump up ^ Odynova, Alexandra ( 19 June 2009 ). `` Former Soviet Leader Gorbachev Records Album ''. Saint Petersburg Times. Retrieved 20 June 2009. Jump up ^ `` Gorbachev says U.S. is sowing world ' disorder ' ''. MSNBC. Retrieved 4 August 2007. Jump up ^ Pitney, Nico. `` Gorbachev Vows Revolution If New Orleans Levees Do n't Improve ''. Huffington Post. Retrieved 14 September 2007. Jump up ^ Blomfield, Adrian ; Smith, Mike ( 6 May 2008 ). `` Gorbachev : US could start new Cold War ''. The Telegraph ( UK ). London. Retrieved 11 March 2015. Jump up ^ Georgia ' started unjustified war ', BBC News, 30 September 2009 Jump up ^ Gorbachev, Mikhail ( 12 August 2008 ). `` A Path to Peace in the Caucasus ''. The Washington Post. Retrieved 12 August 2008. Jump up ^ Gorbachev, Mikhail, `` Russia Never Wanted a War '', New York Times, 19 August 2008, Retrieved on 2011 - 12 - 09. Jump up ^ Gray, Sadie ( 30 September 2008 ). `` Gorbachev launches political party with Russian billionaire ''. The Guardian. UK. Retrieved 1 October 2008. Jump up ^ `` Mikhail Gorbachev will found new political party ''. mosnews.com. 13 May 2009. Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 13 June 2009. Jump up ^ Morss, Gina, `` Gorbachev Visits Eureka College '', WEEK News 25, archived from the original on 8 July 2011, retrieved 24 March 2009 Jump up ^ Kulish, Nicholas & Dempsey, Judy ( 9 November 2009 ), `` Leaders in Berlin Retrace the Walk West '', New York Times Jump up ^ `` Mikhail Gorbachev : Russia 's elder statesman still at home with power ''. The Independent. London. 7 June 2010. Retrieved 19 August 2011. Jump up ^ `` Mikhail Gorbachev hails Crimea annexation to Russia ''. United Press International. 18 March 2014. Retrieved 8 November 2014. Jump up ^ `` Mikhail Gorbachev reportedly ' fighting for his life ' as health deteriorates in hospital ''. The Independent. Retrieved 29 October 2014. Jump up ^ `` Former Soviet leader Gorbachev warns against `` new Cold War '' in Ukraine crisis ``. Deutsche Welle. 16 October 2014. Retrieved 8 November 2014. Jump up ^ Buchanan, Rose Troup ( 9 November 2014 ). `` Mikhail Gorbachev warns global powers have put the world ' on the brink of a new Cold War ' ''. The Independent. UK. Retrieved 9 May 2016. Jump up ^ Johnston, Chris ( 9 November 2014 ). `` Mikhail Gorbachev : world on brink of new cold war over Ukraine ''. The Guardian. Retrieved 9 May 2016. Jump up ^ `` Besuch zum Mauerfall - Jubiläum : Gorbatschow lobt Deutschland ''. 7 November 2014 -- via FAZ.NET. Jump up ^ `` Gorbachev : Russia, US, EU should hold summits to ' defrost ' relations ''. RT. 10 December 2014 Jump up ^ MIKHAIL GORBACHEV BANNED FROM UKRAINE AFTER CRIMEA COMMENTS -- Newsweek. 26 May 2016 Jump up ^ NATO ' speaks of defense, prepares offensive ', says Gorbachev RT. 10 July 2016 Jump up ^ `` The Latest : Gorbachev has high hopes for Putin - Trump summit ''. AP News. 28 June 2018. Jump up ^ `` Mikhail Gorbachev says Putin should not run for Russian presidency again '', Christian Science Monitor ( 2 March 2011 ). Retrieved 9 December 2011. Jump up ^ Михаил Горбачев -- про `` дуумвират '' и `` штаны мотней назад '' ( видео ). Радио Свобода. 15 February 2011. Svobodanews.ru. Retrieved 9 December 2011. Jump up ^ `` Gorbachev says Putin ' castrated ' democracy in Russia ''. BBC News. 18 August 2011. Retrieved 18 August 2011. Jump up ^ `` UPDATE 1 - Russian police block new anti-Putin rally '', Reuters ( 5 December 2011 ). Retrieved 9 December 2011. Jump up ^ `` Gorbachev takes aim at Putin, praises protesters ''. 13 April 2013. Retrieved 7 May 2013. Jump up ^ Mikhail Gorbachev, `` We Had Our Perestroika. It 's High Time for Yours '', Washington Post, 7 June 2009. Jump up ^ `` Mikhail Gorbachev Club de Madrid ''. Clubmadrid.org. Archived from the original on 15 August 2013. Retrieved 19 November 2012. Jump up ^ `` The Nobel Peace Prize 1990 ''. Nobelprize.org. 15 October 1990. Retrieved 3 November 2010. Jump up ^ `` Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Library ''. Archived from the original on 10 June 2008. Retrieved 24 February 2007. CS1 maint : BOT : original - url status unknown ( link ) Jump up ^ `` National Churchill Museum Mikhail Gorbachev Lecture at the National Churchill Museum ''. Churchillmemorial.org. 6 May 1992. Retrieved 19 November 2012. Jump up ^ Wark, Andrew ( 18 September 2000 ). `` Mikhail Gorbachev to present U of C public lecture '' ( Press release ). University of Calgary. Retrieved 10 September 2013. Jump up ^ `` 1994 -- Mikhail Gorbachev ''. Archived from the original on 13 October 2011. Jump up ^ Honorary Degrees. dur.ac.uk Jump up ^ `` Minutes of the Council Meeting ''. Durham University. Archived from the original on 19 November 2011. Retrieved 8 September 2011. Jump up ^ `` CIDADÃOS ESTRANGEIROS AGRACIADOS COM ORDENS PORTUGUESAS - Página Oficial das Ordens Honoríficas Portuguesas ''. www.ordens.presidencia.pt ( in Portuguese ). Retrieved 7 August 2017. Jump up ^ `` The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Recipients List ''. Peaceabbey.org. 20 November 2005. Archived from the original on 16 February 2008. Retrieved 3 November 2010. Jump up ^ `` Archived copy ''. Archived from the original on 30 March 2014. Retrieved 28 February 2014. CS1 maint : Archived copy as title ( link ) Jump up ^ `` Previous Recipients of Keys to the City Dublin City Council ''. www.dublincity.ie. Retrieved 14 December 2017. Jump up ^ `` Trinity College Honours Mikhail Gorbachev ''. Tcd.ie. Retrieved 3 November 2010. Jump up ^ `` Mikhail Gorbachev ''. European Academy of Yuste Foundation. Retrieved 16 September 2017. Jump up ^ `` Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf -- Beintus Wolf Tracks ''. pentatonemusic. Retrieved 18 December 2016. Jump up ^ `` Reunification Politicians Accept Prize ''. Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 22 May 2006. Jump up ^ `` Université de Liège -- Mikhail Gorbachev, a ULg Honorary Doctorate ''. ULg. Archived from the original on 29 October 2014. Retrieved 29 October 2014. Jump up ^ `` Reagan Greeted With Hearty Bearhug by Gorbachev : Reunion : The changes in the Soviet Union make ex-President feel like Rip Van Winkle. He tells leaders not to lose heart, lectures on capitalism ''. Los Angeles Times. 18 September 1990. Jump up ^ `` Gorbachev : Pope was ' example to all of us ' ''. CNN. 4 April 2005. Retrieved 3 November 2010. Jump up ^ `` Record of Conversation between M.S. Gorbachev and John Paul II '' ( PDF ). Archived from the original ( PDF ) on 11 July 2010. Retrieved 3 November 2010. Jump up ^ `` Athenagoras humanitarian award to Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mikhail Gorbachev Archived 12 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine. '', goarch.org. 2 November 2005 Jump up ^ Westbrook, Ray ( 1 April 2013 ). `` Otis Gatewood helped rebuild Germany with God 's word, supplies ''. Lubbock Avalanche - Journal. Lubbock, Texas. pp. A1, A5. Archived from the original on 14 March 2016. Retrieved 8 March 2018. Jump up ^ Moore, Malcolm ( 19 March 2008 ). `` Mikhail Gorbachev admits he is a Christian ''. The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 14 September 2018. Jump up ^ `` Gorbachev a closet Christian ? ''. Chicago Tribune. 23 March 2008. Archived from the original on 11 May 2008. Jump up ^ Laust Farver ( 25 October 2007 ). `` Gorbatjov til dansk tv : Derfor beholdt jeg mit modermærke '' ( in Danish ). Jyllands - Posten. Retrieved 14 September 2018. Jump up ^ `` Gorbachev pens new book urging West to end attempts to isolate Russia ''. TASS. 13 September 2018. Retrieved 13 September 2018. Further reading Albuquerque, Cesar. Perestroika in progress : an analysis of the evolution of Gorbachev 's political and economic thinking ( 1984 - 1991 ). ( 2015 ) ( 1 ) - ( in Portuguese ) Cline, Ray S. ( 1989 ). Behind the Smile Are Teeth of Iron : 86 Photos and Illustrations Few People in America Have Ever Seen. Washington, D.C. : United States Global Strategy Council. Without ISBN Wilson, James Graham ( 2014 ). The Triumph of Improvisation : Gorbachev 's Adaptability, Reagan 's Engagement, and the End of the Cold War. Ithaca : Cornell University Press. ISBN 0 - 8014 - 5229 - 5. Трофимов В. Н. Коллаборационисты : мнимые и настоящие. Субхас Чандра Бос, Махатма Ганди, Шарль де Голль, Андрей Власов, Михаил Горбачев. М., Отпечатано в типографии `` Ваш Формат '' ( 2015 ) -- ISBN 978 - 5 - 9905971 - 9 - 8 External links Wikiquote has quotations related to : Mikhail Gorbachev Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mikhail Gorbachev. The Gorbachev Foundation Green Cross International Gorbachev 80th Birthday Gala Celebration -- Royal Albert Hall London, 30 March 2011 Appearances on C - SPAN Column and op - ed archives at The Guardian `` Mikhail Gorbachev collected news and commentary ''. The Guardian. `` Mikhail Gorbachev collected news and commentary ''. The New York Times. Interviews and articles `` Commanding Heights : Mikhail Gorbachev '' ( PBS interview ), April 2001 Ubben Lecture at DePauw University -- October 2005 `` Gorbachev on 1989 '' -- interview by The Nation, September 2009 `` Gorbachev 's Legacy Examined, 25 Years After His Rise to Power '' -- Russia Beyond, March 2010 `` Chernobyl 25 years later : Many lessons learned '' -- article by Mikhail Gorbachev published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 2011 Party political offices Preceded by Leonid Yefremov First Secretary of the Stavropol CPSU Regional Committee 1970 -- 1978 Succeeded by Vsevolod Murakhovsky Preceded by Konstantin Chernenko General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1985 -- 1991 Succeeded by Vladimir Ivashko ( Acting ) Political offices Preceded by Andrei Gromyko as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet ( 1988 -- 1989 ) Chairman of the Supreme Soviet ( 1989 -- 1990 ) President of the Soviet Union ( 1990 -- 1991 ) 1988 -- 1991 Position abolished Awards and achievements Preceded by 14th Dalai Lama Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize 1990 Succeeded by Aung San Suu Kyi Award established Recipient of the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award 1992 Succeeded by Colin Powell Politics of the Soviet Union ( 1964 -- 1985 ) Events ( 1964 -- 1982 ) Collective leadership Glassboro Summit Conference Six - Day War Prague Spring Invasion of Czechoslovakia 1968 Red Square demonstration Brezhnev Doctrine Brezhnev assassination attempt Sino - Soviet border conflict Détente 1973 oil crisis Fall of Saigon Vladivostok Summit Helsinki Accords 1977 Moscow bombings 1977 Soviet Constitution 1978 Georgian demonstrations Cambodian -- Vietnamese War Soviet -- Afghan War 1980 Summer Olympics Reaction to 1980 -- 1981 Polish crisis Exercise Zapad Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev Legacy of Leonid Brezhnev Events ( 1982 -- 1985 ) RYAN Korean Air Lines Flight 007 1983 false nuclear alarm incident Able Archer 83 1984 Summer Olympics boycott Friendship Games Politburo members 22nd 23rd 24th 25th 26th Aliyev Andropov Brezhnev Chebrikov Chernenko Demichev Dolgikh Efremov Gorbachev Grechko Grishin Gromyko Kirilenko Kiselyov Kunaev Kosygin Kulakov Kuznetsov Masherov Mazurov Mikoyan Mzhavanadze Pelše Podgorny Polyansky Ponomarev Rashidov Romanov Shcherbytsky Shelepin Shelest Shevardnadze Shvernik Solomentsev Suslov Tikhonov Ustinov Voronov Vorotnikov Leaders The Troika ( Brezhnev Kosygin Podgorny ) Yuri Andropov Konstantin Chernenko Governments Kosygin 's 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Tikhonov 's 1st 2nd National economy Reforms OGAS 1965 1973 1979 Food Programme 1984 Five - year plans 8th plan 9th plan 10th plan 11th plan Brezhnev 's family Churbanov ( son - in - law ) Galina ( daughter ) Lyubov ( niece ) Viktoria ( wife ) Yakov ( brother ) Yuri ( son ) Soviet Union portal History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Organization Congress Conference General Secretary Politburo Secretariat Orgburo Central Committee Control Commission Auditing Commission Komsomol Young Pioneers Pravda Congress 1st ( 1898 ) 2nd ( 1903 ) 3rd ( 1905 ) 4th ( 1906 ) 5th ( 1907 ) 6th ( 1917 ) 7th ( 1918 ) 8th ( 1919 ) 9th ( 1920 ) 10th ( 1921 ) 11th ( 1922 ) 12th ( 1923 ) 13th ( 1924 ) 14th ( 1925 ) 15th ( 1927 ) 16th ( 1930 ) 17th ( 1934 ) 18th ( 1939 ) 19th ( 1952 ) 20th ( 1956 ) 21st ( 1959 ) 22nd ( 1961 ) 23rd ( 1966 ) 24th ( 1971 ) 25th ( 1976 ) 26th ( 1981 ) 27th ( 1986 ) 28th ( 1990 ) Conference 1st ( 1905 ) 2nd ( 1906 ) 3rd ( August 1907 ) 4th ( November 1907 ) 5th ( 1908 ) 6th ( 1912 ) 7th ( 1917 ) 8th ( 1919 ) 9th ( 1920 ) 10th ( May 1921 ) 11th ( December 1921 ) 12th ( 1922 ) 13th ( 1924 ) 14th ( 1925 ) 15th ( 1926 ) 16th ( 1929 ) 17th ( 1932 ) 18th ( 1941 ) 19th ( 1988 ) Party leadership Party leaders Vladimir Lenin ( 1912 -- 1924 ) Joseph Stalin ( 1929 -- 1953 ) Nikita Khrushchev ( 1953 -- 1964 ) Leonid Brezhnev ( 1964 -- 1982 ) Yuri Andropov ( 1982 -- 1984 ) Konstantin Chernenko ( 1984 -- 1985 ) Mikhail Gorbachev ( 1985 -- 1991 ) Politburo Aug. -- Oct. 1917 Oct. -- Dec. 1917 6th ( 1917 -- 18 ) 7th ( 1918 -- 19 ) 8th ( 1919 -- 20 ) 9th ( 1920 -- 21 ) 10th ( 1921 -- 22 ) 11th ( 1922 -- 23 ) 12th ( 1923 -- 24 ) 13th ( 1924 -- 25 ) 14th ( 1926 -- 27 ) 15th ( 1927 -- 30 ) 16th ( 1930 -- 34 ) 17th ( 1934 -- 39 ) 18th ( 1939 -- 52 ) 19th ( 1952 -- 56 ) 20th -- 21st ( 1956 -- 61 ) 22nd ( 1961 -- 66 ) 23rd ( 1966 -- 71 ) 24th ( 1971 -- 76 ) 25th ( 1976 -- 81 ) 26th ( 1981 -- 86 ) 27th ( 1986 -- 90 ) 28th ( 1990 -- 91 ) Secretariat 6th ( 1917 -- 18 ) 7th ( 1918 -- 19 ) 8th ( 1919 -- 20 ) 9th ( 1920 -- 21 ) 10th ( 1921 -- 22 ) 11th ( 1922 -- 23 ) 12th ( 1923 -- 24 ) 13th ( 1924 -- 25 ) 14th ( 1926 -- 27 ) 15th ( 1927 -- 30 ) 16th ( 1930 -- 34 ) 17th ( 1934 -- 39 ) 18th ( 1939 -- 52 ) 19th ( 1952 -- 56 ) 20th -- 21st ( 1956 -- 61 ) 22nd ( 1961 -- 66 ) 23rd ( 1966 -- 71 ) 24th ( 1971 -- 76 ) 25th ( 1976 -- 81 ) 26th ( 1981 -- 86 ) 27th ( 1986 -- 90 ) 28th ( 1990 -- 91 ) Orgburo 7th ( Jan. -- Mar. 1919 ) 8th ( 1919 -- 20 ) 9th ( 1920 -- 21 ) 10th ( 1921 -- 22 ) 11th ( 1922 -- 23 ) 12th ( 1923 -- 24 ) 13th ( 1924 -- 26 ) 14th ( 1926 -- 27 ) 15th ( 1927 -- 30 ) 16th ( 1930 -- 34 ) 17th ( 1934 -- 39 ) 18th ( 1939 -- 52 ) Central Control Commission 9th ( 1920 -- 21 ) 10th ( 1921 -- 22 ) 11th ( 1922 -- 23 ) 12th ( 1923 -- 24 ) 13th ( 1924 -- 25 ) 14th ( 1926 -- 27 ) 15th ( 1927 -- 30 ) 16th ( 1930 -- 34 ) 17th ( 1934 -- 39 ) 18th ( 1939 -- 52 ) 19th ( 1952 -- 56 ) 20th -- 21st ( 1956 -- 61 ) 22nd ( 1961 -- 66 ) 23rd ( 1966 -- 71 ) 24th ( 1971 -- 76 ) 25th ( 1976 -- 81 ) 26th ( 1981 -- 86 ) 27th ( 1986 -- 90 ) 28th ( 1990 -- 91 ) Central Committee 1st ( 1898 -- 1903 ) 2nd ( 1903 -- 05 ) 3rd ( 1905 -- 06 ) 4th ( 1906 -- 07 ) 5th ( 1907 -- 12 ) 6th ( 1912 -- 17 ) 7th ( Apr. -- Aug. 1917 ) 8th ( 1917 -- 18 ) 9th ( 1918 -- 19 ) 10th ( 1919 -- 20 ) 11th ( 1920 -- 21 ) 12th ( 1921 -- 22 ) 13th ( 1922 -- 23 ) 14th ( 1923 -- 24 ) 15th ( 1924 -- 25 ) 16th ( 1926 -- 27 ) 17th ( 1927 -- 30 ) 18th ( 1930 -- 34 ) 19th ( 1934 -- 39 ) 20th ( 1939 -- 41 ) 21st ( 1941 -- 52 ) 19th ( 1952 -- 56 ) 20th ( 1956 -- 61 ) 22nd ( 1961 -- 66 ) 23rd ( 1966 -- 71 ) 24th ( 1971 -- 76 ) 25th ( 1976 -- 81 ) 26th ( 1981 -- 86 ) 27th ( 1986 -- 90 ) 28th ( 1990 -- 91 ) Central Auditing Commission 8th -- 9th ( 1919 -- 21 ) 10th -- 12th ( 1921 -- 24 ) 13th ( 1924 -- 25 ) 14th ( 1926 -- 27 ) 15th ( 1927 -- 30 ) 16th ( 1930 -- 34 ) 17th ( 1934 -- 39 ) 18th ( 1939 -- 52 ) 19th ( 1952 -- 56 ) 20th -- 21st ( 1956 -- 61 ) 22nd ( 1961 -- 66 ) 23rd ( 1966 -- 71 ) 24th ( 1971 -- 76 ) 25th ( 1976 -- 81 ) 26th ( 1981 -- 86 ) 27th ( 1986 -- 90 ) Departments of the Central Committee Administrative Organs Agriculture Chemical Industry Construction Culture Defence Industry Foreign Cadres General Heavy Industry Information International Light - and Food Industry Machine Industry Organisational - party Work Planning and Financial Organs Political Administration of the Ministry of Defence Propaganda Science and Education Trade and Consumers ' Services Transportation - Communications Republican branches Armenia Azerbaijan Byelorussia Bukhara Estonia Georgia Karelo - Finland Kazakhstan Khorezm Kirghizia Latvia Lithuania Moldavia Russian SFSR Tajikistan Transcaucasia Turkestan Turkmenistan Ukraine Uzbekistan See also General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia League of Russian Revolutionary Social Democracy Abroad League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class Siberian Social - Democratic Union Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad Heads of state of the Soviet Union Heads of state Kalinin ( 1922 -- 1946 ) Shvernik ( 1946 -- 1953 ) Voroshilov ( 1953 -- 1960 ) Brezhnev ( 1960 -- 1964 ) Mikoyan ( 1964 -- 1965 ) Podgorny ( 1965 -- 1977 ) Brezhnev ( 1977 -- 1982 ) Andropov ( 1983 -- 1984 ) Chernenko ( 1984 -- 1985 ) Gromyko ( 1985 -- 1988 ) Gorbachev ( 1988 -- 1991 ) Vice heads of state Kuznetsov ( 1977 -- 1986 ) Demichev ( 1986 -- 1988 ) Lukyanov ( 1988 -- 1990 ) Yanayev ( 1990 -- 1991 ) Presidents of Russian SFSR Presidents of Russia Leaders of the ruling Communist parties of the Eastern Bloc Communist Party of the Soviet Union Vladimir Lenin Joseph Stalin Georgy Malenkov Nikita Khrushchev Leonid Brezhnev Yuri Andropov Konstantin Chernenko Mikhail Gorbachev Party of Labour of Albania Enver Hoxha Ramiz Alia Bulgarian Communist Party Georgi Dimitrov Valko Chervenkov Todor Zhivkov Petar Mladenov Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Klement Gottwald Antonín Novotný Alexander Dubček Gustáv Husák Miloš Jakeš Karel Urbánek Socialist Unity Party of Germany Wilhelm Pieck Walter Ulbricht Erich Honecker Egon Krenz Hungarian Working People 's Party Hungarian Socialist Workers ' Party Mátyás Rákosi Ernő Gerő János Kádár Károly Grósz Polish Workers ' Party Polish United Workers ' Party Bolesław Bierut Edward Ochab Władysław Gomułka Edward Gierek Stanisław Kania Wojciech Jaruzelski Mieczysław Rakowski Romanian Communist Party Gheorghe Gheorghiu - Dej Gheorghe Apostol Nicolae Ceaușescu League of Communists of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito ( 1980 -- 1990, rotating leadership ) Revolutions of 1989 Internal background Era of Stagnation Communism Anti-communism Criticism of communist party rule Eastern Bloc Eastern Bloc economies Eastern Bloc politics Eastern Bloc media and propaganda Eastern Bloc emigration and defection KGB Nomenklatura Shortage economy Totalitarianism Eastern European anti-Communist insurgencies International background Active measures Cold War List of socialist states People Power Revolution Predictions of the dissolution of the Soviet Union Reagan Doctrine Soviet Empire Terrorism and the Soviet Union Vatican Opposition Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia Reforms Uskoreniye Perestroika Democratization in the Soviet Union Khozraschyot 500 Days Sinatra Doctrine Glasnost Socialism with Chinese characteristics Đổi mới Government leaders Ramiz Alia Nicolae Ceaușescu Mikhail Gorbachev Károly Grósz Erich Honecker Miloš Jakeš Egon Krenz Wojciech Jaruzelski Slobodan Milošević Mathieu Kérékou Mengistu Haile Mariam Ne Win Denis Sassou Nguesso Heng Samrin Deng Xiaoping Todor Zhivkov Siad Barre Opposition methods Civil resistance Demonstrations Human chains Magnitizdat Polish underground press Protests Samizdat Strike action Opposition leaders Lech Wałęsa Václav Havel Alexander Dubček Ion Iliescu Liu Gang Wu'erkaixi Chai Ling Wang Dan Feng Congde Tank Man Joachim Gauck Sali Berisha Sanjaasürengiin Zorig Vladimir Bukovsky Boris Yeltsin Viacheslav Chornovil Vytautas Landsbergis Zianon Pazniak Zhelyu Zhelev Aung San Suu Kyi Meles Zenawi Isaias Afwerki Viktor Orbán Ronald Reagan George H.W. Bush Pope John Paul II Opposition movements Beijing Students ' Autonomous Federation Charter 77 New Forum Civic Forum Democratic Party of Albania Democratic Russia Initiative for Peace and Human Rights Sąjūdis Peaceful Revolution People 's Movement of Ukraine Solidarity Popular Front of Latvia Popular Front of Estonia Public Against Violence Belarusian Popular Front National League for Democracy National Salvation Front Unification Church political activities Union of Democratic Forces Events by location Central and Eastern Europe Albania Bulgaria Czechoslovakia East Germany Hungary Poland Romania Soviet Union Yugoslavia Czechoslovakia Soviet Union Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus Chechnya Estonia Georgia Latvia Lithuania Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Moldova Russia Tajikstan Turkmenistan Ukraine Uzbekistan Elsewhere Afghanistan Angola Benin Burma Cambodia China Congo - Brazzaville Ethiopia Mongolia Mozambique Somalia South Yemen Individual events 1988 Polish strikes April 9 tragedy Black January Baltic Way 1987 -- 89 Tibetan unrest Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Removal of Hungary 's border fence with Austria Polish Round Table Agreement Hungarian Round Table Talks Pan-European Picnic Monday Demonstrations Alexanderplatz demonstration Malta Summit German reunification January Events in Lithuania January Events in Latvia 1991 protests in Belgrade August Coup Dissolution of the Soviet Union Later events Colour revolution Decommunization Lustration Democratization Economic liberalization Post-Soviet conflicts Neo-Sovietism Neo-Stalinism Post-communism Yugoslav Wars Pink Tide Cold War USA USSR ANZUS NATO Non-Aligned Movement SEATO Warsaw Pact Cold War II 1940s Morgenthau Plan Hukbalahap Rebellion Jamaican conflict Dekemvriana Percentages agreement Yalta Conference Guerrilla war in the Baltic states Forest Brothers Operation Priboi Operation Jungle Occupation of the Baltic states Cursed soldiers Operation Unthinkable Operation Downfall Potsdam Conference Gouzenko Affair Division of Korea Operation Masterdom Operation Beleaguer Operation Blacklist Forty Iran crisis of 1946 Greek Civil War Baruch Plan Corfu Channel incident Turkish Straits crisis Restatement of Policy on Germany First Indochina War Truman Doctrine Asian Relations Conference May 1947 Crises Marshall Plan Comecon 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état Tito -- Stalin Split Berlin Blockade Western betrayal Iron Curtain Eastern Bloc Western Bloc Chinese Civil War ( Second round ) Malayan Emergency Albanian Subversion 1950s Papua conflict Bamboo Curtain Korean War McCarthyism Algerian War Egyptian Revolution of 1952 1953 Iranian coup d'état Uprising of 1953 in East Germany Dirty War ( Mexico ) Bricker Amendment 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état Partition of Vietnam Vietnam War First Taiwan Strait Crisis Geneva Summit ( 1955 ) Bandung Conference Poznań 1956 protests Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Yemeni -- Adenese clan violence Suez Crisis `` We will bury you '' Ifni War Operation Gladio Arab Cold War Syrian Crisis of 1957 1958 Lebanon crisis Iraqi 14 July Revolution Sputnik crisis Second Taiwan Strait Crisis 1959 Tibetan uprising Cuban Revolution Kitchen Debate Sino - Soviet split 1960s Congo Crisis Simba rebellion 1960 U-2 incident Bay of Pigs Invasion 1960 Turkish coup d'état Soviet -- Albanian split Berlin Crisis of 1961 Berlin Wall Portuguese Colonial War Angolan War of Independence Guinea - Bissau War of Independence Mozambican War of Independence Cuban Missile Crisis El Porteñazo Sino - Indian War Communist insurgency in Sarawak Iraqi Ramadan Revolution Eritrean War of Independence Sand War North Yemen Civil War Aden Emergency 1963 Syrian coup d'état Vietnam War Shifta War Guatemalan Civil War Colombian conflict Nicaraguan Revolution 1964 Brazilian coup d'état Dominican Civil War South African Border War Transition to the New Order ( Indonesia ) Domino theory ASEAN Declaration Laotian Civil War 1966 Syrian coup d'état Argentine Revolution Korean DMZ Conflict Greek military junta of 1967 -- 74 Years of Lead ( Italy ) USS Pueblo incident Six - Day War War of Attrition Dhofar Rebellion Al - Wadiah War Nigerian Civil War Protests of 1968 French May Tlatelolco massacre Cultural Revolution Prague Spring 1968 Polish political crisis Communist insurgency in Malaysia Invasion of Czechoslovakia Iraqi Ba'athist Revolution 1969 Libyan coup d'état Goulash Communism Sino - Soviet border conflict CPP -- NPA -- NDF rebellion Corrective Move 1970s Détente Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Black September in Jordan Corrective Movement ( Syria ) Cambodian Civil War Koza riot Realpolitik Ping - pong diplomacy Uganda -- Tanzania War 1971 Turkish military memorandum Corrective Revolution ( Egypt ) Four Power Agreement on Berlin Bangladesh Liberation War 1972 Nixon visit to China North Yemen - South Yemen Border conflict of 1972 Yemenite War of 1972 Communist insurgency in Bangladesh NDF Rebellion Eritrean Civil Wars 1973 Uruguayan coup d'état 1973 Chilean coup d'état Yom Kippur War 1973 oil crisis Carnation Revolution Spanish transition Metapolitefsi Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Rhodesian Bush War Angolan Civil War Mozambican Civil War Oromo conflict Ogaden War Western Sahara War Ethiopian Civil War Lebanese Civil War Sino - Albanian split Cambodian -- Vietnamese War Operation Condor Dirty War ( Argentina ) 1976 Argentine coup d'état German Autumn Korean Air Lines Flight 902 Yemenite War of 1979 Grand Mosque seizure Iranian Revolution Saur Revolution Sino - Vietnamese War New Jewel Movement 1979 Herat uprising Seven Days to the River Rhine Struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union 1980s Soviet -- Afghan War 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics boycotts 1980 Turkish coup d'état Peruvian conflict Gulf of Sidra incident Casamance conflict Ugandan Bush War Lord 's Resistance Army insurgency Eritrean Civil Wars 1982 Ethiopian -- Somali Border War Ndogboyosoi War United States invasion of Grenada Able Archer 83 Star Wars Iran -- Iraq War Somali Rebellion 1986 Black Sea incident 1988 Black Sea bumping incident South Yemen Civil War Bougainville Civil War 8888 Uprising Solidarity Soviet reaction Contras Central American crisis RYAN Korean Air Lines Flight 007 People Power Revolution Glasnost Perestroika Nagorno - Karabakh War Afghan Civil War United States invasion of Panama 1988 Polish strikes Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Revolutions of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall Velvet Revolution Romanian Revolution Peaceful Revolution Die Wende 1990s Mongolian Revolution of 1990 German reunification Yemeni unification Fall of communism in Albania Breakup of Yugoslavia Dissolution of the Soviet Union Dissolution of Czechoslovakia Frozen conflicts Abkhazia China - Taiwan Korea Nagorno - Karabakh South Ossetia Transnistria Sino - Indian border dispute North Borneo dispute Foreign policy Truman Doctrine Containment Eisenhower Doctrine Domino theory Hallstein Doctrine Kennedy Doctrine Peaceful coexistence Ostpolitik Johnson Doctrine Brezhnev Doctrine Nixon Doctrine Ulbricht Doctrine Carter Doctrine Reagan Doctrine Rollback Sovereignty of Puerto Rico during the Cold War Ideologies Capitalism Chicago school Keynesianism Monetarism Neoclassical economics Reaganomics Supply - side economics Thatcherism Communism Marxism -- Leninism Castroism Eurocommunism Guevarism Hoxhaism Juche Maoism Trotskyism Naxalism Stalinism Titoism Other Fascism Islamism Liberal democracy Social democracy Third - Worldism White supremacy Apartheid Organizations ASEAN CIA Comecon EEC KGB MI6 Non-Aligned Movement SAARC Safari Club Stasi Propaganda Active measures Crusade for Freedom Izvestia Pravda Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Red Scare TASS Voice of America Voice of Russia Races Arms race Nuclear arms race Space Race See also Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War Soviet espionage in the United States Soviet Union -- United States relations USSR -- USA summits Russian espionage in the United States American espionage in the Soviet Union and Russian Federation Russia -- NATO relations Brinkmanship CIA and the Cultural Cold War Cold War II Category Commons Portal Timeline List of conflicts Soviet -- Afghan War Part of the War in Afghanistan and the Cold War Belligerents Alliance Soviet Union Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Mujahideen Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen Jamiat - e Islami Shura - e Nazar Hezb - e Islami Gulbuddin Maktab al - Khidamat Hezb - e Islami Khalis Hezb - e Wahdat Ittehad i - Islami Leaders Alliance Leonid Brezhnev Yuri Andropov Konstantin Chernenko Mikhail Gorbachev Babrak Karmal Mohammad Najibullah Abdul Rashid Dostum Mujahideen Ahmad Shah Massoud Abdul Ali Mazari Abdullah Yusuf Azzam Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Abdul Haq Abdul Rahim Wardak Burhanuddin Rabbani Events by year 1979 1980 1981 1982 1984 1985 1986 1988 1989 Military operations Operation Storm - 333 3 Hoot uprising Siege of Khost Panjshir offensives Siege of Urgun Battle of Maravar Pass Badaber uprising Battles of Zhawar Battle of Jaji Battle of Arghandab ( 1987 ) Operation Magistral Battle for Hill 3234 Operation Arrow Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan Related topics Soviet aircraft losses War in popular culture Military equipment used by Mujahideen Afghanistan War Memorial, Kiev Films about war The 9th Company Afghan Breakdown Afghantsi All Costs Paid The Beast Cargo 200 Charlie Wilson 's War The Kite Runner The Living Daylights The Magic Mountain Peshavar Waltz Rambo III Category Portal Multimedia Nagorno - Karabakh conflict Background Nagorno - Karabakh History Deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia Dissolution of the Soviet Union Karabakh movement Miatsum Armenians in Azerbaijan Armenians in Baku Azerbaijanis in Armenia Anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan Anti-Azerbaijani sentiment in Armenia Armenia -- Azerbaijan relations Nagorno - Karabakh War Askeran clash Sumgait pogrom Kirovabad pogrom Baku pogrom Battle of Kalbajar Capture of Shusha Black January Zvartnots Airport clash Siege of Stepanakert Khojaly Massacre Maraga massacre Mardakert and Martuni Offensives Law on Abolishment of Nagorno - Karabakh Autonomous Oblast 1991 Azerbaijani Mil Mi - 8 shootdown 1992 Azerbaijani Mil Mi - 8 shootdown Operation Goranboy Operation Ring 1993 Summer Offensives 1994 Bagratashen bombing Post-war clashes 2008 Mardakert skirmishes February 2010 Nagorno - Karabakh skirmish 2010 Mardakert skirmishes 2012 Armenian -- Azerbaijani border clashes 2014 Armenian -- Azerbaijani clashes 2014 Armenian Mil Mi - 24 shootdown 2016 Nagorno - Karabakh clashes 2018 Armenian -- Azerbaijani clashes Main locations Administrative divisions of the Republic of Artsakh Stepanakert Askeran Province Hadrut Province Kashatagh Province Martakert Province Martuni Province Shahumyan Province Shushi Province Armenian - controlled territories Agdam District Fuzuli District Jabrayil District Kalbajar District Lachin District Qubadli District Zangilan District Political leaders Armenia Levon Ter - Petrosyan Robert Kocharyan Serzh Sargsyan Nikol Pashinyan Republic of Artsakh Artur Mkrtchyan Robert Kocharyan Leonard Petrosyan Arkadi Ghukasyan Bako Sahakyan Azerbaijan Ayaz Mutallibov Abulfaz Elchibey Heydar Aliyev Ilham Aliyev Azerbaijani Community of Nagorno - Karabakh Bayram Safarov Nizami Bahmanov Russia Boris Yeltsin Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev Turkey Turgut Özal Military leaders Armenia Vazgen Sargsyan Gurgen Dalibaltayan Norat Ter - Grigoryants Jirair Sefilian Republic of Artsakh Samvel Babayan Kristapor Ivanyan Arkady Ter - Tadevosyan Monte Melkonian Azerbaijan Isgandar Hamidov Rahim Gaziyev Surat Huseynov Valeh Barshadly Russia Pavel Grachev Soviet Union Viktor Polyanichko Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Shamil Basayev Afghanistan Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Peace process Baker rules Bishkek Protocol Tehran Communiqué Zheleznovodsk Communiqué OSCE Minsk Group Prague Process Madrid Principles International documents Astrakhan Declaration Nagorno - Karabakh Declaration NATO Lisbon Summit Declaration OIC Resolution 10 / 11 OIC Resolution 10 / 37 PACE Resolution 1416 UNGA Resolution 62 / 243 UNSC Resolutions 822 853 874 884 Time Persons of the Year 1927 -- 1950 Charles Lindbergh ( 1927 ) Walter Chrysler ( 1928 ) Owen D. Young ( 1929 ) Mohandas Gandhi ( 1930 ) Pierre Laval ( 1931 ) Franklin D. Roosevelt ( 1932 ) Hugh S. Johnson ( 1933 ) Franklin D. Roosevelt ( 1934 ) Haile Selassie ( 1935 ) Wallis Simpson ( 1936 ) Chiang Kai - shek / Soong Mei - ling ( 1937 ) Adolf Hitler ( 1938 ) Joseph Stalin ( 1939 ) Winston Churchill ( 1940 ) Franklin D. Roosevelt ( 1941 ) Joseph Stalin ( 1942 ) George Marshall ( 1943 ) Dwight D. Eisenhower ( 1944 ) Harry S. Truman ( 1945 ) James F. Byrnes ( 1946 ) George Marshall ( 1947 ) Harry S. Truman ( 1948 ) Winston Churchill ( 1949 ) The American Fighting - Man ( 1950 ) 1951 -- 1975 Mohammed Mosaddeq ( 1951 ) Elizabeth II ( 1952 ) Konrad Adenauer ( 1953 ) John Foster Dulles ( 1954 ) Harlow Curtice ( 1955 ) Hungarian Freedom Fighters ( 1956 ) Nikita Khrushchev ( 1957 ) Charles de Gaulle ( 1958 ) Dwight D. Eisenhower ( 1959 ) U.S. Scientists : George Beadle / Charles Draper / John Enders / Donald A. Glaser / Joshua Lederberg / Willard Libby / Linus Pauling / Edward Purcell / Isidor Rabi / Emilio Segrè / William Shockley / Edward Teller / Charles Townes / James Van Allen / Robert Woodward ( 1960 ) John F. Kennedy ( 1961 ) Pope John XXIII ( 1962 ) Martin Luther King Jr. ( 1963 ) Lyndon B. Johnson ( 1964 ) William Westmoreland ( 1965 ) The Generation Twenty - Five and Under ( 1966 ) Lyndon B. Johnson ( 1967 ) The Apollo 8 Astronauts : William Anders / Frank Borman / Jim Lovell ( 1968 ) The Middle Americans ( 1969 ) Willy Brandt ( 1970 ) Richard Nixon ( 1971 ) Henry Kissinger / Richard Nixon ( 1972 ) John Sirica ( 1973 ) King Faisal ( 1974 ) American Women : Susan Brownmiller / Kathleen Byerly / Alison Cheek / Jill Conway / Betty Ford / Ella Grasso / Carla Hills / Barbara Jordan / Billie Jean King / Susie Sharp / Carol Sutton / Addie Wyatt ( 1975 ) 1976 -- 2000 Jimmy Carter ( 1976 ) Anwar Sadat ( 1977 ) Deng Xiaoping ( 1978 ) Ayatollah Khomeini ( 1979 ) Ronald Reagan ( 1980 ) Lech Wałęsa ( 1981 ) The Computer ( 1982 ) Ronald Reagan / Yuri Andropov ( 1983 ) Peter Ueberroth ( 1984 ) Deng Xiaoping ( 1985 ) Corazon Aquino ( 1986 ) Mikhail Gorbachev ( 1987 ) The Endangered Earth ( 1988 ) Mikhail Gorbachev ( 1989 ) George H.W. Bush ( 1990 ) Ted Turner ( 1991 ) Bill Clinton ( 1992 ) The Peacemakers : Yasser Arafat / F.W. de Klerk / Nelson Mandela / Yitzhak Rabin ( 1993 ) Pope John Paul II ( 1994 ) Newt Gingrich ( 1995 ) David Ho ( 1996 ) Andrew Grove ( 1997 ) Bill Clinton / Ken Starr ( 1998 ) Jeffrey P. Bezos ( 1999 ) George W. Bush ( 2000 ) 2001 -- present Rudolph Giuliani ( 2001 ) The Whistleblowers : Cynthia Cooper / Coleen Rowley / Sherron Watkins ( 2002 ) The American Soldier ( 2003 ) George W. Bush ( 2004 ) The Good Samaritans : Bono / Bill Gates / Melinda Gates ( 2005 ) You ( 2006 ) Vladimir Putin ( 2007 ) Barack Obama ( 2008 ) Ben Bernanke ( 2009 ) Mark Zuckerberg ( 2010 ) The Protester ( 2011 ) Barack Obama ( 2012 ) Pope Francis ( 2013 ) Ebola Fighters : Dr. Jerry Brown / Dr. Kent Brantly / Ella Watson - Stryker / Foday Gollah / Salome Karwah ( 2014 ) Angela Merkel ( 2015 ) Donald Trump ( 2016 ) The Silence Breakers ( 2017 ) Book Laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize 1901 -- 1925 1901 Henry Dunant / Frédéric Passy 1902 Élie Ducommun / Charles Gobat 1903 Randal Cremer 1904 Institut de Droit International 1905 Bertha von Suttner 1906 Theodore Roosevelt 1907 Ernesto Moneta / Louis Renault 1908 Klas Arnoldson / Fredrik Bajer 1909 A.M.F. Beernaert / Paul Estournelles de Constant 1910 International Peace Bureau 1911 Tobias Asser / Alfred Fried 1912 Elihu Root 1913 Henri La Fontaine 1914 1915 1916 1917 International Committee of the Red Cross 1918 1919 Woodrow Wilson 1920 Léon Bourgeois 1921 Hjalmar Branting / Christian Lange 1922 Fridtjof Nansen 1923 1924 1925 Austen Chamberlain / Charles Dawes 1926 -- 1950 1926 Aristide Briand / Gustav Stresemann 1927 Ferdinand Buisson / Ludwig Quidde 1928 1929 Frank B. Kellogg 1930 Nathan Söderblom 1931 Jane Addams / Nicholas Butler 1932 1933 Norman Angell 1934 Arthur Henderson 1935 Carl von Ossietzky 1936 Carlos Saavedra Lamas 1937 Robert Cecil 1938 Nansen International Office for Refugees 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 International Committee of the Red Cross 1945 Cordell Hull 1946 Emily Balch / John Mott 1947 Friends Service Council / American Friends Service Committee 1948 1949 John Boyd Orr 1950 Ralph Bunche 1951 -- 1975 1951 Léon Jouhaux 1952 Albert Schweitzer 1953 George Marshall 1954 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 1955 1956 1957 Lester B. Pearson 1958 Georges Pire 1959 Philip Noel - Baker 1960 Albert Lutuli 1961 Dag Hammarskjöld 1962 Linus Pauling 1963 International Committee of the Red Cross / League of Red Cross Societies 1964 Martin Luther King Jr. 1965 UNICEF 1966 1967 1968 René Cassin 1969 International Labour Organization 1970 Norman Borlaug 1971 Willy Brandt 1972 1973 Lê Đức Thọ ( declined award ) / Henry Kissinger 1974 Seán MacBride / Eisaku Satō 1975 Andrei Sakharov 1976 -- 2000 1976 Betty Williams / Mairead Corrigan 1977 Amnesty International 1978 Anwar Sadat / Menachem Begin 1979 Mother Teresa 1980 Adolfo Pérez Esquivel 1981 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 1982 Alva Myrdal / Alfonso García Robles 1983 Lech Wałęsa 1984 Desmond Tutu 1985 International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War 1986 Elie Wiesel 1987 Óscar Arias 1988 UN Peacekeeping Forces 1989 Tenzin Gyatso ( 14th Dalai Lama ) 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev 1991 Aung San Suu Kyi 1992 Rigoberta Menchú 1993 Nelson Mandela / F.W. de Klerk 1994 Shimon Peres / Yitzhak Rabin / Yasser Arafat 1995 Pugwash Conferences / Joseph Rotblat 1996 Carlos Belo / José Ramos - Horta 1997 International Campaign to Ban Landmines / Jody Williams 1998 John Hume / David Trimble 1999 Médecins Sans Frontières 2000 Kim Dae - jung 2001 -- present 2001 United Nations / Kofi Annan 2002 Jimmy Carter 2003 Shirin Ebadi 2004 Wangari Maathai 2005 International Atomic Energy Agency / Mohamed ElBaradei 2006 Grameen Bank / Muhammad Yunus 2007 Al Gore / Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2008 Martti Ahtisaari 2009 Barack Obama 2010 Liu Xiaobo 2011 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf / Leymah Gbowee / Tawakkol Karman 2012 European Union 2013 Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons 2014 Kailash Satyarthi / Malala Yousafzai 2015 Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet 2016 Juan Manuel Santos 2017 International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons 2018 Denis Mukwege / Nadia Murad 1990 Nobel Prize laureates Chemistry Elias James Corey ( United States ) Literature Octavio Paz ( Mexico ) Peace Mikhail Gorbachev ( Soviet Union ) Physics Jerome I. Friedman ( United States ) Henry Way Kendall ( United States ) Richard E. Taylor ( Canada ) Physiology or Medicine Joseph E. Murray ( United States ) E. Donnall Thomas ( United States ) Economic Sciences Harry Markowitz ( United States ) Merton Miller ( United States ) William F. Sharpe ( United States ) Nobel Prize recipients 1990 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 2000 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Candidates in the Russian presidential election, 1996 Winner Boris Yeltsin Independent campaign Lost in runoff Gennady Zyuganov Communist Party campaign Other candidates Alexander Lebed KRO ( campaign ) Grigory Yavlinsky Yabloko ( campaign ) Vladimir Zhirinovsky LDPR ( campaign ) Svyatoslav Fyodorov PST Mikhail Gorbachev Independent ( campaign ) Martin Shakkum Independent Yury Vlasov Independent Vladimir Bryntsalov Independent Withdrew Aman Tuleyev Independent WorldCat Identities BIBSYS : 90559488 BNE : XX882424 BNF : cb12002384m ( data ) GND : 11874660X ISNI : 0000 0001 2096 6951 LCCN : n85050740 LNB : 000027559 NDL : 00441310 NKC : jn19990210249 NLA : 35782074 NSK : 000006473 SELIBR : 56647 SNAC : w60p14b7 SUDOC : 028127625 VIAF : 97859168 Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mikhail_Gorbachev&oldid=866440033 '' Categories : Mikhail Gorbachev 1931 births Russian presidential candidates, 1996 Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Club of Rome members Collars of the Order of the White Lion Communist rulers Grammy Award winners Grand Crosses Special Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Grawemeyer Award winners Heads of state of the Soviet Union Heads of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Honorary Members of the Russian Academy of Arts Living people Members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union Moscow State University alumni Nobel Peace Prize laureates People from Stavropol People of the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt People of the Soviet -- Afghan War Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Recipients of the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of St. Andrew Reformers Russian anti-capitalists Russian atheists Russian Nobel laureates Russian people of Ukrainian descent Russian politicians Russian social democrats Soviet Nobel laureates Soviet people of Ukrainian descent Hidden categories : Articles containing Russian - language text Articles with hAudio microformats CS1 maint : BOT : original - url status unknown CS1 Portuguese - language sources ( pt ) CS1 maint : Archived copy as title Webarchive template wayback links CS1 Danish - language sources ( da ) Use dmy dates from January 2018 Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from August 2010 All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from March 2018 Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with LNB identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with NSK identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC - ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers AC with 15 elements Talk Contents About Wikipedia Wikiquote Wikisource Afrikaans Alemannisch አማርኛ Aragonés Asturianu Aymar aru Azərbaycanca বাংলা Bân - lâm - gú Башҡортса Беларуская Беларуская ( тарашкевіца ) ‎ Bikol Central Български Bosanski Brezhoneg Català Чӑвашла Čeština Cymraeg Dansk Deutsch Eesti Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Français Frysk Gaeilge Gàidhlig Galego 贛 語 客家 語 / Hak - kâ - ngî 한국어 Հայերեն हिन्दी Hrvatski Ido Bahasa Indonesia Ирон Íslenska Italiano עברית Basa Jawa ಕನ್ನಡ ქართული Қазақша Kernowek Kurdî Кыргызча Кырык мары لۊری شومالی Latina Latviešu Lëtzebuergesch Lietuvių Lumbaart Magyar Македонски Malagasy മലയാളം Malti मराठी მარგალური مصرى مازِرونی Bahasa Melayu Mìng - dĕ̤ng - ngṳ̄ Монгол မြန်မာဘာသာ Nāhuatl Nederlands नेपाली नेपाल भाषा 日本 語 Nordfriisk Norsk Norsk nynorsk Occitan Олык марий ଓଡ଼ିଆ Oʻzbekcha / ўзбекча ਪੰਜਾਬੀ پنجابی Polski Português Română Runa Simi Русский Саха тыла संस्कृतम् Sardu Scots Shqip Sicilianu Simple English Slovenčina Slovenščina Ślůnski کوردی Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska Tagalog தமிழ் Татарча / tatarça ไทย Тоҷикӣ Türkçe Українська اردو Vèneto Tiếng Việt Walon Winaray Yorùbá 粵語 中文 Kabɩyɛ Lingua Franca Nova 115 more Edit links This page was last edited on 30 October 2018, at 10 : 29 ( UTC ). 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Question: who was the president of russia in 1989
Answer: Mikhail Gorbachev