Efforts to achieve a united Soviet people were severely damaged by the severe economic problems in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s resulting in a wave of anti-Soviet sentiment among non-Russians and Russians alike. Mikhail Gorbachev presented himself as a Soviet patriot dedicated to resolving the country's economic and political problems, but he was unable to restrain the rising regional and sectarian ethnic nationalism, with the USSR breaking up in 1991.