Question: What age did Mikhail Gorbachev become a member of the Politburo?
About the article "Dissolution of the Soviet Union", section "Soviet Union centre – the new General Secretary".

Candidate passages:
Soviet Union centre – the new General Secretary.
Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo on 11 March 1985, only three hours after Konstantin Chernenko's death.
At age 54, he was the youngest member of the Politburo.
Gorbachev's primary goal as General Secretary was to revive the Soviet economy after the stagnant Brezhnev years.
In an effort to revive the stagnant Soviet economy, in 1985 new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began a process of increasing political liberalization (glasnost/perestroika) in the communist one-party state.
In 1985, he announced that the Soviet economy was stalled and that reorganization was needed.
Gorbachev soon realized that fixing the Soviet economy would be nearly impossible without reforming the political and social structure of the Communist nation.
The reforms began in personnel changes.
On 23 April 1985 Gorbachev brought his two proteges Yegor Ligachev, and Nikolai Ryzhkov into the Politburo as full members, and sensibly took the opportunity to keep the 'power' ministries happy by promoting KGB Head Viktor Chebrikov from candidate to full member of the Politburo, and appointing Minister of Defence Marshal Sergei Sokolov a Politburo candidate member.
Nikonov was brought into the CPSU Central Committee Secretariat.
However, this liberalization led to the emergence from 1986 onwards of nationalist movements and ethnic disputes within the diverse republics of the Soviet Union.
It also led to the revolutions of 1989, which saw the mainly peaceful (Romania excepted) toppling of the Soviet imposed Communist regimes of the Warsaw Pact, which in turn increased pressure on Gorbachev to introduce greater democracy and autonomy for the Soviet Union's constituent republics.
Under Gorbachev's leadership, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1989 introduced limited competitive elections to a new central legislature, the Congress of People's Deputies, although a ban on other political parties was not lifted until 1990.
A 17 March 1991 referendum showed 76.4% of Soviet citizens voting to retain the Union.
However, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Georgia, and Armenia did not participate.
In May 1985 in Leningrad Gorbachev made a speech advocating widespread reforms.
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 a serious blow to the state budget, a loss of approximately 100 billion rubles according to Alexander Yakovlev, after alcohol production migrated to the black market economy.
The purpose of these reforms, however, was to prop up the existing centrally planned economy, unlike later reforms, which tended toward market socialism.
On 1 July 1985 Gorbachev promoted Eduard Shevardnadze First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party to full member of the Politburo, and the following day appointed Shevardnadze as Minister of Foreign Affairs replacing Andrei Gromyko.
Gromyko, disparaged as "Mr Nyet" in the West, had served for 28 years as Minister of Foreign Affairs and was considered an 'old thinker' who was kicked upstairs to the mainly ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, which was officially Soviet Head of State.
Also on July 1, 1985 Gorbachev took the opportunity to dispose of his main rival by removing Grigory Romanov from the Politburo, and brought Boris Yeltsin and Lev Zaikov into the CPSU Central Committee Secretariat.
In the fall Gorbachev continued his program to bring forward younger and more energetic men into the government.
On September 27, 1985 Nikolai Ryzhkov replaced 79 year old Nikolai Tikhonov as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, effectively the Soviet Prime Minister, and on 14 October 1985 Nikolai Talyzin replaced Nikolai Baibakov as Chairman of the State Planning Committee (GOSPLAN).
At the next Central Committee meeting on 15 October 1985 Tikhonov retired from the Politburo and Nikolai Talyzin became a candidate member.
Finally on 23 December 1985 Gorbachev appointed Boris Yeltsin First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party replacing Viktor Grishin.
Andropov was elected the party's General Secretary on 12 November 1982 by a decision of the Central Committee.
The Central Committee meeting was held less than 24 hours after the announcement of Brezhnev's death.
A.R.
Judson Mitchell claims that the Central Committee meeting which elected Andropov as General Secretary, was little more than a rubber stamp meeting.
Andropov was in a good position to take over the control of the party apparatus; three big system hierarchs, Brezhnev, Kosygin and Suslov had all died.
A fourth, Kirilenko, was forced into retirement.
At the Central Committee meeting of 22 November 1982, Kirilenko lost his membership in the Politburo (after a decision within the Politburo itself), and Nikolai Ryzhkov, the Deputy Chairman of the State Planning Committee, was elected to the Secretariat.
Ryzhkov became the Head of the Economic Department of the Central Committee, and became the leading Central Committee member on matters regarding economic planning.
Shortly afterwards, Ryzhkov, after replacing Vladimir Dolgikh, began to oversee the civilian economy.
At the 14–15 June 1983 Central Committee meeting, Vitaly Vorotnikov was elected as a candidate member of the Politburo, Grigory Romanov was elected to the Secretariat and five members of the Central Committee were given full membership.
The election of Romanov in the Secretariat, weakened Chernenko's control considerably.
Later, Yegor Ligachev was appointed as Head of the Party Organisational Work Department of the Central Committee.
Certain Brezhnev appointees were kept, such as Viktor Chebrikov and Nikolai Savinkin.
With these appointments, Andropov effectively wielded the powers of the nomenklatura.
Even so, by the time he had succeeded in dominating the Central Committee, Andropov fell ill.
He was unable to attend the annual parade celebrating the victory of the October Revolution.
Chernenko, the official second-ranking secretary, competed for power with Mikhail Gorbachev.
The meetings of the Central Committee and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union were postponed to the last possible moment because of Andropov's health.
Changes continued however, and the Andropov appointees continued Andropov's course of introducing new blood into the Central Committee and Party apparatus.
Vorotnikov and Mikhail Solomentsev were given full membership in the Politburo, Chebrikov was elected a candidate member of the Politburo and Ligachev became a member of the Secretariat.
Chernenko's position began to look precarious; Gorbachev was getting stronger by the day.
Four days after Andropov's death, on 9 February 1984, Chernenko was elected as the party's General Secretary.
Chernenko was elected as a compromise candidate by the Politburo; the Central Committee could never have accepted another candidate, considering that the majority of the Central Committee members were old Brezhnev appointees.
The Politburo could not, despite its powers, elect a General Secretary not supported by the Central Committee.
Even so, several leading Politburo members supported Chernenko, such as Nikolai Tikhonov and Viktor Grishin.
To make matters worse for Chernenko, he did not have control over the Politburo; both Andrei Gromyko and Dmitriy Ustinov were both very independent politically, and the Politburo still contained several leading Andropov protégés, such as Gorbachev, Vorotnikov, Solomontsev and Heydar Aliyev.
Chernenko never got complete control over the Central Committee and Party apparatus; while Andropov never succeeded in removing the majority of Brezhnev appointees in the Central Committee, he had succeeding in dividing the Central Committee along factional lines.
In this confusion, Chernenko was never able to become a strong leader.
For example, Gorbachev quickly became the party's "de facto" Second Secretary, even though Chernenko did not support him.
The distribution of power within the Central Committee turned Chernenko into little more than a figurehead.
In contrast to previous general secretaries, Chernenko did not control the Cadre Department of the Central Committee, making Chernenko's position considerably weaker.
However, Chernenko did strengthen his position considerably at the beginning of 1985, not long before his death.
Chernenko died on 10 March 1985, and the Central Committee appointed Gorbachev General Secretary on 11 March. 
On 11 March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the CPSU by the Politburo after the death of Konstantin Chernenko.
Gorbachev's primary goal was to revive the Soviet economy; however, he soon realized that fixing the Soviet economy would be nearly impossible without reforming the political and social structure of the Communist nation.
To begin these reforms he immediately began gathering in Moscow a younger and more energetic governing team of Communist Party members.
On 4 April 1985 Yeltsin received a call from Gorbachev's leading protege Yegor Ligachev summoning him to Moscow to take up position as Head of the Construction Department of the Party's Central Committee.
Less than three months later he was promoted to be Secretary for Construction of the Central Committee, a position within the powerful CPSU Central Committee Secretariat.
On 23 December 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party, effectively 'Mayor' of the Soviet capital, and as a result, on 18 February 1986, Yeltsin was invited to become a Candidate (non-voting) Member of the Politburo.
As a politburo member Yeltsin was also given a country house (dacha) which was previously occupied by Gorbachev who now moved to a much bigger and more luxurious purpose built dacha nearby.
During this period, Yeltsin portrayed himself as a reformer and populist (for example, he took a trolleybus to work), firing and reshuffling his staff several times.
He became popular among Moscow residents for firing corrupt Moscow party officials.  
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 Agricultural Kraikom in 1963.
In 1970, he was appointed First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Kraikom, 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.
He was soon 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, who had supported Gorbachev's appointment, after Kulakov 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. 
Romanov was the second youngest member of the Politburo after Gorbachev.
In the months preceding the death of Konstantin Chernenko in March 1985, Romanov and Gorbachev were commonly regarded to be chief rivals in the succession struggle for the post of General Secretary.
Viktor Grishin was also considered a viable candidate.
However, after Chernenko's death Gorbachev emerged with the strongest position to succeed Chernenko.
Andrei Gromyko, one of the oldest and widely respected Politburo members, nominated Gorbachev for the position of General Secretary of CPSU, both at the March 11 meeting of Politburo and subsequently at the March 1985 Plenum (meeting) of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
Neither Romanov nor Grishin mounted a formal challenge to Gorbachev's bid and the votes in favor of Gorbachev, both in the March 11 meeting of Politburo and at the March Plenum, were unanimous.