Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mikhail Gorbachev: Facts About The Former President Of The Soviet Union

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The last leader of the Soviet Union, former President Mikhail Gorbachev, died on August 30 at 91. According to a statement from the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow, Gorbachev died after a long illness. Gorbachev is survived by a daughter and two granddaughters. His body will be interred in a Moscow cemetery alongside his wife. Let us take a look at the life and times of Mikhail Gorbachev.

Facts About Mikhail Gorbachev

In many ways, the former leader of the Soviet Union deserves most of the credit for ending the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States of America.

Mikhail Gorbachev: Early life

• On 2 March 1931, Mikhail Gorbachev was born in the village of Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, then a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, then a part of the Soviet Union.
• After graduating from Moscow State University, he studied law. He became a candidate member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
• According to his university friend Zdenk Mlyná, Gorbachev was a Stalinist in the early 1950s.
• As well as dismantling the hierarchical military society at home, Gorbachev sought to abolish grand-style, expensive imperialism abroad.

Mikhail Gorbachev: Communist Party

• Gorbachev joined the Communist Party as a candidate member in June 1950.
• Upon becoming First Secretary in 1961, he was promoted to First Secretary of the Stavropol City Party Organization in 1966. His main responsibilities were overseeing the irrigation system and increasing agricultural production.
• In the aftermath of Chernenko's death, Gorbachev was unanimously elected as the next General Secretary of the CPSU and the eighth (and final) supreme leader of the Soviet Union.

Mikhail Gorbachev: Ending the Cold War

• During that period, he developed close relationships with prominent leaders of the western bloc, such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
• In addition to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, he concluded nuclear arms deals with the United States that brought the two countries closer together to an extent not seen since they defeated Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
• Gorbachev brought the Soviet Union closer to the West than ever since World War II after decades of Cold War tension and confrontation.

Even though he is respected outside of Russia, he remains despised by his citizens. More than 70 per cent of Russians believe their country has suffered due to his tenure as supreme leader. It has been reported that Gorbachev has also been the most unpopular Russian leader of the 21st Century in the past.