Mikhail Gorbachev died at 91 on August 30, 2022, after a prolonged and severe illness. He led the Soviet Union from 1988 to 1991 and held the post of general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991
Mikhail Gorbachev: From Rags to Riches
Gorbachev was born in March 1931 in Privolnoye in southern Russia. He fought the Germans for accusing him at the age of 17 and won a rare honor of the red banner of labor at the age of 17. From a humble beginning as a farmer, he became the President of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev became the agricultural depart head for the Stavropol region in the Soviet Union. This kept him in the close realm of the country’s politics, helping him to acquire many titles, including the Chairman of Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, before becoming the President of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev is a rags-to-riches story of a man who spent his childhood in poverty. According to celebrity Net Worth, he left behind roughly $ 5 million at his death.
The Collapse of the Soviet Union
Gorbachev held the position of General Secretary of the USSR and President before it collapsed in 1991. He was only 54 and the youngest member of the Politburo. While he believed in the idea of the Soviet Union, he knew that the country had lost its way forward but was still redeemable.
Soviet Union’s defense budget was 25 percent of the GDP, crippling the country. It led to cuts in education, medical care, and social services expenditures. This hurt Gorbachev’s government legitimacy in the domestic arena. The huge military expenditure during the cold war was one of the causes of the Soviet decline.
Gorbachev transformed the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, traveled extensively, and convinced others that USSR was not a threat to other countries. His foreign policy changes led to the end of the cold war, democratizing Eastern Europe and depriving the Soviets of their ideological enemies. The Soviet ideology held over its people weekend after the economic problem became more severe. Rationing was brought in for basic food for the first time since Stalin.
There were calls for political reforms, decentralization increased, and nationality issues became a problem. Gorbachev had to use force in certain states like Azerbaijan, Georgia, and the Baltic states. The emergence of nationalism weakened Gorbachev’s hold on the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union collapsed in a slow and painful process, with the Americans’ ensuring NATO became a key player in Eastern Europe security, elbowing out Russia and brushing aside Gorbachev and later his successor Boris Yeltsin.
Boris Yeltsin
In March 1991, Gorbachev called for a referendum on the future of the Soviet federation. A direct presidential election was a part of the exercise, and Boris Yeltsin was chosen. Yeltsin used his legitimacy and asked for Gorbachev’s resignation, promoted the sovereignty of Russia, and adopted radical reforms in the economy. He acknowledged the right of independence of the Baltic countries.
Yeltsin’s policy was Russian nationalism, and he wanted Russia to dominate the republic. His declaration of Russian sovereignty prevented any possibility of Gorbachev’s effort to establish a Union of Sovereign Socialist Republics.
The Fall of Communism
Gorbachev initially followed the ideology of Marxism and Leninism, but by the early 1990s, he had moved towards social democracy. Gorbachev inducted Boris Yeltsin in 1985 to run the Mosque city machine, but Yeltsin came into conflict with the Politburo’s conservative members. He was removed in 1987, but when he returned to public life in 1989 as a Congress of People deputy. When he came to power after removing Gorbachev, he hammered the communist party, Gorbachev, and the slow economic reforms pace.
Perestroika and Glasnost
Gorbachev launched Perestroika, meaning restructuring when he headed the communist party in 1985. He wanted specific reforms to increase economic growth and bring the Soviet Union to par with the West. After a few years, he concluded that a bigger structural change was required.
He pushed for a semi-free market system. The consequence brought mixed results, and Gorbachev became unpopular.
Gorbachev introduced a new concept – the glasnost. The second part of the reform opened the Soviet society bringing in new freedoms in pre, cinema, music, and press. The policy pushed for restructuring the Soviet economy and making it more dynamic. He worked closely with US president Ronald Reagan and negotiated key arms control deals that brought down the cold war temperature.
The End of the Cold War
Gorbachev and US president George Bush, Sr, in a famous declaration in December 1989 at Malta Summit, brought the cold war to an end with Bush supporting the Perestroika. The two powers cut their arms stockpiles of nuclear weapons in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 1991.
War in Afghanistan
Gorbachev oversaw the soviet troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 after a decade-long failed campaign. He regarded the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as a political mistake that was depleting the precious resources of the Soviet Union, which was itself at the twilight of its existence.
Gorbachev’s Legacy
Gorbachev had a mixed legacy. His pivotal role at the end of the cold war between the two superpowers was a major achievement. In 1990 he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Yet he was blamed for the collapse of the Soviet Union. He won accolades from around the world but was despised at home. He had a humiliating decline toward the end of his leadership in 1991, and even today, his legacy is contested in Russia.
