Mikhail Gorbachev - Biography

Last Editor: hussaigambo				Mikhail Gorbachev Biography -   Name : Mikhail Gorbachev Profession : Politician Birth name : Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov Spouse : Raisa Gorbachev (25 September 1953 - 20 September 1999) (her death) 1 child Trade mark : Birthmark on his head.

Mikhail Gorbachev Trivia -

Former leader of USSR. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. He resigned as USSR President on Christmas Day, 1991. Appeared in a commercial for Pizza Hut, making him the only Communist Party official to do advertising work. [1998]

Mikhail Gorbachev Detailed Biography -

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (help·info) (Russian: МихаиÌ?л СергеÌ?евич Горбачёв), IPA: , born March 2, 1931, was leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. His attempts at reform led to the end of the Cold War, but also caused the end of the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Mikhail Gorbachev was born into a peasant family in the village of Privolnoye near Stavropol. Gorbachev studied law at Moscow University, where he met his future wife, Raisa. They married in September 1953 and moved to Gorbachev's home region of Stavropol in southern Russia when he graduated in 1955. Gorbachev joined the CPSU in 1952 at the age of 21. In 1966, at age 35, he obtained a correspondence degree as an agronomist-economist from the Agricultural Institute. His career moved forward rapidly, and in 1970, he was appointed First Secretary for Agriculture and the following year made a member of the Central Committee. In 1972, he headed a Soviet delegation to Belgium and two years later, in 1974, he was made a Representative to the Supreme Soviet, and Chairman of the Standing Commission on Youth Affairs. In 1979, Gorbachev was promoted to the Politburo. There, he received the patronage of Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB and also a native of Stavropol, and was promoted during Andropov's brief time as leader of the Party before Andropov's death in 1984. 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. He was also close to Konstantin Chernenko, Andropov's successor, serving as second secretary. His positions within the new 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 1975, he led a delegation to West Germany, and in 1983 he headed a Soviet delegation to Canada to meet with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and members of the Canadian House of Commons and Senate. In 1984, he traveled to the United Kingdom, where he met with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Upon the death of Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev, at age 54, was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party on March 11, 1985. He became the Party's first leader to have been born after the Russian Revolution of 1917. As de facto ruler of the Soviet Union, he tried to reform the stagnating Communist Party and the state economy by introducing glasnost ("openness"), perestroika ("restructuring"), and uskoreniye ("acceleration", of economic development), which were launched at the 27th Congress of the CPSU in February 1986.