Political biography of Gorbachev

The first and last: as Gorbachev became the president of the USSR, the decline in world oil prices in the beginning of the 10ths complicated the maintenance of the devouring enterprises on their burly resources. At the same time, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan, where they quickly got bogged down in a bloody partisan war, which was not visible. The war, international isolation, the promises of communist abundance that were not inherent in the post -war decades - all this undermined the confidence of the Soviet people to the authorities.

The manifestations of this distrust were diverse: alcoholism, theft of state property and more and more daring acts of disobedience to the regime. One of the predecessors of Gorbachev as Secretary General Yuri Andropov tried to save the system by twisting the nuts: the militia arranged raids on those who were absent in the workplace without a good reason, demonstrative trials over individual clans of corrupt bureaucrats and persecution of dissidents during the day.

But Andropov died, spending only about 15 months at the highest post, of which Konstantin Chernenko actually worked less - an old and sick person - he experienced his predecessor not very long and remained in history as a leader, practically not noticed by fellow citizens. Gorbachev, who was in his prime in his prime, took up the large -scale program of reforms, which he called "perestroika." Disappointment in Stalinism, the author of the photo, Getty images signature for the photo, Mikhail was brought up in a peasant family in the south of Russia Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born in a peasant family in the Stavropol Territory on March 2 of the year.

His family did not escape great terror, even if many others had been much worse: his mother’s grandfather was arrested for Trotskyism in the year - an accusation that is not true so much that a year later he was even released from arrest. Subsequently, Gorbachev will argue that it was this story that happened to his grandfather that forced the future Secretary General to change his views on the Soviet system.

But it will be much later. In Stalin's times, most people preferred to keep such thoughts with themselves and renounce "unreliable" relatives. In an interview with BBC, Gorbachev recalled that Stalin was the theme of his graduation work at school. And the story of his grandfather did not at all prevent the young collective farmer from climbing the social ladder. In the year, Gorbachev’s father, the combine, was distinguished by harvesting and received the Order of Lenin, and the teenage son who worked for him as an assistant - the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

At the age of 19, the lead and activist was recommended for members of the Communist Party and was accepted at the prestigious law faculty of Moscow State University. Moreover, without exams - that is, not for academic successes, but at the direction of party instances, who looked at the young man from the hinterland of a promising frame. Studying in Moscow opened Gorbachev new horizons.

Stalin died in the year. Gorbachev met and made friends with students from other countries - he called the Zdenek of Mlynarzh from Czechoslovakia, which is especially close to a friend, who long before Gorbachev came to power will become one of the architects of the Prague Spring, suppressed by Soviet tanks in the year. In the year they played a wedding.

He was quickly nominated for Komsomol work. Closely climbing the steps of the party hierarchy, in the year Gorbachev became the first secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee of the CPSU, and from a year as a member of the Central Committee. On the territory of the region were sanatoriums of the Caucasian mineral waters, where the elderly members of the Politburo regularly recovered health.

Meeting, escorting and comfortably arranging high guests from Moscow, Gorbachev got the necessary connections. On the evening of September 19, the special train of Leonid Brezhnev, who was following the rest, accompanied by Konstantin Chernenko, made a stop in mineral waters. Andropov, who at that time in the sanatorium "Red Stones", brought Gorbachev there. It is believed that it was then that the issue of transferring Gorbachev to the capital was resolved.

The author of the photo, Getty images signature for the photo, with Margaret Thatcher, Gorbachev had a warm relationship from the very beginning, a promising young politician repeatedly went abroad with visits, and he liked it there. He believed that the Soviet Union can learn a lot from "decaying capitalism". There, in the West, several historical acquaintances took place. In December, in London, Gorbachev met with Britain Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and liked her.

As Tatcher put it in an interview with BBC: "You can deal with this person." In Canada, Gorbachev made friends with the Soviet ambassador Alexander Yakovlev, who will become a key ally of the reforms he carried out. Glasnice and restructuring was on March 11 of the year at the top of the authorities, Gorbachev did not slow to signal the upcoming changes. During a trip to Leningrad, he went into the crowd - for the Soviet leaders, the act is very extraordinary.

Unlike predecessors, Gorbachev began to regularly show in public with his wife.In the West, this helped him form the image of a person who is not alien to nothing human. In the USSR, the elegant and erudite Raisa Maksimovna was joking in those years, "the first wife of the Soviet leader, weighing less than he" caused an ambiguous reaction. Many were inclined to exaggerate its political role, both the conservatives and the "restraints" were sure that she had a poor influence on her husband.

But quite quickly he spoke of other purposes - the “publicity” of the openness and transparency of state institutions, the opportunity to criticize them in the media, “new thinking” and, finally, “perestroika”. The test of the course for publicity was the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April. Within a few days, while the cloud of radioactive dust spread, residents of a significant part of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were ignorant or were forced to eat rumors on how to avoid danger.

Gorbachev’s attempt to curb mass drunkenness was a blow to the popularity of the reformer and had adverse economic consequences. Creation with the West Gorbachev believed that economic reforms require a reduction in the burden of military expenses, and for this it is necessary to build a more friendly relationship with the West. In the first half of the 10s, the Brezhnev “discharge” was replaced by a new exacerbation of relations between the East and the West: primarily because of the Afghan and Polish events and the tragedy of the South Korean Boeing.

The meeting of Gorbachev and Reagan in Geneva at the end of the year helped to break ice. Despite all the existing disagreements, both leaders managed to establish mutual understanding and launch the process of mutual reduction of nuclear weapons. Discreditation of the regime, meanwhile, inside the Soviet Union, the publicity policy released a genie from a bottle. Soviet people began to recognize the unsightly truth that they had been hiding from them for a long time: about the scale of the Stalinist repressions, secret protocols to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the luxurious life of the nomenclature, losses in Afghanistan and the "grandfature" in the army.

In conditions of publicity, discontent began to splash out openly. The nationalists who advocated the exit of the republics from the USSR and the creation of mono -ethnic states sometimes violated freedom and vowel. Interethnic clashes took place in Nagorno -Karabakh, Ferghana Valley, Transnistria. In the year, the Soviet leadership tried to enlist the support of the society, for the first time organizing relatively competitive elections of the Congress of People's Deputies.

When usually a boring Soviet state television began to broadcast the congress on the air, millions of inhabitants of a huge country could not come off the screens. People felt the helplessness of the party elite in the face of a mass movement for democratic changes. Local communists, on the advice of Moscow, began a dialogue with an underground opposition underground, agreed to free elections - and lost.

The culmination of this process was the fall of the most visible symbol of the Cold War - the Berlin Wall. The checkpoints at the border were open, and the eastern Germans began to ruin the wall. Formally, Germany will finally unite only in the year, but by that time the fate of the GDR was a long time ago, and Gorbachev forever gained the love of the Germans on both sides of the border.

In the year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The revolutions of the year turned out to be "velvet" in all countries of Eastern Europe, except for Romania. At the end of the year, the dictator Nikolai Chausko tried to suppress the protests that began. The attempt failed, the Soviet Union did not help Chausko, its own army turned against him.

The dictator was seized and shot. The country where the Communists managed to maintain power by force was China. Demonstrations on Tiananmen Square in Beijing in June were brutally crushed by the army. Personnel of reprisals greatly influenced public opinion in the Soviet Union, forcing many to wonder if supporters of the old order sitting in the Kremlin are capable of similar measures?

In the year, Boris Yeltsin, humiliating from the first secretaries of the Moscow city party committee, a year and a half later, despite the intrigues of party apparatus, was triumphantly elected a deputy from the Moscow National Territorial District, that is, from the entire population of the capital. In March, Gorbachev was elected president of the USSR, but not by citizens, but a congress, whose legitimacy was soaked.

The deputies were elected under the 6th article of the Constitution on the leading role of the CPSU, in the absence of an organized opposition everywhere except Moscow, Leningrad, Sverdlovsk and the Baltic states, a third of the deputy corps were representatives of public organizations. Many historians consider Gorbachev perhaps the main mistake of Gorbachev that he did not go to popular elections.

Fallowing attempts to force the separatist movements in one or the other republic led to the fact that local communists finally lost their influence.New politicians came in their place, increasingly persistently demanding independence. Yeltsin actually joined this process, who signed a declaration of state sovereignty of the RSFSR on June 12. In April, the Union leadership began Novo-Ogarev negotiations with the republics in order to translate relations with the latter on a contractual basis and give them more independence.

The coup of the year was signed by the Union Agreement on August 20. A day earlier, eight figures, six of whom were part of Gorbachev’s inner circle, staged a coup, announced a state of emergency and entered the troops into Moscow. Gorbachev was isolated in the country in Foros in Crimea. Three days later, thanks to the tough position of Yeltsin, the indecision of the conspirators and the Muscovites who went to defense of the White House, the putsch failed.

The real power was in the hands of Yeltsin, the Union Congress of Deputies self -disclosed, the activities of the CPSU were suspended, most of the republics rushed to independence. The desperate attempts by Gorbachev to preserve the reformed union under a different name did not meet the support of society. Gorbachev was confronted with the fact. After resignation, many people in the former Soviet Union still regret the collapse of the country.

Like the second president of post-Soviet Russia, Vladimir Putin, they consider this event the largest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century, which turned out to be painful economic reforms, and in some places armed conflicts. Many had guilty for this on Gorbachev. From the very beginning, none of the observers considered him otherwise as an outsider. Critics of Gorbachev in Russia were annoyed by his frequent trips abroad, where he was honored as a Nobel laureate, as well as a willingness to act in advertising products from pizza to designer bags.

In the year, Gorbachev served the death of Raisa's beloved wife from the leukemia. The last Soviet leader criticized Vladimir Putin’s policy, but with restraint enough. Speaking about the perniciousness of the sole power, comparing the United Russia party with the CPSU, condemning the clamp of the media, Gorbachev, nevertheless, more than once approved the foreign policy of the second president of Russia.

Gorbachev, with the support of a banker and a native of the KGB, Alexander Lebedev, became a shareholder of Novaya Gazeta, known for the revealing publications of abuse in power. In the year, in an interview with the BBC Summer Gorbachev, he again warned of the danger of nuclear weapons. We will save ourselves and the planet. "Mikhail Gorbachev had a daughter, two granddaughters and great -granddaughter.