Mikhail Gorbachev Facts & Worksheets

• Mikhail Gorbachev grew up in a volatile political environment. When Gorbachev was a little child in the 1930s, he witnessed his mother's grandfather, Pantelei Gopkalo, being taken into custody during the Great Purge. 
• This traumatised him. Gopkalo spent 14 months in prison and under torture after being charged with being a Trotskyite counterrevolutionary. He was spared execution, much to the relief of his family. 
• Mikhail Gorbachev grew up in a turbulent economic environment. Southern Russia experienced a severe drought in 1933. The people of the area experienced hunger and many of them perished from starvation because farming was the main source of both food and revenue in the area.
• Gorbachev joined the Communist Party as a candidate in high school, but he was not given full membership until he was a student at Moscow University in 1952. After graduating, Gorbachev returned to Stavropol and accepted a job at the region's prosecutor's office. 
• Not long after taking the position, Gorbachev bumped into some old friends. They had known him from his time in high school when he was active in the Young Communist League. They urged Gorbachev to take up the position of deputy director of propaganda for the local Communist Youth League's territorial committee as he had demonstrated his dedication and organisation.

RISE TO POWER

• Young Communist Party activists found an exciting environment in the Soviet Union during the political restructuring process, which had begun two years before the death of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. After barely ten days on the job, Gorbachev, eager to become engaged, accepted the offer and resigned from the prosecutor's office.
• Gorbachev advanced through the Communist League ranks gradually. 
• He was appointed first Secretary of the Komsomol Committee of Stavropol City in 1956. 
• He was designated as a delegate to the party congress in 1961. 
• Gorbachev developed his political career and broadened his understanding of economics and agriculture during the 1960s, rising to the post of party leader and regional agricultural administrator. 
• When Gorbachev was admitted as a full member of the Politburo, also called the Political Bureau of the Central Agency, the executive council for various Communist Party factions, in 1980, it marked a significant turning point in his rapidly developing political career. 
• Yuri Andropov, the Communist Party's general secretary and Gorbachev's mentor at the Kremlin, passed away in 1984. In addition to being a significant year in Gorbachev's life narrative, 1984 saw him meet British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, with whom he would go on to become a close friend.

General Secretary

• After Andropov's successor, Konstantin Chernenko, passed away in 1985, Gorbachev was chosen to serve as the Communist Party's General Secretary. Serious internal concerns and rising Cold War tensions were among the challenges that Andropov and Chernenko had been unable to resolve when they came to Gorbachev's desk. Nonetheless, the Soviet Union felt that a new generation of leaders bent on constructive change had taken over thanks to Gorbachev's young vigour and excitement.
• Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan got involved in an expensive race to gather nuclear weapons in space when Gorbachev was general secretary. The cost significantly burdened the Soviet economy, which was already in trouble. Gorbachev put a lot of effort into enacting changes because he thought they would raise the level of living in the Soviet Union. He aimed for 'glasnost' and 'perestroika', openness and reformation, by giving the Soviets more freedom and democracy. His goal was to create a more socially conscious commercial economy. The goals of Gorbachev's reforms were cutting waste and raising production.
• Reagan and Gorbachev met at four more summits over the course of the following three years, during which time their friendship grew even closer as they worked together to end the Cold War. In addition to Reagan and Thatcher, Gorbachev fostered close relations with West German chancellor Helmut Kohl at this time.
• Regrettably, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion in the Ukraine on 26 April 1986 severely damaged US–Soviet ties. It took the Soviet Union almost two weeks after the incident to publish a comprehensive report. Some viewed Gorbachev's response as insincere given his 'openness' agenda.
• The tension between Reagan and Gorbachev was evident during the summits in Geneva in 1985 and Reykjavik in October 1986. 
• Reagan and Gorbachev differed in their support for the creation of a Strategic Defence Initiative. 
• Both summits came to an end. Gorbachev conceded to Reagan's case at the end of 1987. 
• The Soviet Union's economy was in serious trouble at this time. Gorbachev's attempts at economic reform were failing. 
• The first-ever mutual agreement on reducing nuclear weapons was the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which was signed by Reagan and Gorbachev in 1987.