Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, b. Mar. 2, 1931, general secretary of the Soviet Communist party (1985-91) and president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1988-91), was the last leader of the USSR.  By his reform programs of GLASNOST and PERESTROIKA, Gorbachev hoped to breathe new life into the increasingly stagnant Soviet system.  Instead, by removing the rigid controls that had kept the system together for decades, he brought about its dissolution.  He thus played a pivotal role in the dramatic series of events that transformed the international scene in the 1990s:  the end of the cold war between East and West, the sudden disappearance of the Soviet empire, and the virtual elimination of communism as a dominant influence in world affairs.

Born and raised on a collective farm in the Stavropol region, Gorbachev worked as a young man at a machine-tractor station. He studied law at Moscow University and joined the Communist party in 1952.  Rising in the ranks, he became party chief of the Stavropol region in 1970.  A protege of KGB chief Yuri ANDROPOV, Gorbachev was elected to the party's Central Committee in 1971.  In 1978 he was brought to Moscow as an agricultural expert.  When Andropov was chosen head of the party in 1982, Gorbachev aided the ailing leader in his reform efforts.  After the deaths of Andropov and his short-lived successor, Konstantin CHERNENKO, Gorbachev, who had emerged as the dominant figure in the Soviet hierarchy, was named general secretary of the Soviet Communist party in March 1985.

Gorbachev immediately embarked on a sweeping program of economic and political reforms (perestroika).  He tried to curb the use of alcohol, called for greater labor discipline and productivity, and announced a new policy of openness in the media (glasnost).  He advocated greater initiative from below, less direction by the bureaucracy, and more reliance on market forces.  But his efforts were hindered by crises caused by the nuclear accident at CHERNOBYL (1986), a devastating earthquake in Armenia (1988), and nationalist unrest in many of the republics.  Disruptions caused by hesitant economic reforms, which led to strikes and shortages of consumer goods, undermined his popularity.  By 1990 his leadership was being challenged by the more radical Boris YELTSIN, president of the Russian republic.

Gorbachev restored friendly relations with the West, disengaged the USSR from its war in Afghanistan, and ended its long-standing quarrel with China.  In 1989 he renounced the "Brezhnev Doctrine," which had asserted the USSR's right to intervene militarily in Warsaw Pact countries.  This quickly led to the fall of the Eastern European Communist regimes. Acclaimed internationally for his foreign policy initiatives, however, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

At home Gorbachev's gradual democratic revolution from above had given rise to massive social and nationalist movements that threatened the collapse of the central state and the breakup of the Soviet federation.  He was forced to renegotiate Moscow's relations with the Soviet republics, most of which declared themselves either sovereign or independent in 1990.  Nine of the fifteen republics agreed to sign a new union treaty, but before they could do so, conservative Communists in the army and KGB tried to oust Gorbachev by staging a coup d'etat (August 1991).  While Gorbachev was held prisoner, the coup was defeated by Yeltsin and his allies.

The failed coup further discredited the Communist party--which was soon ordered dissolved--elevated the prestige and power of Yeltsin, and accelerated the centrifugal forces that led one republic after another to declare itself independent.  In the fall of 1991, Gorbachev's power rapidly disappeared.  He resigned on December 25, after Russia and most of the other republics had formed the Commonwealth of Independent States to replace the USSR.

After his resignation Gorbachev ceased to play any active role in public affairs, devoting his time instead to writing and lecturing, both in Russia and abroad.