The last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, died at the age of 91, after suffering from a long and serious illness.
The former Communist leader is one who is known for opening the secretive state up to the west but ultimately saw over the fall of the USSR in 1991.
Who was Mikhail Gorbachev?
Born in 1931 Gorbachev was born in and lived through the entirety of Soviet rule and the infamous Cold War. In 1950, when he started university, like many other students even today, Gorbachev decided to join a group – although, rather than his student union, he joined the Communist Party.
However, even as a member of the party during the infamous ‘Doctors Plot’ in the USSR – a time between 1951 and 52 during which a group of predominantly Jewish doctors from Moscow were falsely accused of a conspiracy to assassinate Soviet leaders – Gorbachev publicly defended Volodya Liberman, a Jewish student who was accused of disloyalty to the country by one of his fellows, according to a 2017 biography of the previous leader by William Taubman.
After working his way through the ranks of the Communist Party he was appointed a Secretary of the Central Committee in 1978 under leader Leonid Brezhnev. In 1985 he became the leader of the Soviet Union following the death of the then-leader Konstantin Chernenko.
During his reign over the country, Gorbachev also saw over the devastating Chernobyl disaster, domestic reforms in Russia, and allowed independence in the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and elsewhere across the former Soviet bloc.
In 1991 the Cold War came to an end, and the Soviet Union began to crumble, leading to the downfall of Grobachev as leader.
Tributes to Mikhail Gorbachev
Tributes to the former Soviet leader have poured in from leaders across the world. Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, said he was “saddened” to hear about the leader’s passing and said he “always admired the courage and integrity he showed” in helping bring the Cold War to an end.
Gorbachev has always been vocal about the current Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, as he had previously supported him in his first term and then told the BBC in 2013 that their “relationship has soured”. This back and forth of support and friction would continue until his death.
However, Putin gave his condolences to the leader and said: ‘He led our country during a period of complex, dramatic changes, large-scale foreign policy, economic and social challenges. He deeply understood that reforms were necessary, he strove to offer his own solutions to urgent problems.”
Putin also noted the “great humanitarian, charitable, education activities” Gorbachev promoted in his recent years.