Mikhail Gorbachev , a Russian politician, was the last leader of the USSR from 1985 to 1991. A rising figure in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he became secretary general of the party and took charge of the destinies of the second superpower of the time. Gorbachev contrasts sharply with his predecessors:young (54 years old), modern in appearance, he passes for a moderate partisan of a reduction of tensions with the United States. Deeply overhauling the Soviet apparatus, he launched reforms (perestroika and glasnost) that upset the political landscape in the East. Powerless in the face of the rise of social and political protest, too attached to the rescue of the Soviet system and the internal reform of socialism, he will not survive the break-up of the USSR and is forced to resign on December 25, 1991.
Gorbachev, an apparatchik career
Born March 2, 1931 near Stavropol, Russia, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev , of modest origin, studied law and married a philosophy student, Raïssa Titorenko. In 1952 he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and began a political career there. A pure product of the Soviet system, he climbed all the rungs:he joined the Supreme Soviet in 1970 and then the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1971. After having been Minister of Agriculture, he finally entered the political bureau (politburo) in 1980, where he quickly appeared as a potential successor to Brezhnev.
But Gorbachev is too young and has to let the old guard (Andropov, Chernenko) pass before accessing the more high functions. Finally in 1985, he became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , which allows him to take the effective direction of affairs and to profoundly reorganize the apparatus of the CPSU. His modern and “liberal” style contrasts with that of his predecessors, but the “young” leader of the USSR will quickly be confronted with a not very encouraging reality.
A system out of breath
Gorbachev indeed inherits a country in crisis. The USSR remains a great power, weakened however by its shortage economy and by the war in Afghanistan , hampered by the rise of protest movements in the Soviet bloc and by the decline of its influence on the Third World. Well aware of the difficulties of the economic situation of his country (productivity at half mast, agricultural decline, exorbitant weight of the military-industrial complex, scientific backwardness compared to the United States, health problems, etc.), he proposes to set up a ambitious plan of reform, destined more or less to save the Soviet Union from its own demons.
Ignoring the resistance of the apparatus, the change of tone adopted by the Kremlin attacks the structural, social and economic immobility of the USSR. Perestroika foreshadows transparency (“glasnost”), the watchword of a country wanting to break the law of silence serving bureaucracy and corruption to adopt a socialist democracy displaying its new credibility. From 1987, he allowed the return to freedom of the press, a year after having undertaken the rehabilitation of dissidents and victims of the Stalinist purges.
In 1986-1987, he initiated an economic reform that involved recognizing the role of the market and private property. On the political level, he put an end to the one-party regime (1988), which liberalized the political game.
A Popular Leader… in the West
Gorbachev's popularity, however, is more international than domestic. He is the man who buried the Cold War. On the external level, détente with the United States is materialized by spectacular gestures:from the withdrawal and the end of the war in Afghanistan to the reduction of nuclear armaments by signing a set of agreements on the control weapons with US President Ronald Reagan and his successor George Bush (1985-1991). At the same time, its political management is being emulated among the people's democracies. The action of “Gorby” and his support for opposition movements played a key role in the democratic revolutions of 1989 which led to the end of communist regimes of Eastern Europe. He will do nothing to oppose the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the reunification of Germany initiated by Helmut Kohl will take place despite him.
In 1990, Gorbachev was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize awarded for his entire international action.
Towards the collapse of the USSR
The same year he became President of the USSR and transfers power from the Communist Party to the elected legislatures in the republics. However, the Soviet economy is still weakening, and no convincing results emerge from perestroika. Gorbachev faces strong political pressure. The intransigent communists resent the idea of having lost the monopoly over the Soviet Union. The champions of the market economy are calling for more radical reforms. The nationalists demand the independence of their republics.
Gorbachev's popularity plummets and he faces competition from Boris Yeltsin , elected by universal suffrage on June 12, 1991 as President of Russia. On August 19, 1991, while on vacation at his dacha in Crimea, Gorbachev was the victim of an coup attempt led by a few conservative communist officers and caciques. Yeltsin and his reforming supporters successfully oppose the plot, which fails three days later. It is a physically and politically diminished Gorbachev who is brought back to Moscow thanks to his rival Boris Yeltsin.
Gorbachev, last president of the USSR
A vast purge is carried out in the apparatus of the Communist Party and nothing can oppose the dismantling of the USSR . At the end of December 1991 the Soviet Union, which had become little more than a legal fiction, completely collapsed. On December 25 and in a twilight atmosphere, Mikhail Gorbachev announces his resignation in a final televised address.
Gorbachev, who will have favored freedom of expression and put an end to the CPSU's monopoly on power, will thus have allowed an opposition (nationalist and liberal) to express themselves and win the support of a population disoriented by the reforms. Between supporters of a return to authoritarian socialism and those of the dismantling of the Red Empire, Gorbachev's middle way has never won over the masses.
As a private citizen again, Gorbachev tried to return to politics during the 1996 Russian presidential election, where he met with resounding failure. Considered the "gravedigger" of the USSR, he remained very unpopular in his country. He then devoted himself mainly to his foundation and to writing, giving numerous conferences abroad. In 2019, Mikhail Gorbachev published a book in the form of a political testament, The Future of the Global World , in which he is alarmed by the danger of a new world war and the devastating consequences of global warming.
Bibliography
- Gorbachev, biography of Bernard Lecomte. Perrin, 2014.
- Memoirs, by Mikhail Gorbachev. Editions du Rocher, 1995.
- Six years that changed the world 1985-1991:The fall of the Soviet Empire, by Hélène Carrère d'Encausse. Fayard, 2015.