Mihail Gorbaciov - a Political Personality of the 20th Century

Arguments for choosing this theme

We live in a continuously developing world where major historical events have had their influence on people involved for decades. Take the 20th century, for instance. It is interspersed with globally important events like the two World Wars or periods of dictatorships expanded all over the world. That is why I consider that studying the phenomena that have taken place is very important, as it makes us aware of what happened in different periods and develops our analytical sense.

This is beneficial for me as a student of this Faculty, because I want to become a prepared specialist in Law and thus, being able to tackle recent-history events and their consequences would be an advantage. I believe that the Communist domination from the 20th century is a delicate issue worth considering, and that is why I chose to write about the one that has caused the collapse of the Communist empire: Mihail Gorbaciov.

I also chose this theme because I consider that the other ones related to the subjects I usually learn about, like the strictly administrative and juristic ones, are the ones I must focus on in order to become good jurists. An English project should be, to my way of thinking, not only a work in which one should handle the topic with as much information as possible, but also something the student expresses his opinions as well.

Therefore, the study about a famous political personality like Mihail Gorbaciov would be a more interesting thing to realize, due to the fact that it also enlarges my general knowledge.

The most important historical event from the last forty years was definitely the disintegrating of the Soviet Union and the collapsing of the communism. The movement  that has been mincing to envelop the whole world for decades  has disintegrated itself with an amazing velocity, and now it seems to be heading to the garbage can of the history. There is one central figure that marks this stunning decline: Mihail Gorbaciov, the man that led the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1991.

Gorbaciov was born in 1931, in the village of Privolnoe, from the region of Stavropol, in the south of Russia. His childhood coincides with the bloodiest period of the dictatorship exerted by Iosif Stalin. Mihails own grandfather, Andrei, spent nine years in Stalins concentration camps and was not released until 1941, a few months before Germany invaded Russia. Mihail was too young to fight in the Second World War, but his father was enrolled, and his older brother died in the battle. The German occupation lasted almost eight years in the village of Privolnoe.

However, nothing was a hindrance to Gorbaciovs career. He used to have excellent results at school; at fifteen he enlisted himself in the Komsomol (the Union of the Communist Youth) and afterwards he worked on a combine-harvester in agriculture for four years. In 1950 he entered the State University in Moscow, where he studied Law School and got his diploma in 1955. In 1952, during college years, Mihail became a member of the Communist Party and met his future wife, Raisa Maximova Titorenko. They got married immediately after Gorbaciov got his diploma and had only one girl, Irina.

After graduating, Gorbaciov came back to Stavropol and began his gradual ascension through the Communist Party. In 1970he became the Prime-Secretary of the regional party committee, and in the following year he became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He got promoted in 1978, when he moved to Moscow, as a secretary of the Central Committee regarding agricultural problems. In 1979, Gorbaciov became a surrogate member of the Political Office (that represented the leading organ of the Soviet Union), and in 1980 he became a full member.

All these promotions were undertaken between 1964 and 1982, when the Soviet Union was being led by Leonid Brejnev. After his death, the leadership was assumed by the Andropov (1982  1984) and Cernenko (1984  1985), at this date Gorbaciov being an important member of the Political Office. Cernenko died on the 11th of March 1985 and Gorbaciov was elected General Secretary the next day.

The voting of the Political Office was secret, but it was rumored that Gorbaciov won at a very tight score before Victor Grisin, a firm conservatory. Can you imagine how different could it have been if two or three persons would have voted differently?

Unlike most of the Soviet leaders, Gorbaciov had traveled abroad (France, 1986; Italy, 1967, Canada, 1983; England, 1984), before he became the leader of the Communist Party. That is why, when he was elected, many occidentals hoped that Gorbaciov would be a liberal and more modern leader that his predecessors. Their hopes have turn out to be entitled, but no one anticipated the speed and the amplitude of his reforms.