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162-782: During the reign of the Socialist Unity Party , the Academy was the highest institution of Marxist-Leninist education, prior to the Bezirksparteischulen (regional party schools) and Kreisparteischulen (district party schools). The main alternative was studying at the Party Academy of the CPSU in Moscow . Initially, the institution was subordinate to the Section for Agitation and Propaganda in

324-470: A Treasurer , an Agitator, and according to the size of the group other associated members included in the Party Group leadership. Where there were several Party Groups operating in a single place they would be combined in a Departmental Party Organisation (APO / Abteilungsparteiorganisation ) which in turn would have its own leadership and an APO Party Secretariat. The Party conference  [ de ]

486-606: A collective farm before joining the Communist Party , which then governed the Soviet Union as a one-party state . Studying at Moscow State University , he married fellow student Raisa Titarenko in 1953 and received his law degree in 1955. Moving to Stavropol , he worked for the Komsomol youth organization and, after Stalin's death, became a keen proponent of the de-Stalinization reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev . He

648-592: A communal apartment . In 1961, Gorbachev pursued a second degree, in agricultural production; he took a correspondence course from the local Stavropol Agricultural Institute, receiving his diploma in 1967. His wife had also pursued a second degree, attaining a PhD in sociology in 1967 from the Moscow State Pedagogical University ; while in Stavropol she too joined the Communist Party. Stalin

810-724: A one-party state . Other institutional popular front parties were permitted to exist in alliance with the SED; these parties included the Christian Democratic Union , the Liberal Democratic Party , the Democratic Farmers' Party , and the National Democratic Party . These parties were largely subservient to the SED, and had to accept the SED's " leading role " as a condition of their existence. Long one of

972-417: A "politically stable and economically efficient socialist state", and declared its intention to maintain its present policy course. East Germany's successes, presented as a personal triumph for Honecker, marked a crowning point in his political career. Mikhail Gorbachev 's presence at the congress endorsed Honecker's policy course, which was also strengthened by some reshuffling of the party leadership. Overall,

1134-620: A "radical restructuring" of foreign policy. A major issue facing his leadership was Soviet involvement in the Afghan Civil War, which had then been going on for over five years. Over the course of the war, the Soviet Army took heavy casualties and there was much opposition to Soviet involvement among both the public and military. On becoming leader, Gorbachev saw withdrawal from the war as a key priority. In October 1985, he met with Afghan Marxist leader Babrak Karmal , urging him to acknowledge

1296-665: A Ministry of District-led and foodstuffs industry). Department could de facto issue binding orders to the respective ministries, though de jure this was only possible for the secretaries. A notable exception was the Ministry of People's Education, which was not under supervision of the People's Education Department, but directly under the General Secretary, as Minister Margot Honecker was the General Secretary's wife. Secretaries were usually assigned to multiple departments, for example, throughout

1458-688: A candidate member to a full member of the Politburo ( 25th term ), the highest decision-making authority in the Communist Party. At the time, he was the Politburo's youngest member. After Brezhnev's death in November 1982, Andropov succeeded him as General Secretary of the Communist Party , the de facto leader in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was enthusiastic about the appointment. However, although Gorbachev hoped that Andropov would introduce liberalizing reforms,

1620-428: A complex series of reforms to restructure society and the economy. He was concerned by the country's low productivity, poor work ethic, and inferior quality goods; like several economists, he feared this would lead to the country becoming a second-rate power. The first stage of Gorbachev's perestroika was uskoreniye ("acceleration"), a term he used regularly in the first two years of his leadership. The Soviet Union

1782-508: A complicated legacy in Russia. While in power, he had net positive approval ratings, being viewed as a reformer and changemaker. However, as the Soviet Union collapsed as a result of these reforms, so did his approval rating; contemporary Russians often deride him for weakening Russia's global influence and precipitating an economic collapse in the country . Mikhail Gorbachev also ran unsuccessfully in 1996 which, despite neoliberal reforms in Russia at

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1944-664: A distinction; his final paper had been on the advantages of "socialist democracy" (the Soviet political system) over "bourgeois democracy" ( liberal democracy ). He was subsequently assigned to the Soviet Procurator 's office, which was then focusing on the rehabilitation of the innocent victims of Stalin's purges, but found that they had no work for him. He was then offered a place on an MSU graduate course specializing in kolkhoz law, but declined. He had wanted to remain in Moscow, where Raisa

2106-509: A dormitory in the Sokolniki District . He and other rural students felt at odds with their Muscovite counterparts, but he soon came to fit in. Fellow students recall him working especially hard, often late into the night. He gained a reputation as a mediator during disputes and was also known for being outspoken in class, although he would reveal some of his views only privately; for instance, he confided in some students his opposition to

2268-460: A failure. The purpose of reform was to prop up the centrally planned economy —not to transition to market socialism . Speaking in late summer 1985 to the secretaries for economic affairs of the central committees of the East European communist parties, Gorbachev said: "Many of you see the solution to your problems in resorting to market mechanisms in place of direct planning. Some of you look at

2430-480: A forum for examining the future challenges facing the party in domestic and foreign policy. On the foreign policy front, the major events were various speeches delivered by representatives of West European Marxist–Leninist parties, particularly the Italian, Spanish, and French, all of which expressed in varying ways ideological differences with the Soviet Union. At the same time, although allowing different views to be heard,

2592-813: A guide from the French Communist Party . He was surprised by how openly West Europeans offered their opinions and criticized their political leaders, something absent from the Soviet Union, where most people did not feel safe speaking so openly. He later related that for him and his wife, these visits "shook our a priori belief in the superiority of socialist over bourgeois democracy". Gorbachev had remained close to his parents; after his father became terminally ill in 1974, Gorbachev traveled to be with him in Privolnoe shortly before his death. His daughter, Irina, married fellow student Anatoly Virgansky in April 1978. In 1977,

2754-426: A high honour to be a member of the highly advanced, genuinely revolutionary Communist Party of Bolsheviks. I promise to be faithful to the great cause of Lenin and Stalin, to devote my entire life to the party's struggle for Communism. — Gorbachev's letter requesting membership of the Communist Party, 1950 In June 1950, Gorbachev became a candidate member of the Communist Party. He also applied to study at

2916-521: A largely ceremonial role with little influence, and moved his own ally, Eduard Shevardnadze , to Gromyko's former post in charge of foreign policy. Other allies whom he saw promoted were Yakovlev, Anatoly Lukyanov , and Vadim Medvedev. Another of those promoted by Gorbachev was Boris Yeltsin , who was made a Secretary of the Central Committee ( 26th term ) in July 1985. Most of these appointees were from

3078-607: A merger of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) which was based in the Soviet occupation zone of Germany and the Soviet-occupied sector of Berlin. Official East German and Soviet histories portrayed this merger as a voluntary pooling of efforts by the socialist parties. However, there is much evidence that the merger was more troubled than commonly portrayed. By all accounts,

3240-450: A midpoint in the development of SED policy and programs. Most of the social and economic goals announced at the 7th Congress had been reached; however, the absence of a definitive statement on further efforts to improve the working and living conditions of the population proved to be a source of concern. The SED sought to redress these issues by announcing, along with the Council of Ministers and

3402-472: A necessary measure to ensure perestroika by alerting the Soviet populace to the nature of the country's problems in the hope that they would support his efforts to fix them. Particularly popular among the Soviet intelligentsia , who became key Gorbachev supporters, glasnost boosted his domestic popularity but alarmed many Communist Party hardliners. For many Soviet citizens, this newfound level of freedom of speech and press—and its accompanying revelations about

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3564-599: A new generation of well-educated officials who had been frustrated during the Brezhnev era. In his first year, 14 of the 23 heads of department in the Secretariat were replaced. Doing so, Gorbachev secured dominance in the Politburo within a year, faster than either Stalin, Khrushchev, or Brezhnev had achieved. Gorbachev recurrently employed the term perestroika , first used publicly in March 1984. He saw perestroika as encompassing

3726-459: A new party program and a new party membership statute. Walter Ulbricht was re-elected as the party's First Secretary. A new economic policy was introduced, more strongly centralized – the "New Economic System". First Secretary Walter Ulbricht announced the "ten requirements of the socialist moral and ethics". During his report at the 7th Party Congress in 1967, Erich Honecker had called for a return to an orthodox Socialist economic system, away from

3888-515: A period of political liberalization in the Marxist–Leninist country. Although Gorbachev later stated that he had had private concerns about the invasion, he publicly supported it. In September 1969 he was part of a Soviet delegation sent to Czechoslovakia, where he found the Czechoslovak people largely unwelcoming to them. That year, the Soviet authorities ordered him to punish Fagim B. Sadygov,

4050-406: A philosophy professor of the Stavropol agricultural institute whose ideas were regarded as critical of Soviet agricultural policy; Gorbachev ensured that Sadykov was fired from teaching but ignored calls for him to face tougher punishment. Gorbachev later related that he was "deeply affected" by the incident; "my conscience tormented me" for overseeing Sadykov's persecution. In April 1970, Yefremov

4212-478: A pool for former Nazis and Wehrmacht officers. Nonetheless, the SED continued to absorb former Nazi Party members. By 1954, 27 percent of all members of the SED and 32.2 percent of all public service employees were former members of the Nazi Party. Soviet negotiators reported that SED politicians frequently went beyond the boundaries of the political statements which had been approved by the Soviet monitors, and there

4374-401: A project of mass rural collectivization which, in keeping with his Marxist–Leninist ideas, he believed would help convert the country into a socialist society . Gorbachev's maternal grandfather joined the Communist Party and helped form the village's first kolkhoz (collective farm) in 1929, becoming its chair. This farm was 19 kilometres (12 mi) outside Privolnoye village and when he

4536-607: A result, the early SED party apparatus frequently became effectively immobilised as former KPD members began discussing any proposal, however small, at great length with former SPD members, so as to achieve consensus and avoid offending them. Soviet intelligence claimed to have a list of names of an SPD group within the SED that was covertly forging links with the SPD in the West and even with the Western Allied occupation authorities. A problem for

4698-472: A structure that ensured the "leading role" of the SED. This status was spelled out expressly after the constitutional changes introduced in 1968, which defined East Germany as a "socialist state" led by "the working class and its Marxist–Leninist party." The Chairman of the Council of Ministers and the president of the National legislature ("Volkskammer") were also members of the Politburo. The meetings of

4860-596: Is considered one of the most significant figures of the second half of the 20th century. The recipient of a wide range of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize , in the West he is praised for his role in ending the Cold War, introducing new political and economic freedoms in the Soviet Union, and tolerating both the fall of Marxist–Leninist administrations in eastern and central Europe and the German reunification . Gorbachev has

5022-799: The Berlin City Council elections held that same year, the merger fared more poorly. In that contest, the SED received less than half the votes of the SPD. The bulk of the Berlin SPD remained aloof from the merger, even though Berlin was deep inside the Soviet zone. The Soviet Military Administration in Germany ( Russian initials: SVAG) directly governed the eastern areas of Germany following World War II, and their intelligence operations carefully monitored all political activities. An early intelligence report from SVAG Propaganda Administration director Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Ivanovich Tiulpanov indicates that

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5184-574: The Canadian Parliament . There, he met and befriended the Soviet ambassador, Aleksandr Yakovlev , who later became a key political ally. In February 1984, Andropov died; on his deathbed he indicated his desire that Gorbachev succeed him. Many in the Central Committee nevertheless thought the 53-year-old Gorbachev was too young and inexperienced. Instead, Konstantin Chernenko —a longstanding Brezhnev ally—was appointed general secretary, but he too

5346-645: The Cold War . Domestically, his policy of glasnost ("openness") allowed for enhanced freedom of speech and press , while his perestroika ("restructuring") sought to decentralize economic decision-making to improve its efficiency. Ultimately, Gorbachev's democratization measures and formation of the elected Congress of People's Deputies undermined the one-party state. When various Warsaw Pact countries abandoned Marxist–Leninist governance in 1989 , he declined to intervene militarily. Growing nationalist sentiment within constituent republics threatened to break up

5508-553: The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe . Before the congress was convened, the SED had conducted a "People's Discussion" in order openly to air public concerns related to East Germany's responsibility in honoring the final document of the Helsinki conference. The 10th Congress, which took place in April 1981, celebrated the status quo; the meeting unanimously re-elected Honecker to

5670-538: The Komsomol , the Soviet political youth organization, becoming leader of his local group and then being elected to the Komsomol committee for the district. From primary school he moved to the high school in Molotovskoye ; he stayed there during the week while walking the 19 km (12 mi) home during weekends. As well as being a member of the school's drama society, he organized sporting and social activities and led

5832-572: The Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), abandoning Marxism–Leninism and declaring itself a democratic socialist party. It received 16.4% of the vote in the 1990 parliamentary elections . In 2007, the PDS merged with Labour and Social Justice (WASG) into The Left ( Die Linke ), the sixth largest party in the German Parliament following the 2021 federal election . The SED was founded on 21 April 1946 by

5994-586: The Twenty-Seventh Party Congress in February, Yeltsin called for more far-reaching reforms than Gorbachev was initiating and criticized the party leadership, although he did not cite Gorbachev by name, claiming that a new cult of personality was forming. Gorbachev then opened the floor to responses, after which attendees publicly criticized Yeltsin for several hours. After this, Gorbachev also criticized Yeltsin, claiming that he cared only for himself and

6156-466: The armed forces into neighbouring Afghanistan to support its Soviet-aligned government against Islamist insurgents ; Gorbachev privately thought it a mistake. At times he openly supported the government position; in October 1980 he for instance endorsed Soviet calls for Poland's Marxist–Leninist government to crack down on growing internal dissent in that country . That same month, he was promoted from

6318-504: The president of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991. Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism but moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s. He was the only Soviet leader born after the country's foundation. Gorbachev was born in Privolnoye , Russian SFSR , to a poor peasant family of Russian and Ukrainian heritage. Growing up under the rule of Joseph Stalin in his youth, he operated combine harvesters on

6480-851: The 11th Congress exhibited confidence in East Germany's role as the strongest economy and the most stable country in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev praised the East German experience as proof that central planning could be effective and workable in the 1980s. Mikhail Gorbachev Former General Secretary of the CPSU Former President of the Soviet Union Secretariate (1985–1991) Presidency (1990–1991) Foreign policy Post-leadership [REDACTED] Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022)

6642-529: The 1980s, the SED held to an orthodox line. The party organisation was based on, and co-located with, the institutions of the German Democratic Republic. Its influence stood behind and shaped every facet of public life. The party required every member to live by the mantra "Where there is a comrade, the party is there too" ( Wo ein Genosse ist, da ist die Partei ). This meant that the party organisation

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6804-458: The 1985 Red Square holiday celebrations, and encouraged frank and open discussions at Politburo meetings. To the West, Gorbachev was seen as a more moderate and less threatening Soviet leader; some Western commentators however believed this an act to lull Western governments into a false sense of security. His wife was his closest adviser, and took on the unofficial role of a " first lady " by appearing with him on foreign trips; her public visibility

6966-616: The Central Committee also held the Chairmanship of the Politburo (along with all his other functions). The country's government, formally headed by the Council of Ministers , served largely to implement the Politburo's decisions. This meant that while the Council of Ministers was nominally the highest executive authority in the GDR, in reality it was under the permanent control of the Party Committees,

7128-643: The Central Committee and sometimes even candidate or full members (always the First Secretary in East Berlin) of the Politburo. First Secretaries of Bezirke that had a significant border with West Germany usually also served on the National Defence Council . National Defence Council member When the Party Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the party's leading element. Power

7290-487: The Central Committee could convene a party conference to resolve policy and personnel issues. In the spring of 1971, the 8th Congress rolled back some of the programs associated with the Ulbricht era and emphasized short-term social and economic problems. The SED used the occasion to announce its willingness to cooperate with West Germany and the Soviet Union in helping to solve a variety of international problems, particularly

7452-572: The Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party. From 1983 to 1990, the Secretary for Ideology and Culture was responsible. During its existence, the academy offered studies and classes to more than 25,000 students. Among them were more than 1,200 students from socialist countries that had friendly ties with the GDR. Studies offered were Marxist-Leninist throughout. Numerous publications, both scientific and propagandist, were released. Members of

7614-426: The Central Committee. That being said, some Politburo members and secretaries held an unofficial number two spot, most notably Karl Schirdewan and then Honecker during the tenure of Walter Ulbricht and Paul Verner , then Egon Krenz during the tenure of Honecker. In the political hierarchy of the GDR, members of the Central Committee ranked above government ministers. In July 1950, at the third Party Conference,

7776-515: The GDR's existence, there was one Economy Secretary. The party newspaper Neues Deutschland was organised as a department, its Editor-in-chief having department head rank. Similarly, the Party Academy and the Institute for Marxism–Leninism were organised as departments, their directors having department head rank. The 1st Party Congress (Vereinigungsparteitag) , which convened on 21 April 1946,

7938-450: The GDR. Additional problems growing out of the expanding relationship with West Germany included conflict between Bonn and East Berlin on the rights and privileges of West German news correspondents in East Germany; the social unrest generated by the "two-currency" system, in which East German citizens who possessed West German D-marks were given the privilege of purchasing scarce luxury goods at special currency stores ( Intershops ); and

8100-612: The Geneva summit, discussions between Gorbachev and Reagan were sometimes heated, and Gorbachev was initially frustrated that his US counterpart "does not seem to hear what I am trying to say". As well as discussing the Cold War proxy conflicts in Afghanistan and Nicaragua and human rights issues, the pair discussed the US's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), to which Gorbachev was strongly opposed. The duo's wives also met and spent time together at

8262-533: The KGB. In his new position, Gorbachev often worked twelve to sixteen hour days. He and his wife socialized little, but liked to visit Moscow's theaters and museums. In 1978, Gorbachev was appointed to the Central Committee's Secretariat for Agriculture ( 25th term ), replacing his old patron Kulakov, who had died of a heart attack. Gorbachev concentrated his attentions on agriculture: the harvests of 1979, 1980, and 1981 were all poor, due largely to weather conditions, and

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8424-623: The North Caucasus; he holidayed with the head of the KGB , Yuri Andropov , who was favorable towards him and who became an important patron. Gorbachev also developed good relationships with senior figures including the Soviet prime minister, Alexei Kosygin , and the longstanding senior party member Mikhail Suslov . The government considered Gorbachev sufficiently reliable that he was sent as part of Soviet delegations to Western Europe; he made five trips there between 1970 and 1977. In September 1971 he

8586-460: The Party Central Committee. Care was taken over the proportions of women, of youth representatives, of members from approved Mass organisations and of "exemplary" workers. Party secretaries existed at different levels within the party. They usually held their offices on an unsalaried basis, often combining their party secretarial duties with a salaried function. Where a basic administrative unit grew beyond certain size tension tended to arise between

8748-411: The Party Secretaries was the organisation of political work. They prepared the party meetings and organised political training in partnership with the party leaderships. They ensured implementation of and compliance with party decisions and undertook general reporting and leadership duties. They were also required to provide a monthly report on "Morale and Opinions" ( "Stimmungen und Meinungen" ) concerning

8910-516: The Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED usually took place every Tuesday in the conference room on the 2nd floor of the Central Committee building on Werderscher Markt, starting at 10 a.m. The meetings usually lasted only 2 hours and included up to 10 to 20 items on the agenda. According to former Politburo members Egon Krenz and Günter Schabowski , most Politburo members had little to say, much less dissent. The Central Committee Secretariat met each Wednesday to implement decisions finalised by

9072-419: The Politburo the previous day and to prepare the agenda for the Central Committee's next weekly meeting. The Secretariat comprised the Central Committee Party Secretaries. The Secretariat played a decisive role in selecting the Nomenklatura of the Central Committee. Nomenklatura members were the holders of the top 300 or so positions in the party and the state: changes to the Nomenklatura membership list required

9234-445: The SED Central Committee. Its role was enforcing conformity and eliminating perceived opposition within the party ranks, closely working with the Stasi and Volkspolizei . It had corresponding bodies at all levels of the party in the form of Bezirk (BPKK) and district Party Control Commissions (KPKK). Notable ZPKK victims include Robert Havemann and Rudolf Herrnstadt . There also existed a Central Auditing Commission (ZRK) to inspect

9396-449: The SED rejected many of these criticisms in light of its effort to maintain the special relationship with the Soviet Union emphasized by Honecker. Another major point of emphasis at the congress was the issue of inter-German détente . On the East German side, the benefits were mixed. The GDR regime considered economic benefits as a major advantage, but the party viewed with misgivings the rapid increase in travel by West Germans to and through

9558-406: The SED was a full-fledged Communist party—essentially the KPD under a new name. It began to develop along lines similar to other Communist parties in the Soviet bloc. Although other parties nominally continued to exist, the Soviet occupation authorities forced them to join in the National Front of Democratic Germany , a nominal coalition of parties that was for all intents and purposes controlled by

9720-404: The SED was created. By 1989 , membership of the Central Committee had increased to 165: there were also 57 people listed as candidates for membership. All the high ranking party functionaries were represented in it along with other senior government officials (provided they were already party members). Beyond the professional functionaries and politicians the Committee also included the chiefs of

9882-420: The SED's Central Committee was elected on the Soviet model , which at this time employed a single list electoral system: most members of the serving party executive were replaced. It was striking that more than 62% of the new Central Committee members had been members of the Communist Party (KPD) before the party merger of 1946. Four years on, there was little sign of the KPD/SPD parity that had been invoked when

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10044-401: The SED. By ensuring that Communists predominated on the list of candidates put forward by the National Front, the SED effectively predetermined the composition of legislative bodies in the Soviet zone, and from 1949 in East Germany. Over the years, the SED gained a reputation as one of the most hardline parties in the Soviet bloc. When Mikhail Gorbachev initiated reforms in the Soviet Union in

10206-403: The Socialist Unity Party and its organizations were delegated to studies of either one or three years duration, finishing as Diplom-Gesellschaftswissenschaftler (equivalent to a Bachelor in Social Sciences ). Distance Studies were possible as well. From 1946 to 1948, the institution's domicile was Liebenwalde near Oranienburg , then from 1948 to 1955 Castle Hakeburg (later guest house of

10368-472: The Socialist Unity Party). Notable teachers during these early years included Wolfgang Leonhard and Carola Stern . For 25 years from 1955 the academy was located in Berlin . Finally, from 1980 to 1990, it was dispersed across various institutes around Hakeburg again. During the run-up to reunification the Academy was dissolved. The critical date was 30 June 1990 after which the institute's approximately 150 professors, teachers and teaching assistants,

10530-438: The Soviet Union the " evil empire ". Both Gorbachev and Reagan wanted a summit to discuss the Cold War, but each faced some opposition to such a move within their respective governments. They agreed to hold a summit in Geneva, Switzerland , in November 1985. In the buildup to this, Gorbachev sought to improve relations with the US's NATO allies, visiting France in October 1985 to meet with President François Mitterrand . At

10692-440: The Soviet Union, leading the hardliners within the Communist Party to launch an unsuccessful coup against Gorbachev in August 1991. In the coup's wake, the Soviet Union dissolved against Gorbachev's wishes. After resigning from the presidency, he launched the Gorbachev Foundation , became a vocal critic of Russian presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin , and campaigned for Russia's social-democratic movement. Gorbachev

10854-432: The Soviet economy, namely from decreasing tax collections from declining alcohol sales, resulting in losses of up to US$ 100 billion between 1985 and 1990. Another serious problem was the strain on the Soviet healthcare system, as uneducated Soviet citizens had resorted to drinking rubbing alcohol, nail polish remover or cologne as dangerous substitutes, resulting in a rise in poisoning cases. Gorbachev later considered

11016-496: The Soviet jurisprudential norm that a confession proved guilt, noting that confessions could have been forced. During his studies, an antisemitic campaign spread through the Soviet Union, culminating in the Doctors' plot ; Gorbachev publicly defended Volodya Liberman, a Jewish student who was accused of disloyalty to the country by one of his fellows. At MSU, Gorbachev became the Komsomol head of his entering class, and then Komsomol's deputy secretary for agitation and propaganda at

11178-416: The Soviet legislature, a largely honorific position. In June he traveled to Italy as a Soviet representative for the funeral of Italian Communist Party leader Enrico Berlinguer , and in September to Sofia , Bulgaria to attend celebrations of the fortieth anniversary of its liberation from the Nazis by the Red Army. In December, he visited Britain at the request of its prime minister Margaret Thatcher ; she

11340-404: The Soviet occupation authorities applied great pressure on the SPD's eastern branch to merge with the KPD. The newly merged party, with the help of the Soviet authorities, swept to victory in the 1946 elections for local and regional assemblies held in the Soviet zone. However, these elections were held under less-than-secret conditions, thus setting the tone for the next four decades. Conversely, in

11502-410: The Soviets that they identified with the early SED was its potential to develop into a nationalist party. At large party meetings, members applauded speakers who talked of nationalism much more than when they spoke of solving social problems and gender equality. Some even proposed the idea of establishing an independent German socialist state free of both Soviet and Western influence, and of soon regaining

11664-682: The Stavropol City Party Organization ("Gorkom"). By 1968 he was increasingly frustrated with his job—in large part because Khrushchev's reforms were stalling or being reversed—and he contemplated leaving politics to work in academia. However, in August 1968, he was named Second Secretary of the Stavropol Kraikom, making him the deputy of First Secretary Leonid Yefremov and the second most senior figure in Stavropol Krai. In 1969, he

11826-464: The Struggle for Temperance was formed to promote sobriety; it had over 14 million members within three years.Anti-alcohol propaganda was distributed, mostly by way of billboards extolling the virtues of a sober workforce. As a result, crime rates fell and life expectancy grew slightly between 1986 and 1987. However, bootleg liquor production rose considerably, and the reform imposed large costs on

11988-556: The Supreme Soviet appointed Gorbachev to chair the Standing Commission on Youth Affairs due to his experience with mobilizing young people in Komsomol. In November 1978, Gorbachev was appointed a Secretary of the Central Committee. His appointment had been approved unanimously by the Central Committee's members. To fill this position, Gorbachev and his wife moved to Moscow, where they were initially given an old dacha outside

12150-482: The United States; he was appalled at the prospect of nuclear war , was aware that the Soviet Union was unlikely to win the arms race and thought that the continued focus on high military spending was detrimental to his desire for domestic reform. US president Ronald Reagan publicly appeared to not want a de-escalation of tensions, having scrapped détente and arms controls, initiating a military build-up, and calling

12312-469: The annual speech marking the birthday of the Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin ; this required him re-reading many of Lenin's later writings, in which the latter had called for reform in the context of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, and encouraged Gorbachev's own conviction that reform was needed. In May 1983, Gorbachev was sent to Canada, where he met Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and spoke to

12474-547: The approval of the Central Committee Secretariat. The Secretariat was the connecting element between the Politburo and the Central Committee Departments. These departments, whose heads were always full members of the Central Committee, formulated policy for the party and thus the country, with most departments mirroring ministries of the GDR (for example, there was a Ministry of Light Industry and

12636-500: The area and tried to improve the lives of their inhabitants; he established a discussion circle in Gorkaya Balka village to help its peasant residents gain social contacts. Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife Raisa initially rented a small room in Stavropol, taking daily evening walks around the city and on weekends hiking in the countryside. In January 1957, Raisa gave birth to a daughter, Irina, and in 1958 they moved into two rooms in

12798-417: The area around Chernobyl. Taubman noted that the disaster marked "a turning point for Gorbachev and the Soviet regime". Several days after it occurred, he gave a televised report to the nation. He cited the disaster as evidence for what he regarded as widespread problems in Soviet society, such as shoddy workmanship and workplace inertia. Gorbachev later described the incident as one which made him appreciate

12960-506: The authorities. Gorbachev became close friends with Zdeněk Mlynář , a Czechoslovak student who later became a primary ideologist of the 1968 Prague Spring . Mlynář recalled that the duo remained committed Marxist–Leninists despite their growing concerns about the Stalinist system. After Stalin died in March 1953, Gorbachev and Mlynář joined the crowds massing to see Stalin's body lying in state. At MSU, Gorbachev met Raisa Titarenko , who

13122-506: The authority of a dictator. From 1960, many of them concurrently served on the State Council of East Germany , replacing the President of the German Democratic Republic . Ideologically, the party, from its foundation, adhered to Marxism–Leninism , and pursued state socialism , under which all industries in East Germany were nationalized, and a command economy was implemented. The SED made

13284-517: The brief tenures of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko —in 1985, the Politburo elected Gorbachev as general secretary, the de facto leader. Although committed to preserving the Soviet state and its Marxist–Leninist ideals, Gorbachev believed significant reform was necessary for its survival. He withdrew troops from the Soviet–Afghan War and embarked on summits with United States president Ronald Reagan to limit nuclear weapons and end

13446-516: The campaign to have been an error, and it was terminated in October 1988. After it ended, it took several years for production to return to previous levels, after which alcohol consumption soared in Russia between 1990 and 1993. In the second year of his leadership, Gorbachev began speaking of glasnost , or "openness". According to Doder and Branson, this meant "greater openness and candour in government affairs and for an interplay of different and sometimes conflicting views in political debates, in

13608-498: The city. They then moved to another, at Sosnovka , before finally being allocated a newly built brick house. He was also given an apartment inside the city, but gave that to his daughter and son-in-law; Irina had begun work at Moscow's Second Medical Institute . As part of the Moscow political elite, Gorbachev and his wife now had access to better medical care and to specialized shops; they were also given cooks, servants, bodyguards, and secretaries, although many of these were spies for

13770-455: The country had to import increasing quantities of grain. He had growing concerns about the country's agricultural management system, coming to regard it as overly centralized and requiring more bottom-up decision making; he raised these points at his first speech at a Central Committee Plenum, given in July 1978. He began to have concerns about other policies too. In December 1979, the Soviets sent

13932-427: The country's fifteen regions. Regional level government structure changed dramatically with the abolition of regional assemblies in 1952, but each administrative structure always had a party secretary, applying a structure also replicated in administrative structures at local levels. The regional party leadership team ( "SED Bezirksleitung" / BL) was an elected body analogous to the Central Committee, membership of which

14094-432: The country's leading institutions and industrial combines, the president of the country's Writers' Association , top military officers and party veterans. The Party Central Committee, reflecting the country's overall power structure, was overwhelmingly male: the proportion of women never rose above 15%. The Central Party Control Commission (ZPKK) was the supreme disciplinary body of the SED operating under and elected by

14256-516: The country's past—was uncomfortable. Some in the party thought Gorbachev was not going far enough in his reforms; a prominent liberal critic was Yeltsin. He had risen rapidly since 1985, attaining the role of party secretary in Moscow. Like many members of the government, Gorbachev was skeptical of Yeltsin, believing that he engaged in too much self-promotion. Yeltsin was also critical of Gorbachev, regarding him as patronizing. In early 1986, Yeltsin began sniping at Gorbachev in Politburo meetings. At

14418-400: The development of the GDR until he was forced to step down during the 1989 revolution. The party's last leader, Egon Krenz , was unsuccessful in his attempt to retain the SED's hold on political governance of the GDR and was imprisoned after German reunification . The SED's long-suppressed reform wing took over the party in the autumn of 1989. In hopes of changing its image, it reorganized as

14580-420: The eighth leader of the Soviet Union. Few in the government imagined that he would be as radical a reformer as he proved. Although he was not a well-known figure to the Soviet public, there was widespread relief that the new leader was not elderly and ailing. Gorbachev's first public appearance as leader was at Chernenko's Red Square funeral, held on 14 March. Two months after being elected, he left Moscow for

14742-404: The fact that East Germany had achieved international recognition in the intervening years. East Germany's growing involvement in both the East European economic system and the global economy reflected its new international status. This international status and the country's improved diplomatic and political standing were the major areas stressed by this congress. The 9th Party Congress also served as

14904-471: The first time, traveling to Leningrad , where he spoke to assembled crowds. In June he traveled to Ukraine, in July to Belarus, and in September to Tyumen Oblast , urging party members in these areas to take more responsibility for fixing local problems. Gorbachev's leadership style differed from that of his predecessors. He would stop to talk to civilians on the street, forbade the display of his portrait at

15066-456: The former KPD and SPD members created different factions within the SED and remained mutually quite antagonistic for some time after the formation of the new party. The report also noted considerable difficulty in convincing the masses that the SED was an authentic German political party and not merely a tool of the Soviet occupation force. According to Tiulpanov, many former members of the KPD expressed

15228-630: The formerly German land that the Yalta Conference , and ultimately the Potsdam Conference , had (re)allocated to Poland, the USSR, and Czechoslovakia. The SED began to integrate former members of the Nazi Party at its founding. However, the strategy was controversial within the party. The SED therefore set up the National Democratic Party of Germany (NDPD) in 1948 as satellite party that could serve as

15390-448: The future political status of Berlin. Another major development initiated at the congress was a strengthening of the Council of Ministers at the expense of the Council of State ; this shift subsequently played an important role in administering the "Main Task" program. The SED further proclaimed that greater emphasis would be devoted to the development of a "socialist national culture" in which

15552-453: The harvest; the money earned allowed him to pay for a wedding. On 25 September 1953 he and Raisa registered their marriage at Sokolniki Registry Office and in October moved in together at the Lenin Hills dormitory. Raisa discovered that she was pregnant and although the couple wanted to keep the child she fell ill and required a life-saving abortion. In June 1955, Gorbachev graduated with

15714-496: The highest body of the SED was the Party Congress , convened every fifth year. When the Party Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body, but since the body normally met only once a year most duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo and its Standing Committee. Members of the latter were the top leadership of both the party and the state, with the party's general secretary effectively having

15876-935: The importance of the ties to the Soviet Union. In his closing remarks, he stated: "Our party, the SED, is linked forever with the party of Lenin , [the CPSU]." A delegation led by chief party ideologue Mikhail Suslov , a member of the CPSU Politburo , represented the CPSU at the SED congress. Honecker reiterated earlier positions on the relationship between the two German states, stressing that they were two sovereign states that had developed along different lines since World War II, and that their differences had to be respected by both sides as they continued efforts toward peaceful coexistence despite membership in antagonistic alliances. In his speeches, Honecker, along with other SED officials, devoted greater attention to Third World countries than he had done in

16038-422: The lack of widespread public support for his government and pursue a power sharing agreement with the opposition. That month, the Politburo approved Gorbachev's decision to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan, although the last troops did not leave until February 1989. Gorbachev had inherited a renewed period of high tension in the Cold War. He believed strongly in the need to sharply improve relations with

16200-407: The latter carried out only personnel shifts rather than structural change. Gorbachev became Andropov's closest ally in the Politburo; with Andropov's encouragement, Gorbachev sometimes chaired Politburo meetings. Andropov encouraged Gorbachev to expand into policy areas other than agriculture, preparing him for future higher office. In April 1983, in a sign of growing ascendancy, Gorbachev delivered

16362-603: The law school of Moscow State University (MSU), then the most prestigious university in the country. They accepted him without asking for an exam, likely because of his worker-peasant origins and his possession of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour. His choice of law was unusual; it was not a well-regarded subject in Soviet society at that time. At age 19, he traveled by train to Moscow, the first time he had left his home region. In Moscow, Gorbachev resided with fellow MSU students at

16524-615: The law school. One of his first Komsomol assignments in Moscow was to monitor the election polling in Presnensky District to ensure the government's desire for near-total turnout; Gorbachev found that most of those who voted did so "out of fear". In 1952, he was appointed a full member of the Communist Party. As a party and Komsomol member, he was tasked with monitoring fellow students for potential subversion; some of his fellow students said that he did so only minimally and that they trusted him to keep confidential information secret from

16686-452: The leadership of the FDGB, a specific program to raise living standards. The 9th Congress initiated a hard line in the cultural sphere, which contrasted with the policy of openness and tolerance enunciated at the previous congress. Six months after the 9th Congress, for example, the GDR government withdrew permission for the singer Wolf Biermann to live in East Germany. The congress also highlighted

16848-504: The leadership, provided a forum for discussing the leadership's policies, and undertook activities that served to legitimize the party as a mass movement. They were formally empowered to pass both the party program and the statutes, to establish the general party line, to elect the members of the Central Committee and the members of the Central Auditing Commission, and to approve the Central Committee's report. Between congresses

17010-524: The market as a lifesaver for your economies. But, comrades, you should not think about lifesavers but about the ship, and the ship is socialism." Gorbachev's perestroika also entailed attempts to move away from technocratic management of the economy by increasingly involving the labor force in industrial production. He was of the view that once freed from the strong control of central planners, state-owned enterprises would act as market agents . Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders did not anticipate opposition to

17172-400: The most rigidly Stalinist parties in the Soviet bloc, the SED rejected the liberalisation policies of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev , such as perestroika and glasnost in the 1980s, which would lead to the GDR's isolation from the restructuring USSR and the party's downfall in the autumn of 1989. The SED was officially organized on the basis of democratic centralism . Theoretically,

17334-432: The next five years, and he sought to spur individual initiative and productivity by recommending a labor policy that would reward the most meritorious and productive members of society. The 11th Congress, held 17–21 April 1986, unequivocally endorsed the SED and Honecker, whom it confirmed for another term as party head. The SED celebrated its achievements as the "most successful party on German soil", praised East Germany as

17496-430: The next general secretary; as a longstanding party member, Gromyko's recommendation carried great weight among the Central Committee. Gorbachev expected much opposition to his nomination as general secretary, but ultimately the rest of the Politburo supported him. Shortly after Chernenko's death, the Politburo unanimously elected Gorbachev as his successor; they wanted him rather than another elderly leader. He thus became

17658-451: The office of general secretary, and there were no electoral surprises, as all incumbents except the ailing 76-year-old Albert Norden were returned to the Politbüro and the Secretariat. The congress highlighted the importance of policies that had been introduced or stressed at the two previous congresses and that had dominated East German life during the 1970s. As in the past, Honecker stressed

17820-530: The ongoing arguments over the issue of separate citizenship for the two German states, which the SED proclaimed but which the West German government refused to recognize as late as 1987. During the 9th Congress, the SED also responded to some of the public excitement and unrest that had emerged in the aftermath of the signing of the Helsinki Accords , the human rights documents issued at the meetings in 1975 of

17982-404: The opening session of the congress by the general secretary discussed the economic and social progress made during the five years since the 9th Congress. Honecker detailed the increased agricultural and industrial production of the period and the resultant social progress as, in his words, the country continued "on the path to socialism and communism." Honecker called for even greater productivity in

18144-637: The party finances analogous to the CPSU Central Auditing Commission , though due to its limited jurisdiction, its practical significance was minor compared to the ZPKK. The most important day-to-day work of the Central Committee was undertaken by the Politburo , a small circle of senior party officers, comprising between 15 and 25 full members, along with approximately 10 candidate (non-voting) members. The politburo members included approximately ten Central Committee Secretaries. The General Secretary of

18306-480: The party secretary and fellow committee members, and at this point a full-time salaried party secretary would be appointed. Party secretaries in very large industrial combines and other economically important institutions would combine their party secretarial roles with membership of a more powerful body, applying a structural element maintained right up to the level of the Party Central Committee. The task of

18468-1005: The party's sectional leadership team ( "SED-Kreisleitung" ). There were in total 262 of these sectional leadership teams, including one each for the Free German Youth (FDJ) , the Trade Union Federation (FDGB) , the Foreign Ministry, the Foreign Trade Ministry, the State Railway organisation, the military branches of the Interior Ministry, the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) , the National People's Army , each of which had its own integrated political-administrative structure. The party's regional structure started with

18630-450: The past. Honecker mentioned the continually increasing numbers of young people from African, Asian, and Latin American countries who received their higher education in East Germany, and he referred to many thousands of people in those countries who had been trained as apprentices, skilled workers, and instructors by teams from East Germany. The bulk of the Central Committee report delivered at

18792-524: The people covered by their party secretarial duties. Where work on occasion attracted criticism, there were many ways on which changes could be passed on. This fact lay behind the burgeoning bureaucratization of the party apparatus and the presence of Stalinistic tendencies. Party secretaries underwent a special monthly political process that included instructive guidance and verification by representatives from higher level party committees. Along with their party responsibilities, party secretaries were members of

18954-696: The perestroika reforms; according to their interpretation of Marxism, they believed that in a socialist society like the Soviet Union there would not be "antagonistic contradictions". However, there would come to be a public perception in the country that many bureaucrats were paying lip service to the reforms while trying to undermine them. He also initiated the concept of gospriyomka (state acceptance of production) during his time as leader, which represented quality control. In April 1986, he introduced an agrarian reform which linked salaries to output and allowed collective farms to sell 30% of their produce directly to shops or co-operatives rather than giving it all to

19116-598: The perversions of Stalin. He helped spread Khrushchev's anti-Stalinist message in Stavropol, but encountered many who continued to regard Stalin as a hero or who praised the Stalinist purges as just. Gorbachev rose steadily through the ranks of the local administration. The authorities regarded him as politically reliable, and he would flatter his superiors, for instance gaining favor with prominent local politician Fyodor Kulakov . With an ability to outmanoeuvre rivals, some colleagues resented his success. In September 1956, he

19278-904: The position. As head of the Stavropol region, he automatically became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( 24th term ) in 1971. According to biographer Zhores Medvedev , Gorbachev "had now joined the Party's super-elite". As regional leader, Gorbachev initially attributed economic and other failures to "the inefficiency and incompetence of cadres, flaws in management structure or gaps in legislation", but eventually concluded that they were caused by an excessive centralization of decision making in Moscow. He began reading translations of restricted texts by Western Marxist authors such as Antonio Gramsci , Louis Aragon , Roger Garaudy , and Giuseppe Boffa , and came under their influence. Gorbachev's main task as regional leader

19440-651: The press, and in Soviet culture". Encouraging reformers into prominent media positions, he brought in Sergei Zalygin as head of Novy Mir magazine and Yegor Yakovlev as editor-in-chief of Moscow News . He made the historian Yury Afanasyev dean of the State Historical Archive Faculty, from where Afansiev could press for the opening of secret archives and the reassessment of Soviet history. Prominent dissidents like Andrei Sakharov were freed from internal exile or prison. Gorbachev saw glasnost as

19602-418: The recently instituted New Economic System . But the about-face in economic policy that year cannot be attributed to Honecker's advancement alone. During the previous two winters, the GDR had been plagued with power shortages and traffic breakdowns. From 1971 onwards, congresses were held every five years. The last was the 11th Party Congress in April 1986. In theory, the party congresses set policy and elected

19764-457: The region from Voronezh several generations before; his maternal family were of ethnic Ukrainian heritage and had migrated from Chernihiv . His parents named him Viktor at birth, but at the insistence of his mother—a devout Orthodox Christian —he had a secret baptism , where his grandfather christened him Mikhail. His relationship with his father, Sergey Andreyevich Gorbachev, was close; his mother, Maria Panteleyevna Gorbacheva (née Gopkalo),

19926-527: The regional Komsomol, in which position he went out of his way to appoint women as city and district leaders. In 1961, Gorbachev played host to the Italian delegation for the World Youth Festival in Moscow; that October, he also attended the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . In January 1963, Gorbachev was promoted to personnel chief for the regional party's agricultural committee, and in September 1966 became First Secretary of

20088-670: The regional teams of national institutions such as the FDJ , the FDGB and the Planning Commission. The First Secretaries of the regional FDJ and chairmen of the regional FDGB and Planning Commission were always Secretariat members too. First Secretaries of regional party organisations held significant power in their respective regions, with some First Secretaries such as Hans-Joachim Böhme or Hans Albrecht being described as despotic, sometimes dictatorial. First Secretaries were always full members of

20250-501: The remaining students and approximately 300 support workers were dispersed. The principal of the Academy had the rank of a Central Committee Department head and was usually a full member of the Central Committee. Socialist Unity Party of Germany The Socialist Unity Party of Germany ( German : Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands , pronounced [zotsi̯aˈlɪstɪʃə ˈʔaɪnhaɪtspaʁˌtaɪ ˈdɔʏtʃlants] ; SED , pronounced [ˌɛsʔeːˈdeː] )

20412-634: The role of artists and writers would be increasingly important. Honecker was more specific about the SED's position toward the intelligentsia at the Fourth Plenum of the Central Committee, where he stated: "As long as one proceeds from the firm position of socialism, there can in my opinion be no taboos in the field of art and literature. This applies to questions of content as well as of style, in short to those questions which constitute what one calls artistic mastery." The 9th Party Congress in May 1976 can be viewed as

20574-506: The scale of incompetence and cover-ups in the Soviet Union. From April to the end of the year, Gorbachev became increasingly open in his criticism of the Soviet system, including food production, state bureaucracy, the military draft, and the large size of the prison population. In a May 1985 speech given to the Soviet Foreign Ministry —the first time a Soviet leader had directly addressed his country's diplomats—Gorbachev spoke of

20736-456: The school's morning exercise class. Over the course of five consecutive summers from 1946 onward he returned home to assist his father in operating a combine harvester, during which they sometimes worked 20-hour days. In 1948, they harvested over 8,000 centners of grain, a feat for which Sergey was awarded the Order of Lenin and his son the Order of the Red Banner of Labour . I would consider it

20898-730: The secret police , an account that influenced the young boy. Following on from the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, in June 1941 the German Army invaded the Soviet Union. German forces occupied Privolnoye for four and a half months in 1942. Gorbachev's father had joined the Red Army and fought on the frontlines; he was wrongly declared dead during the conflict and fought in the Battle of Kursk before returning to his family, injured. After Germany

21060-532: The sentiment that they had "forfeited [their] revolutionary positions, that [the KPD] alone would have succeeded much better had there been no SED, and that the Social Democrats are not to be trusted" (Tiulpanov, 1946). Tiulpanov also indicated that there was a marked "political passivity" among former SPD members, who felt they were being treated unfairly and as second-class party members by the new SED administration. As

21222-402: The state administration, and they secured the leadership role that the SED claimed for itself in businesses and offices. Managerial decisions were discussed and ultimately decided in party committees. This meant that a manager, provided he was a party member, was committed to implementing those decisions. The basic organisional unit in an organisation or department was placed under the control of

21384-412: The state for distribution. In a September 1986 speech, he embraced the idea of reintroducing market economics to the country alongside limited private enterprise, citing Lenin's New Economic Policy as a precedent; he nevertheless stressed that he did not regard this as a return to capitalism . In the Soviet Union, alcohol consumption had risen steadily between 1950 and 1985. By the 1980s, drunkenness

21546-513: The teaching of Marxism–Leninism and the Russian language compulsory in schools. Walter Ulbricht was the party's dominant figure and effective leader of East Germany from 1950 to 1971. In 1953, an uprising against the Party was met with violent suppression by the Ministry of State Security and the Soviet Army . In 1971, Ulbricht was succeeded by Erich Honecker who presided over a stable period in

21708-610: The time, showed mass unpopularity with the results of his administration and possibly regret in the collapse of the USSR. Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in the village of Privolnoye , then in the North Caucasus Krai of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , Soviet Union . At the time, Privolnoye was divided almost evenly between ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians. Gorbachev's paternal family were ethnic Russians and had moved to

21870-442: The two parties was thus effective only in the Soviet zone. The SED was modeled after the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . The 2nd Party Congress convened from 20 to 24 July 1947. It adopted a fresh party statute and transformed the party executive committee into a central committee (Zentralkomitee or ZK ). The 3rd Party Congress convened in July 1950 and emphasized industrial progress. The industrial sector, employing 40% of

22032-477: The working population, was subjected to further nationalization, which resulted in the formation of "people's enterprises" (German: Volkseigener Betrieb , VEB). These enterprises incorporated 75% of the industrial sector. At the same time, the party completed its transformation into a more orthodox Soviet-style party with the election of Walter Ulbricht as the party's general secretary. The 6th Party Congress convened from 15 to 21 January 1963. The congress approved

22194-481: Was "politically illiterate". Yeltsin then resigned both as Moscow party secretary and as a member of the Politburo. From this point, tensions between the two men developed into a mutual hatred. In April 1986 the Chernobyl disaster occurred. In the immediate aftermath, officials fed Gorbachev incorrect information to downplay the incident. As the scale of the disaster became apparent, 336,000 people were evacuated from

22356-526: Was a Soviet and Russian politician and statesman who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 and additionally as head of state beginning in 1988, as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990 and

22518-497: Was a breach of standard practice and generated resentment. His other close aides were Georgy Shakhnazarov and Anatoly Chernyaev . Gorbachev was aware that the Politburo could remove him from office, and that he could not pursue more radical reform without a majority of supporters in the Politburo. He sought to remove several older members from the Politburo, encouraging Grigory Romanov , Nikolai Tikhonov , and Viktor Grishin into retirement. He promoted Gromyko to head of state,

22680-670: Was a major social problem and Andropov had planned a major campaign to limit alcohol consumption, but died before the plan was put into action. Encouraged by his wife, Gorbachev—who believed the campaign would improve health and work efficiency—oversaw its implementation. Alcohol production was reduced by around 40%, the legal drinking age rose from 18 to 21, alcohol prices were increased, stores were banned from selling it before 2 pm, and tougher penalties were introduced for workplace or public drunkenness and home production of alcohol. The program also recommended that drinking scenes be censored from old movies. The All-Union Voluntary Society for

22842-614: Was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee in 1970, overseeing the construction of the Great Stavropol Canal . In 1978, he returned to Moscow to become a Secretary of the party's Central Committee ; he joined the governing Politburo ( 25th term ) as a non-voting member in 1979 and a voting member in 1980. Three years after the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev —following

23004-464: Was at work in publicly owned industrial and quasi-commercial enterprises , machine and tractor stations , publicly owned farms and in the larger agricultural cooperatives , expressly mandated to monitor and regulate the operational management of each institution. The smallest organisational unit in the party was the Party Group. Group members elected one of their number Party Group Organiser (PGO), to take responsibility for Party Work. There were also

23166-443: Was aware that he was a potential reformer and wanted to meet him. At the end of the visit, Thatcher said: "I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together". He felt that the visit helped to erode Andrei Gromyko 's dominance of Soviet foreign policy while at the same time sending a signal to the United States government that he wanted to improve Soviet–US relations . On 10 March 1985, Chernenko died. Gromyko proposed Gorbachev as

23328-414: Was behind the United States in many areas of production, but Gorbachev claimed that it would accelerate industrial output to match that of the US by 2000. The Five Year Plan of 1985–1990 was targeted to expand machine building by 50 to 100%. To boost agricultural productivity, he merged five ministries and a state committee into a single entity, Agroprom, although by late 1986 he acknowledged this merger as

23490-495: Was centred on the Committee Secretariat, which was chaired by a General Secretary, named First Secretary from 1953 to 1976. This function was combined with chairmanship of the Politburo. The General Secretary until 1971 was Walter Ulbricht : he was deposed by Erich Honecker , who in turn was deposed by Egon Krenz . Unlike in the Soviet Union, the SED only had "Second Secretaries" on the local and regional levels, but not in

23652-491: Was colder and punitive. His parents were poor, and lived as peasants. They had married as teenagers in 1928, and in keeping with local tradition had initially resided in Sergey's father's house, an adobe -walled hut, before a hut of their own could be built. The Soviet Union was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party , and during Gorbachev's childhood was under the leadership of Joseph Stalin . Stalin had initiated

23814-529: Was defeated, Gorbachev's parents had their second son, Aleksandr, in 1947; he and Mikhail would be their only children. The village school was closed during much of the war but re-opened in autumn 1944. Gorbachev did not want to return but when he did he excelled academically. He read voraciously, moving from the Western novels of Thomas Mayne Reid to the works of Vissarion Belinsky , Alexander Pushkin , Nikolai Gogol , and Mikhail Lermontov . In 1946, he joined

23976-579: Was elected as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and made a member of its Standing Commission for the Protection of the Environment. Cleared for travel to Eastern Bloc countries, in 1966 he was part of a delegation which visited East Germany , and in 1969 and 1974 visited Bulgaria . In August 1968 the Soviet Union led an invasion of Czechoslovakia to put an end to the Prague Spring,

24138-481: Was enrolled in a PhD program, but instead gained employment in Stavropol ; Raisa abandoned her studies to join him there. In August 1955, Gorbachev started work at the Stavropol regional procurator's office, but disliked the job and used his contacts to get a transfer to work for Komsomol, becoming deputy director of Komsomol's agitation and propaganda department for that region. In this position, he visited villages in

24300-403: Was formally the party's leading institution. Increasingly, party conferences were planned with military-level precision. Their choreography was carefully undertaken to ensure that they were understood as high-profile society events. They were very much more than mere political functions. Delegates were selected from the regional and sectional party organisations according to criteria determined by

24462-545: Was in very poor health. Chernenko was often too sick to chair Politburo meetings, with Gorbachev stepping in last minute. Gorbachev continued to cultivate allies both in the Kremlin and beyond, and also gave the main speech at a conference on Soviet ideology, where he angered party hardliners by implying that the country required reform. In April 1984, Gorbachev was appointed chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of

24624-520: Was part of a delegation that traveled to Italy, where they met with representatives of the Italian Communist Party ; Gorbachev loved Italian culture but was struck by the poverty and inequality he saw in the country. In 1972, he visited Belgium and the Netherlands, and in 1973 West Germany . Gorbachev and his wife visited France in 1976 and 1977, on the latter occasion touring the country with

24786-558: Was promoted First Secretary of the Stavropol city's Komsomol, placing him in charge of it; in April 1958 he was made deputy head of the Komsomol for the entire region. At this point he was given better accommodation: a two-room flat with its own private kitchen, toilet, and bathroom. In Stavropol, he formed a discussion club for youths, and helped mobilize local young people to take part in Khrushchev's agricultural and development campaigns. In March 1961, Gorbachev became First Secretary of

24948-403: Was promoted to a higher position in Moscow and Gorbachev succeeded him as the First Secretary of the Stavropol kraikom. This granted Gorbachev significant power over the Stavropol region. He had been personally vetted for the position by senior Kremlin leaders and was informed of their decision by the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev . Aged 39, he was considerably younger than his predecessors in

25110-493: Was some initial difficulty making regional SED officials realize that they should think carefully before opposing the political positions decided upon by the Central Committee in Berlin. Although it was nominally a merger of equals, from the beginning the SED was dominated by Communists. By the late 1940s, the SED began to purge most recalcitrant Social Democrats from its ranks. By the time of East Germany's formal establishment in 1949,

25272-519: Was studying in the university's philosophy department. She was engaged to another man, but after that engagement fell apart, she began a relationship with Gorbachev; together they went to bookstores, museums, and art exhibits. In early 1953, he took an internship at the procurator's office in Molotovskoye district, but he was angered by the incompetence and arrogance of those working there. That summer, he returned to Privolnoye to work with his father on

25434-400: Was the unification congress . This congress elected two co-chairmen to lead the party: Wilhelm Pieck , former leader of the eastern KPD, and Otto Grotewohl , former leader of the eastern SPD. The union was initially intended to apply to the whole of occupied Germany. The union was rejected consistently in the three western occupation zones, where both parties remained independent. The union of

25596-530: Was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from the country's foundation in 1949 until its dissolution after the Peaceful Revolution in 1989. It was a Marxist–Leninist communist party , established in 1946 as a merger of the East German branches of the Communist Party of Germany and Social Democratic Party of Germany . The GDR was effectively

25758-846: Was three years old, Gorbachev left his parental home and moved into the kolkhoz with his maternal grandparents. The country was then experiencing the famine of 1930–1933 , in which two of Gorbachev's paternal uncles and an aunt died. This was followed by the Great Purge , in which individuals accused of being " enemies of the people ", including those sympathetic to rival interpretations of Marxism like Trotskyism , were arrested and interned in labor camps, if not executed. Both of Gorbachev's grandfathers were arrested (his maternal in 1934 and his paternal in 1937) and spent time in Gulag labor camps before being released. After his December 1938 release, Gorbachev's maternal grandfather discussed having been tortured by

25920-756: Was to raise agricultural production levels, a task hampered by severe droughts in 1975 and 1976. He oversaw the expansion of irrigation systems through construction of the Great Stavropol Canal . For overseeing a record grain harvest in Ipatovsky district, in March 1972 he was awarded the Order of the October Revolution by Brezhnev in a Moscow ceremony. Gorbachev always sought to maintain Brezhnev's trust; as regional leader, he repeatedly praised Brezhnev in his speeches, for instance referring to him as "the outstanding statesman of our time". Gorbachev and his wife holidayed in Moscow, Leningrad, Uzbekistan, and resorts in

26082-480: Was ultimately succeeded as Soviet leader by Nikita Khrushchev , who denounced Stalin and his cult of personality in a speech given in February 1956 , after which he launched a de-Stalinization process throughout Soviet society. Later biographer William Taubman suggested that Gorbachev "embodied" the "reformist spirit" of the Khrushchev era. Gorbachev was among those who saw themselves as "genuine Marxists" or "genuine Leninists" in contrast to what they regarded as

26244-506: Was unpaid. It worked alongside the administrative body of paid officials who were occasionally also members of the party leadership team. At a regional level the SED leadership team was headed by a Secretariat. The Secretariats always had a First Secretary (also responsible for Security Affairs) and a Second Secretary (also responsible for Cadre Affairs), and secretaries responsible for "Agitation and propaganda" , Economy, Science, Culture and Agriculture. There were also regional teams to shadow

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