The most important event of the last forty years has been the disintergration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Communism. That movement-which for decades threatened to engulf the whole world-has declined with startling speed, and now seems to be headed for the "dustbin of history". One man stands out as the pivotal figure in that astonishing decline and fall: Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who headed the USSR during its six fateful years (1985-1991). Gorbachev was born in 1931 in the village of Privolnoe, in the Stavropal region of southern Russia. His childhood coincided with the most brutal period of the dictatorship of Josepth Stalin, one of the bloodiest tyrants in history. Indeed, Mikhail's own grandfather, Andrei, spent nine years in Stalin's prison camps and was not released until 1941, only a few months before Germany invaded Russia. Mikhail himself was far two young to serve in the army during World War II, but his father and older brother had thought in the army, and his elder brother was killed in action, and Privolnoye was occupied by the Germans for about eight months. None of this, however, delayed Gorbachev's career. He got excellent grades in school, and after the war he joined Komosol (the Young Communist Youth League) and in the following year at the age of fifteen, he became leader of that organisation, and then worked as a combined harvestor for four years, in his spare time. He entered Moscow State University in 1950, studied law there, and graduated in 1955. It was there (in 1952) that he became a member of the Communist party, and there that he met his future wife, Raisa Maximovna Titorenko. They married shortly before his graduation, and have one child, Irina. After receiving his law degree, Gorbachev returned to Starvropol and commenced his gradual rise through the party beauracracy. He had served a minor role in the government, during the Soviet leadership of Nikkita Khruschev who headed the Soviet Union from (1953-1964), just after the death of Stalin. In 1970, he became First Secretary of the regional party commitee, and in the following year he was appointed a member of the Central Commitee of the Communist party. He got a big promotion in 1978, when he moved to Moscow to become a secretary of the Central Commitee, in charge of argriculture. In 1979, Gorbachev became a canditate member of the Politburo (which was, effectively, the ruling body of the Soviet Union), and in 1980, he became a full member. All these promotions occured during the period (1964-1982) when Leonid Brezhnev headed the Soviet Union. Brezhnev's death was followed by the brief reigns of Yuri Andropov (1982-1984) and Konstanstine Chernenko (1984-1985), and it was during those years that Gorbachev became a prominent member of the Politburo. Chernenko died on March 11th 1985, and the very next day Gorbachev was named to suceed him as Secretary General. (The Politburo voted in secret, but it is rumored that Gorbachev's election was by only a small margin over Viktor Grishin, a quite conservative figure. How different history might have been if only two or three persons had voted the other way!) Unlike most Soviet leaders, Gorbachev had traveled abroad (France 1966, Italy 1967, Canada 1983 and England 1984) before he became party leader; so when he was elected, many Westerners hoped that Gorbachev would be a modern and liberal leader than his predecessors had been. This turned out to be the case, but nobody anticipated the speed and magnitude of the reforms that he would make. The Soviet Union faced many serious problems when Gorbachev took office, but all were exacerbated by the financial crunch caused by the enourmous government spending on armaments. Hoping to end the arms race, he quickly accepted the proposal of the American president, Ronald Reagan, for a summit meeting. The two leaders met on four occasions: in Geneva (1985), Reykavik (1986), Washington (1987), and in Moscow (1988). The most dramatic result was the arms limitation treaty signed in December 1987. This was the first treaty that actually reduced the number of nuclear weapons which the great powers had. In fact, an entire class of medium-range missiles was eliminated entirely! Another action that reduced international tensions was Gorbachev's decision to remove the Soviet troops from Afghanisthan. The Soviet army had invaded the country in 1979, during the Brezhnev era, and at first had considerable military success. But after Reagan's decision to supply the Afghan guerillas with Stinger surface-to-air missiles (which greatly reduced the effectiveness of Soviet air power), the tide shifted, and the Soviets got bogged down in a long, inconclusive war. The outside world had always severly criticized the Soviet invasion of Afghanisthan, and the war was costly and unpopular at home; but Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko (and at first, Gorbachev too) had all been unwilling to pull out, fearing a loss of face. Finally, though , Gorbachev decided to cut his losses, and early in 1988 he signed an argreement providing for the withdrawal of all Soviet forces. (The withdrawal was completed by the argreed date in February 1989). These changes in foreign policy were dramatic, but the bulk of Gorbachev's efforts were devoted to domestic matters. From the beginning, he saw that a major program of perestroika (" restructuring") was needed in order to deal with the poor performance of the Soviet economy. As one aspect of this restructuring, the power of the Communist party (which formely had been in virtually complete control of the Soviet government) was greatly reduced under Gorbachev. On economic level, the restructuring included the legalization of the private enterprise in some fields. It should be noted that Gorbachev always insisted that he was a loyal follower of Marx and Lenin, and a firm believer in socialism. His goal, he said, was merely to reform the Communist system so that it would work better. Perhaps the most revolutionary of his reforms was the policy of glasnost, or "openess", which Gorbachev instituted in 1986. One aspect of glasnot was more openess and candor by the government concerning its activities and concerning events of public interest. Another aspect was permitting private individuals or publications to discuss political matters freely. The publication of views whose expression, just a few years earlier, would have brought a prison sentence (perhaps a death sentence during the Stalin era!) became commonplace under glasnost. It became possible for Soviet journals to criticize government policies, the Communist Party, high government officials, even Gorbachev himself.! Another important step in the democratization of the USSR occured in 1989, when popular elections were held for a new Soviet parliament, the Council of People's Deputies. These were certainly not free elections in the Western sense: 90 percent of the candidates were members of the ruling Communist party, and no other political parties were allowed. But the elections were held by secret ballot; they did involve a choice of candidates; and the voted were counted honestly. They were certainly the closest thing to free elections since the Communists took power in 1917. The results of the election came close-as close as the rules allowed-to a vote of "no confidence" in the Communist party. Many old-line party leaders (including a few who ran unopposed!) were defeated, and several outspoken dissidents were elected. Despite these impressive reforms within the USSR, nobody anticipated the cataclysmic changes that occured in Eastern Europe in 1989-1990. That entire region had been occupied by Russian troops at the close of World War II, and in the 1940's Communist regimes-reliably subservient to the Soviet Union- had been established in six countries: Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Czechaslavakia, and East Germany. These regimes were generally unpopular; but their leaders, backed by the secret police and the army, had held sway for over forty years. Even when a popular revolt succeeded in overthrowing one of the Communist tyrants-ad had occured in Hungary in 1956-Soviet troops soon restored the Communists to power. Although elections in Poland in June 1989 had clearly shown little popular support the Communists enjoyed in the region, as late as September 1989 it seemed that Communist-and Russian-control of Eastern Europe was secure. By the end of the year, however, the entire system had collapsed like a house of cards in hurricane. The troubles started in East Germany. Ever since the erection of the infamous Berlin Wall in 1961, many East Germans had wished to escape to the West, and many had been shot in a vain attempt to cross the wall. For years, the Wall had been a grim symbol that East Germany-and, in fact, all Communist regimes were little more than enourmous prison camps. Nor could the East Germans cross over to the West at other points, as their government had sealed the entire border and had erected an extensive set of barbed-wire fences, alarms, military patrols and minefields to catch would be-escapees. However, in 1988 and 1989 many East Germans had suceeded in escaping by an indirect route, by first going to another East European country (which was legal) and from there going to the West. In October 1989, Erich Honecker-the tough, hard-line Communist who had ruled East Germany for many years-tried to shut down this alternate escape route. A few days later there were large demonstrations in East Berlin, protesting Honecker's action. In this crisis, Gorbachev visited Berlin, and urged Honecker not to delay reforms, warned him not to supress the demonstrations by force, and made it clear that Soviet troops (there were 380,000 in East Germany at the time) would not be used against the East German population. Gorbachev's remarks forestalled a bloody crackdown by the East German police and army, while boosting the confidence of the protestors. Within a few days, a series of massive public demonstrations began in various East German cities. Within two weeks, Honecker resigned, and Egon Krenz had replaced him as the next Communist leader in East Germany. The demonstrations continued, and finally on November 9th, Krenz announced that the Berlin Wall would be opened and that East Germans would be allowed to cross over freely to the West! Within a few days, millions of East Germans streamed across the border, to see with their own eyes what life was really like in the West was really like. What they saw convinced them that forty-four years of Communist rule had robbed them both their freedom and their prosperity. Throughout Eastern Europe people reacted to the destruction of the Berlin Wall much as the French population, two centuries earlier, had responded to the destruction of the Bastille: It was a dramatic indication that the tyrants had lost there power to opress. In country after country, the people rose up against there masters and swept aside the Communist regimes that had ruled them for so long. In Bulgaria, Todor Zhivkov, who had ruled that contry with an iron hand for thirty-five years, was quickly forced to resign (on November 10, 1989). A week later, massive demonstrations began in Prague, the capital of Czechaslavakia. By December 10, these resulted in the resignation of President Gustav Husak and the relinquishment of the power by the Communist party. Husak was soon replaced as president by Jaclav Havel, a prominent dissident who had spent the first few months of the year in jail as a political prisoner! The changes were were even more rapid in Hungary. There, the government had legalized opposition parties in October 1989. Then, in free elections held on November 26th, these new parties desively defeated the Communists, who relinquished power without a bloodshed. Poland tried to overthrow the Communist government as early as 1980, but failed. In Poland, events moved faster still and, late in the year, the victorious anti-communists decided to completely scrap socialism and install a throughgoing free-market economy starting January 1st, 1990, and during that year the first free-elections were held, and Lech Walesa became the new demorcratic leader of Poland. The lastholdout was in Romania in December 1989. Hardline-Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu wanted to prevent the same being that occured in these countries, to be avoided. There was a large demonstrations against his rule throughout the hole country, and he had the army fire on the crowds. On December 25th, Ceaucescu was overthrowned, and he was captured, tried and executed. The domino had fallen in Eastern Europe. Thanks to Gorbachev, six countries were liberated. These events-momentousd in themselves-soon led to: (1) the removal of Soviet troops from Czechaslavakia and Hungary; (2) genuine elections in the newly-freed states (in general, the Communist parties had done very badly;) (3) the abandonement of Marxism in several countries, which have been Soviet client states (for example, Mongolia and Ethiopia); (4) the reunification of Germany (completed in October 1990). More important than any of these changes, however, was the rapid growth of nationalistic movements within the USSR. Despite, its name, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was never a voluntary union. Rather, it was the sucessor to the old Russian Empire ruled by the czars: an assemblage of peoples brought together by conquest. ("The prison-house of nations", was how Westerners used to describe the Czarist empire.) Many of those people had continued to desire there independence, just as the inhabitants of the old British, French, and Dutch empires had wanted. It had been impossible to publicly express these yearnings under the iron rule of Stalin, or under the less brutal still firm hand of his sucessors. But under Gorbachev's glasnost these nationalist desires could be mentioned, and it was not long before organized movements arose. There was unrest in Estonia, in Latvia, in Moldova, and in several other Soviet republics, including Azerbijan. But it was tiny little Lithiaunia that matters first came to the breaking point. On March 11th, 1990. following general elections in which the question of sucession had been the principal issue, the Lithiuanian parliament boldly declared that country's complete independence from the USSR. Gorbachev's response was interesting. He was promptly denounced the Lithaunian action as illegal, threatened dire consequencws if it were not reversed, imposed an economic embargo, and paraded Soviet troops through the Lithuianian capital in a show of military force. But he did not crush the breakaway province by direct military force, nor did he shoot, or even imprison, the Lithiuanian leaders (as Stalin surely would have done). Lithiuania is a small country and itself was neither economically nor militarily important to the Soviet Union. However, the example set by Lithuania was very important. When the Lithuianian attempt at sucession was not promptly crushed, nationalists in all the other Soviet republics gained hope and courage. Within two months, the parliament of Latvia also passed a declaration of independence from the USSR. Then on June 12th, 1990, the Russian SSR (the largest republic in the Soviet Union) declaired its "sovereignty"-not quite a declarations of either independence or sovereignty in every one of the fifteen Soviet republics. Quite naturally, these enourmous changes unleashed by Gorbachev's actions (and inactions at critical stages) were viewed with great misgivings by many of the old-line leaders of the Communist party and the Soviet Army. In August, 1991, some of these staged a coup d'etat. Gorbachev was arrested, and it appeared that the coup leaders might suceed in reversing many of his reforms. However, the other prominent leaders within the Soviet Union-most notably Boris Yelstin, the head of the Russian republic-opposed the coup, as did the bulk of the Russian population, and the coup collapsed in a few days. After the failure of the coup, events moved with astonishing speed. The Communist party was promptly thrown out of power, its activities banned, and its property seized. Furthermore, by the end of the year, all the component republics of the USSR had seceded, and the Soviet Union was foremally dissolved. Those leaders who had wished to merely reform the Communist system were quickly pushed aside by those, such as Yelstin, who wished to eliminate it entirely. Gorbachev himself resigned from office in December 1991. Gorbachev deserves a good deal of credit for his role in the freeing of Eastern Europe. There had been many rebellion against Communist rule in Eastern Europe in the past, and the Soviet leaders before Gorbachev, used to react ruthlessly by crushing the rebellion by force. In the six Eastern European countries that were liberated, Soviet troops neither in any of those countries crushed any demonstration. But he had been ruthless in using military force against the Lithiuanian revolt, which also makes it interesting. Had Lenin or Stalin been alive, the Lithuanian crisis would have been solved by force, and it's aftermath, both Lenin and Stalin would have bloody purged the entire region. Also important was Gorbachev's infleunce on arms limitation and on ending the Cold War. Both Reagan and Gorbachev, both played a part in ending the Cold War, but I believe most of the credit should go to Gorbachev, simply because had he not been selected in 1985, the Cold War will still be standing, right to the present day. It was glasnost, perhaps, more that anything else, which permitted the final overthrow of the Soviet system. Gorbachev's policies completely changed our world. For decades many people throughout the world, wished the end of the Cold War. The Cold War wasn't caused by the United States, but by Stalin's military expansion, and the United States and the West reacted with a defensive situation. And also to be noted, Gorbachev also plays a large part in the decline of Communism. Others also play a large part in the defeat of Communism, including ex-communists such as Arthur Koestler and Whittaker Chambers, who alerted the west to the true nature of the Communist system, Soviet dissidents such as Alexander Solzhenitzen and Andrei Sakharov, who risked there lives to speak out in Russia, guerilla fighters in Angola, Afghanisthan and Nicaragua, who fought bravely to prevent Communist governments from seizing power in these countries, and political leaders in the United States, such as Harry S Truman, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, who used American arms, American financial resources and the example of American freedom and prosperity to resist the spread of Communism and to defeat it completely. However had Lenin or Stalin been selected to head the Soviet Union in 1985, this repressive state would be still standind, and the Cold War continuing. But it was not Stalin who was selected in 1985, but rather Gorbachev, and in the next six fateful years as leader of the USSR, he would end the Cold War, be responsible for the breakup of the USSR, and playing a large part in the defeat of Communism, even so he was a commited follower of Marx and Lenin, and mostly of all, he changed our lives.