Mikhail Gorbachev Biography

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a Russian and former Soviet politician. In 1961, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected as a delegate to the Communist Party Congress. In 1985, he was chosen general secretary. In 1990, he became the first president of the USSR, the Soviet Union and received the Nobel Peace Prize in the same year. After resigning in 1991, he established the Gorbachev Foundation and continues to work on social and political issues. 

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Information On Mikhail Gorbachev

• Full Name- Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev

• Born- 2 March 1931 (age 90)

• Nationality- Soviet (1931–1991); Russian (since 1991)

• Political party- Union of Social Democrats (2007–present)

• Spouse- Raisa Gorbacheva

• Children- Irina Mikhailovna Virganskaya

• Alma mater- Moscow State University

• Awards- Nobel Peace Prize

Early Life

Soviet Union president, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931, in the village of Privolnoye, in the Krasnogvardeysky District, close to the Stavropol Territory of southern Russia, to a Russian-Ukrainian family.

Who was Gorbachev? Gorbachev was born into a peasant family. Sergei's father worked as a combine harvester operator. When the Nazis invaded the USSR in 1941, Sergei was drafted into the Russian Army.

He was injured in war three years later and went home to resume operating farm machinery. Sergei shared his knowledge with his young son, Mikhail. Mikhail Gorbachev was a quick study who had a knack for mechanics. Gorbachev earned money for his family as a youngster by driving tractors at a local machine shop. Gorbachev was such a diligent worker that by the age of 17, he had won the Order of the Red Banner of Labor for his active involvement in bringing in that year's bumper crop. Maria Gorbachev, Gorbachev's mother, exhibited this rigorous work ethic by working on a collective farm for most of her life.

Mikhail Gorbachev grew up in a tumultuous political environment. Gorbachev experienced the agony of watching his maternal grandpa, Pantelei Gopkalo, arrested during the Great Purge when he was still a child in the 1930s. Gopkalo was arrested and tortured for 14 months after being suspected of being a Trotskyite counterrevolutionary. He was spared execution, much to the relief of his family. During Mikhail Gorbachev's childhood, the economy was likewise in upheaval. Southern Russia was hit by a severe drought in 1933. Because the region's population relied on farming for both food and revenue, famine struck, and many perished of starvation.

Gorbachev had a strong desire to learn as a child. His father urged him to go to university after he graduated from high school with a silver medal in 1950. Gorbachev had a fantastic academic record, and he has been admitted into Moscow University, the Soviet Union's top university, without having to take the admission exam. He was even given free living quarters at a neighbouring hostel by the institution. Gorbachev received his law degree from Moscow University cum laude in 1955 and returned to his hometown with his new wife, Raisa, a fellow Moscow University alumna.

Personal Life

Gorbachev, who stands 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 metres) tall, has a distinctive port-wine stain on the top of his head. He sings both folk and pop music and talks with a southern Russian accent.

Gorbachev was christened Russian Orthodox, and his grandparents were devout Christians when he was a child. After visiting the tomb of St Francis of Assisi in 2008, there has been some journalistic speculation that he was a devout Christian, to which he officially stated that he was an atheist. Gorbachev had regarded himself as an intellectual since his undergraduate days; Doder and Branson felt "his intellectualism was little self-conscious," observing that, unlike many other Russian intellectuals, Gorbachev was not directly connected "to the sphere of science, the arts, culture, or education." He and his wife amassed hundreds of books while living in Stavropol. 

Dostoevsky, Arthur Miller and Chinghiz Aitmatov were one of his favourite authors, and he also appreciated reading detective fiction. He liked going for walks and became a lover of association football. He also had a passion for natural areas. Rather than the huge, alcohol-fueled parties usual among Soviet leaders, he preferred quiet meetings where the present discussed issues such as art and philosophy.

Personality

Mlyná, Gorbachev's university acquaintance, called him "loyal and personally honest." He was self-assured, courteous, and tactful, with a cheerful demeanour. He was known for his self-deprecating humour and profanities, and he frequently referred to himself in the third person. He was a capable manager with a sharp recall. As General Secretary, he was a hard worker or workaholic, rising at 7 or 8 a.m. and not going to bed until 1 or 2 a.m. Taubman described Gorbachev as "a remarkably kind man" with "strong moral values."

Zhores Medvedev praised him as a gifted orator, declaring in 1986 that "Gorbachev is arguably the best speaker in the top Party echelons" since Leon Trotsky. Gorbachev was also regarded as "a charismatic leader" by Medvedev, something that Andropov, Brezhnev, and Chernenko were not. "A charmer capable of intellectually charming doubters, constantly seeking to co-opt them, or at least lessen the edge of their critique," Doder and Branson said of him.

Gorbachev was "a Russian to the core, deeply patriotic as only individuals living in border regions could be," according to Doder and Branson. Taubman also mentioned that the former Soviet ruler had a "feeling of self-importance and self-righteousness," and also a "desire for attention and adulation," which irritates a few of his coworkers. He was readily offended by personal criticism and was sensitive to it. Colleagues were frequently frustrated by his failure to complete duties, and they also felt undervalued and neglected by him. Gorbachev, according to biographers Doder and Branson, was a "puritan" with "a predilection for order in his private life." Taubman was "likely to blow up for strategic effect," he said.

He also believed that, as his domestic popularity waned in 1990, Gorbachev had grown "psychologically dependent on being lionised abroad," a feature for which he was chastised in the Soviet Union. "One of his shortcomings was an inability to predict the implications of his actions," McCauley said.

Orders, Decorations, and Donours

Gorbachev received the Indira Gandhi Prize for Disarmament, Peace, and Development from India in 1988, and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for "his leadership role in the peace process that now characterises large segments of the international society." He continued to be honoured after leaving the government. He received the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award for the first time in 1992, and the Grawemeyer Award from the University of Louisville in 1994. In 1995, Portuguese President Mário Soares granted him the Grand-Cross of the Order of Liberty, and in 1998, he received the Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. At an award show held at Hampton Court Palace near London in 2000, he received the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award. Gorbachev was awarded the Freedom of the City of Dublin by the Dublin City Council in 2002.

Gorbachev received the Charles V Prize from the European Academy of Yuste Foundation in 2002. For their rendition of Sergei Prokofiev's 1936 Peter and the Wolf for Pentatone, Bill Clinton, Gorbachev, and Sophia Loren won the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children in 2004. Gorbachev received the Point Alpha Prize in 2005 for his efforts in promoting German reunification.