Rise to Power
Gorbachev's Ascension to Leadership
By the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union had cycled through three aging leaders in just over two years: Brezhnev (died 1982), Andropov (died 1984), and Chernenko (died 1985). This rapid succession underscored how badly the country needed fresh leadership.
Mikhail Gorbachev was appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party in March 1985, at age 54. He was the youngest Soviet leader since Stalin and represented a generational shift away from the old guard that had run the country since the Brezhnev era. Unlike his predecessors, Gorbachev openly acknowledged that the Soviet system was in crisis and that significant reform was unavoidable.
Political Background and Influence
Gorbachev's political career began in the Stavropol region, where he rose quickly through regional Communist Party ranks. His key patron was Yuri Andropov, the former KGB chief and brief Soviet leader, who brought Gorbachev into the national spotlight and helped him secure a seat on the Politburo in 1980.
Within the Party, Gorbachev built a reputation as a pragmatic reformer interested in modernization. He also cultivated relationships with Western leaders before taking power. Margaret Thatcher's famous 1984 remark about Gorbachev, "We can do business together," signaled to the world that this was a different kind of Soviet politician. His communication skills and willingness to engage openly gave him a public image that set him apart from the stiff, secretive style of previous Soviet leaders.
Domestic Reforms
Gorbachev's Reform Agenda
Gorbachev's domestic program rested on three interconnected pillars:
- Perestroika (restructuring): Economic reforms designed to introduce limited market mechanisms into the centrally planned economy
- Glasnost (openness): Greater transparency in government and freedom of public discussion about social and political issues
- Democratization: Introducing competitive elements into Soviet politics, such as multi-candidate elections
These weren't separate initiatives so much as parts of a single strategy. Gorbachev believed the economy couldn't be fixed without political openness, and political openness required giving citizens a real voice. The three pillars reinforced each other, but they also created pressures the system ultimately couldn't contain.
Economic Restructuring and Acceleration
Before perestroika fully took shape, Gorbachev launched uskoreniye (acceleration) in 1985-86. This was a more conventional approach: boost productivity, modernize Soviet industry, and close the technology gap with the West. When uskoreniye failed to produce results, Gorbachev shifted toward deeper structural reforms.
Under perestroika, the government:
- Legalized limited private enterprise, including cooperatives (the Law on Cooperatives, 1988)
- Permitted joint ventures with foreign companies
- Attempted to decentralize economic decision-making, giving individual enterprises more autonomy over production and pricing
These reforms ran into serious resistance from conservative Party officials and entrenched bureaucrats who saw market elements as a threat to their power. At the same time, the reforms were too partial to create a functioning market economy, leading to shortages and economic disruption rather than the growth Gorbachev had hoped for.
Political and Social Liberalization
Glasnost transformed Soviet public life in ways that were difficult to reverse:
- Censorship was significantly reduced in media, literature, and the arts. Newspapers began publishing investigative reports on corruption and historical crimes of the Soviet state.
- Political dissidents were rehabilitated. Most notably, physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov was released from internal exile in 1986.
- The Congress of People's Deputies, created in 1989, introduced competitive elections for the first time. Televised debates in this body gave Soviet citizens an unprecedented look at open political disagreement.
Glasnost was meant to expose inefficiency and corruption so that reforms could move forward. But once people could speak freely, they didn't limit themselves to topics Gorbachev found convenient. Nationalist movements, demands for independence in the Baltic states, and public criticism of the Communist Party itself all accelerated under glasnost.
Foreign Policy
New Political Thinking in International Relations
Gorbachev's "New Political Thinking" represented a fundamental break from Cold War-era Soviet foreign policy. Instead of viewing international relations as a zero-sum struggle between capitalism and communism, Gorbachev argued that global challenges like nuclear war and environmental destruction required cooperation.
In practice, this meant:
- Pursuing arms reduction agreements with the United States
- Withdrawing Soviet troops from Afghanistan in February 1989, ending a nine-year war that had cost roughly 15,000 Soviet lives and drained resources
- Shifting from military competition toward diplomatic engagement with the West
Engagement with Eastern Europe
One of Gorbachev's most consequential decisions was abandoning the Brezhnev Doctrine, which since 1968 had asserted the Soviet Union's right to intervene militarily in any Eastern Bloc country that strayed from communist orthodoxy. In its place came what was informally called the "Sinatra Doctrine" (a reference to "My Way"), meaning each Eastern European country could choose its own path.
Gorbachev encouraged reform in Eastern Europe but did not anticipate how quickly events would move. When Hungary opened its border with Austria in the summer of 1989 and protests swept through East Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union did not intervene. The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the subsequent collapse of communist governments across Eastern Europe were direct consequences of this non-interference policy.
Gorbachev also supported German reunification, though he negotiated over the terms. Soviet troops were gradually withdrawn from Eastern European countries through the early 1990s.
Global Diplomacy and Disarmament
Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan held a series of landmark summits beginning in Geneva (1985) and Reykjavik (1986). These meetings built enough trust to produce real agreements:
- The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (1987) eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons, specifically land-based missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. This was the first treaty to actually reduce nuclear arsenals rather than just cap their growth.
- Negotiations toward the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), eventually signed in 1991, aimed to cut long-range nuclear stockpiles significantly.
Gorbachev also advocated for a stronger role for the United Nations in resolving international conflicts. In 1990, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in reducing Cold War tensions, though by that point the Soviet Union itself was beginning to fracture.