Voronezh State Academical Drama Theatre

Mikhail Gorbachev | Wikipedia audio article

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Mikhail Gorbachev


00:03:36 1 Early life
00:03:45 1.1 Childhood: 1931–1950
00:07:38 1.2 University: 1950–1955
00:11:31 2 Rise in the Communist Party
00:11:41 2.1 Stavropol Komsomol: 1955–1969
00:15:58 2.2 Heading the Stavropol Region: 1970–1978
00:19:24 2.3 Secretary of the Central Committee: 1978–1984
00:23:45 3 General Secretary of the CPSU
00:24:37 3.1 Early years: 1985–1986
00:29:39 3.1.1 iPerestroika/i
00:32:11 3.1.2 iGlasnost/i
00:34:50 3.2 Presidency of the Soviet Union
00:36:18 3.2.1 Foreign engagements
00:37:41 3.2.1.1 Bold arms control proposal
00:39:52 3.2.1.2 Withdrawal from Afghanistan
00:40:25 3.2.1.3 Relinquishing control of East Bloc
00:44:34 3.2.2 Dissolution of the Soviet Union
00:49:04 3.2.2.1 Crisis of the Union: 1990–1991
00:58:27 3.2.2.2 Coup of August 1991
01:00:01 3.2.2.3 Final collapse
01:04:31 4 Post-presidency
01:14:51 4.1 Criticism of Vladimir Putin
01:17:27 4.2 Call for global restructuring
01:18:24 5 Personal life
01:20:50 5.1 Attitude to religion
01:22:45 5.2 Port-wine birthmark
01:23:17 6 Ideology
01:24:14 7 Works
01:25:03 8 Legacy
01:25:52 8.1 Honours and accolades
01:26:01 8.1.1 Soviet Union and Russia decorations
01:27:06 8.1.2 Foreign decorations and awards
01:30:24 9 See also



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The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates



SUMMARY
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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (born 2 March 1931) is a Russian and formerly Soviet politician. He was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the governing Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. He was the country's head of state from 1988 until 1991, serving as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990, and President of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991. Ideologically a socialist, he initially adhered to Marxism-Leninism although following the Soviet collapse moved toward social democracy.
Gorbachev was born in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai to a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family. In his youth he operated combine harvesters on a collective farm before joining the Communist Party, which then governed the Soviet Union as a one-party state. While studying at Moscow State University, he married fellow student Raisa Gorbacheva in 1953 prior to receiving his law degree in 1955. Moving to Stavropol, he worked for the Komsomol youth organisation and became a keen proponent of the de-Stalinization reforms of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. He was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee in 1970, in which position he oversaw construction of the Great Stavropol Canal. In 1974 he moved to Moscow to become First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet and in 1979 became a candidate member of the Politburo. Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief interregna of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, Gorbachev was elected general secretary by the Politburo in 1985.
Although committed to preserving the Soviet state and to its socialist ideals, Gorbachev believed significant reform was necessary and following the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 pursued this agenda. Gorbachev's policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War. Under this program, the role of the Communist Party in governing the state was removed from the constitution, which inadvertently led to crisis-level political instability with a surge of regional nationalist and anti-communist activism culminating in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev later expressed regret for his failure to save the Soviet state, though he has insisted that his policies were not failures but rather were vitally necessary reforms, which were sabotaged and exploited by opportunists. He was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 1989, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, and the Harvey Prize in 1992, as well as honorary doctor ...