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Gorbachev became first and last president of the Union. [2] His tenure was marked by the legal and political confrontation with Russia and other republics of the USSR which eventually led to their full independence in late 1991.
At the age of 54, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected to the general secretariat by Politburo on 11 March 1985. [29] In May 1985, Gorbachev publicly admitted the slowing down of the economic development and inadequate living standards, being the first Soviet leader to do so while also beginning a series of fundamental reforms.
However, the first and only Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, was elected by the democratically elected Congress of People's Deputies. [9] In connection with the dissolution of the Soviet Union national elections for the office of President never took place. To be elected to the office a person must have been a Soviet citizen and older than ...
In the months following the conference, Gorbachev focused on redesigning and streamlining the party apparatus; the Central Committee staff—which then numbered around 3,000—was halved, while various Central Committee departments were merged to cut down the overall number from twenty to nine.
On becoming leader, Gorbachev saw withdrawal from the war as a key priority. [221] In October 1985, he met with Afghan Marxist leader Babrak Karmal, urging him to acknowledge the lack of widespread public support for his government and pursue a power sharing agreement with the opposition. [221]
The goal was to create something akin to the Vietnam War, which would drain Soviet forces and morale. When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, he sought to restructure the Soviet Union to resemble the Scandinavian model of western social democracy and thus create a private sector economy. He withdrew Soviet troops ...
Credited as the man most responsible for the end of the Cold War, Gorbachev was beloved and loathed in equal measure.
It became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) following the creation of the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the CPSU, became the leader of the USSR, being general secretary from the early 1920s to his death in 1953.