Mikhail Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev was a human political leader who lived on Earth during the 20th and 21st centuries. Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union, having served from 1985 to 1991.

In the late 1980s, Gorbachev began a program called perestroika to reform the Soviet Union, which by then was experiencing social and economic hardship due to extensive military spending and inefficiencies in central economic planning. Perestroika was a Russian word meaning "restructuring," and was coupled with the term glasnost, which could mean either "openness" or "publicity" by the Russian government. This program precipitated a liberalization of the Soviet Union - which was to include the elimination of corruption, simplification of bureaucracy, and production improvements. By 1991, hardliners in the Soviet government attempted to roll back the reforms by staging an attempted coup. This coup failed within a few days when the leaders of the coup were unable to consolidate power. After the coup was defeated, many of the Soviet Union's constituent members began to assert their independence, and the Soviet Union was dissolved on December 25, 1991. (TOS novel Probe). Gorbachev stepped down as leader following the dissolution. The Russian state which followed was led by Boris Yeltsin. (Historical accounts.)