I.

Introduction

Mikhail Gorbachev, born in 1931, leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1985 to 1991, the last leader of that country and the key figure in the liberalization and subsequent disintegration of Soviet and Eastern European Communism. Gorbachev set out to reinvigorate the Soviet system but inadvertently destroyed it. His policies aimed at relaxing tensions with the West, particularly the United States, made a crucial contribution to the end of the Cold War, which had divided the world since the late 1940s.