Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, b. Mar. 2, 1931, general secretary of the Soviet Communist party (1985-91) and president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1988-91), was the last leader of the USSR.

By his reform programs of glasnost and perestroika, Gorbachev hoped to breathe new life into the increasingly stagnant Soviet system. Instead, by removing the rigid controls that had kept the system together for decades, he brought about its dissolution. He thus played a pivotal role in the dramatic series of events that transformed the international scene in the 1990s: the end of the cold war between East and West, the sudden disappearance of the Soviet empire, and the virtual elimination of communism as a dominant influence in world affairs.

(1998 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia)

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