Mikhail Gorbachev from the area around Chernobyl. Taubman noted that the disaster marked "a turning point for Gorbachev and the Soviet regime". Gorbachev later described the incident as one which made him appreciate the scale of incompetence and cover-ups in the Soviet Union. From April to the end of the year, Gorbachev became increasingly open in his criticism of the Soviet system, including food production, state bureaucracy, the military draft, and the large size of the prison population. Gorbachev's primary goal as general secretary was to revive the Soviet economy after the stagnant Brezhnev years. In 1985, he announced that the economy
1996 Mikhail Gorbachev presidential campaign by Viktor Anpilov and a group of Anpilov's supporters. They condemned Gorbachev for his role in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and held signs which read "No Place for Traitors on the Holy Ground of Stalingrad". Anpilov tried to get Gorbachev's wife Raisa to take flowers from him, and mocked her and her husband for being "rude ingrates" when she refused them. During a campaign trip through St. Petersburg local officials refused to allow Gorbachev to embark on visits that he had planned to take to three factories, with the officials telling Gorbachev that the factories were closed to