Mikhail Gorbachev Nikita Khrushchev. He was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee in 1970, in which position he oversaw construction of the Great Stavropol Canal. In 1974 he moved to Moscow to become First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet and in 1979 became a candidate member of the Politburo. Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief "interregna" of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, Gorbachev was elected general secretary by the Politburo in 1985. Although committed to preserving the Soviet state and to its socialist ideals, Gorbachev believed significant reform was necessary
Mikhail Gorbachev In Stavropol, he formed a discussion club for youths, and helped mobilise local young people to take part in Khrushchev's agricultural and development campaigns. He went out of his way to appoint women as city and district leaders. With an ability to outmanoeuvre rivals, some colleagues resented his success. In 1961, Gorbachev played host to the Italian delegation for the World Youth Festival in Moscow. In January 1963, Gorbachev was promoted to personnel chief for the regional party's agricultural committee. In August 1968 the Soviet Union led an invasion of Czechoslovakia to put an end to the Prague Spring, a