Mikhail Gorbachev major campaign to limit alcohol consumption, which Gorbachev—who believed it would improve health and work efficiency—oversaw. His wife keenly supported the measure. As a result, crime rates fell and life expectancy grew slightly between 1986 and 1987. The reform had significant costs to the Soviet economy, resulting in losses of up to $100 billion between 1985 and 1990. Gorbachev later considered the campaign to have been an error. In April 1986 the Chernobyl disaster occurred; in the immediate aftermath, officials fed Gorbachev incorrect information to downplay the incident. As the scale of the disaster became apparent, 336,000 people were evacuated
1996 Mikhail Gorbachev presidential campaign "war on crime". As leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev had desired to implement more gradual reforms in an effort to preserve the country's socialism while providing a democratization of its society. This contrasted with many of the reforms which Yeltsin had implemented, which sought rapid change and disregarded the country's socialist structure. Gorbachev hoped that, if elected, he would be able to halt course and implement his own, more mild, vision of reforms. He hoped to create a social democratic state structure in Russia. One of Gorbachev's top stated priorities was to put an end to the war in