Mikhail Gorbachev for his role in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing economic collapse. During his career, Gorbachev attracted the admiration of some colleagues, but others came to hate him. Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (born 2 March 1931) is a Russian and formerly Soviet politician. He was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the governing Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. He was the country's head of state from 1988 until 1991, serving as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989,
Eleventh five-year plan (Soviet Union) to admit that there were economic "shortcomings" and acknowledged the ongoing "food problem". Other topics for discussion were the need to save energy resources and to improve the quality of Soviet produced goods. By the 1980s the Soviet economy had stagnated, with the natural gas industry the only Soviet fuel industry to surpass the five-year plan's indicators. Although 40,000 robots were produced during the plan, advances in computer technology decreased, due to growing disillusionment with the Soviet system. At the end of his life, former Premier Alexei Kosygin feared the complete failure of this five-year plan, claiming that the incumbent