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 The result was an end to the Cold War and the nuclear arms race." Although he has credited Vladimir Putin for stabilizing Russia in the aftermath of the initial and turbulent years of the post-Soviet era, Gorbachev has become critical of both Putin and Dmitry Medvedev since at least March 2011. His main grievances about the "tandem" are backsliding on democracy, corruption and the dominance of security officers. Gorbachev is also dissatisfied by the fact that he has not been allowed to register his social democratic party. When being interviewed by the BBC to reflect on the 20th anniversary of