Mikhail Gorbachev erode Gromyko's dominance of Soviet foreign policy while at the same time sending a signal to the U.S. government that he wanted to improve Soviet-U.S. relations. On 11 March 1985, Chernenko died. Gromyko proposed Gorbachev as the next General-Secretary; as a longstanding party member, Gromyko's recommendation carried great weight among the Central Committee. Gorbachev expected much opposition to his nomination as Chernenko's successor, but ultimately the rest of the Politburo supported him. Shortly after Chernenko's death, the Politburo unanimously elected Gorbachev as his successor; they wanted him over another elderly leader. Although not a well-known figure to the Soviet public,
Mikhail Gorbachev collapse moved toward social democracy. Of mixed Russian and Ukrainian heritage, Gorbachev was born in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai to a peasant family. Growing up under the rule of Joseph Stalin, in his youth he operated combine harvesters on a collective farm before joining the Communist Party, which then governed the Soviet Union as a one-party state. While studying at Moscow State University, he married fellow student Raisa Gorbacheva in 1953 prior to receiving his law degree in 1955. Moving to Stavropol, he worked for the Komsomol youth organisation and became a keen proponent of the de-Stalinization reforms of Soviet leader