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 December 1979, the Soviets sent their Red Army into neighbouring Afghanistan to support the Soviet-aligned government against Islamist insurgents; Gorbachev privately thought it a mistake. However, at times he openly supported the government position; he supported Soviet calls for the Polish Marxist–Leninist government to crack down on growing internal dissent in Poland in October 1980. After Brezhnev's death in November 1982, Andropov succeeded him as General Secretary of the Communist Party, the "de facto" head of government in the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was enthusiastic about the appointment. However, although Gorbachev hoped that Andropov would introduce liberalising reforms, the latter