Mikhail Gorbachev from the area around Chernobyl. Taubman noted that the disaster marked "a turning point for Gorbachev and the Soviet regime". Gorbachev later described the incident as one which made him appreciate the scale of incompetence and cover-ups in the Soviet Union. From April to the end of the year, Gorbachev became increasingly open in his criticism of the Soviet system, including food production, state bureaucracy, the military draft, and the large size of the prison population. Gorbachev's primary goal as general secretary was to revive the Soviet economy after the stagnant Brezhnev years. In 1985, he announced that the economy
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