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
1989 Sino-Soviet Summit the original plans of receiving the Soviet delegation with a grand ceremony at Tiananmen Square had to be scratched. Instead, the Soviet delegation only received a small welcoming ceremony at the airport. Some students who were occupying the square were holding banners and hailing Gorbachev as “The Ambassador of Democracy” as a result of the political reforms Gorbachev has instituted back in the Soviet Union. On May 16, 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev finally met with the Chinese paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, at the Great Hall of the People. Gorbachev also met with General Secretary Zhao Ziyang and the Premier of the