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
1990 Soviet Union presidential election not vote. The day after the election, Gorbachev took office as President at a meeting of the Congress of People's Deputies. 1990 Soviet Union presidential election Presidential elections were held in the Soviet Union on 14 March 1990 to elect a president for a five-year term. This was the only presidential election in the Soviet Union, as the post of president was introduced in 1990, and the Soviet Union disintegrated in the following year. The elections were uncontested, with Mikhail Gorbachev as the only candidate. Although the constitution required the president to be directly-elected, it was decided that the first