Gorbachev, the leader who opened Russia to the world

• A historic leader Mikhail Gorbachev dies

• Photos The intense life of Mikhail Gorbachev, in pictures

Mikhail Sergeyevich

the first and last president of the

had his life changed when he was 11 years old and in fifth grade.

His family was so poor that he had no money to buy her shoes.

said in a letter from the front

as soon as he learned of that unfortunate circumstance.

His wife,

sold everything necessary for little Mikhail to continue his studies.

The boy applied himself, made up for lost time and got many outstanding marks.

That effort was worth it, but little did he know what the future would bring.

Times were very bad at that time in the village of

located in the territory of Stavropol, in the Russian south.

The Nazis occupied this region near the

and the whole world was mobilized in the war effort.

When his father returned from the front in 1945, after the end of hostilities, Misha already knew how to operate a harvesting machine on his own.

In the summer of 1948 father and son achieved a record harvest - five or six times above average - working 20 hours a day, which earned him at the age of 17 nothing less than the

a rare privilege for that age since it is usually reserved for former workers with a lifetime of experience and hard and faithful work.

That medal, his past as a peasant and his good academic record helped him to be chosen among those who applied for a place to study

the most prestigious in the country.

There he met

a beautiful and intelligent young woman whom he married in 1953 after a brief courtship.

They had a daughter, Irina.

After graduating, he returned to his home region where he was offered a position in the District Attorney's Office which he turned down.

He preferred to make a political career within the

the communist youth.

Intelligence, cunning, people skills but also luck.

Those were the circumstances that led him to be appointed seventh general secretary of

on March 11, 1985.

Chance caused Gorbachev to be born and raised precisely in Stavropol, a vast southern region, rich in cereals and appreciated for its hot springs and rest homes

where high officials such as

or

When he was already head of the party in Stavropol, he always tried to receive the veteran members of

who came to rest in his land.

It was in those informal meetings that Andropov saw the potential of the 'youngest', the generational replacement that he was looking for to lead the state.

Within the delicate theater of alliances, Gorbachev earned a friend in the Soviet leadership, a good godfather who informed him of what was going on in Moscow.

That man was called

and he came to the

in 1971 after being the head of the party in Stavropol.

Some even considered him a possible successor to

Unfortunately or fortunately for Gorbachev, Kulakov died suddenly in July 1978. But in the meantime his name had already sounded like a candidate for Minister of Agriculture or to head the

Selected at the proposal of

-the latter a native of Stavropol-, Gorbachev's promotion to the party's Sanhedrin was fundamentally due to an exchange of favors between adverse groups.

From July to November 1978, the future

Prize winner was the object of special scrutiny by both sides.

And on September 17, 1978,

a decisive "job interview" had taken place at the

Brezhnev and Chernenko were coming from Baku and there they met Gorbachev for two hours, who was accompanied by Andropov.

The historic meeting was the first in a series of his master moves.

When Gorbachev arrived in Moscow as secretary of the Central Committee in December 1978, he was only 47 years old and the youngest of a Soviet elite suffering from galloping aging.

With those 'chevrons' he could attend Politburo meetings, but not vote on resolutions.

As if it were a game of chess, which lasted for years, he handled his own and opponent's pawns, with precise moves and others not so much, to finally become, just turned 54, the most powerful man in the largest country. from the earth.

And he knew how to be adamant when he had to.

"Unlike

he does not have an inferiority complex. He is very confident in himself, in his ability to lead and is very confident. He is as tough as Brezhnev but more cultured, more skillful, more subtle... Brezhnev used a butcher knife to negotiate. Gorbachev uses a stiletto. But under the velvet glove he always wears hides a fist of steel."

That's the comment former President

made to

after meeting in July 1986 with the Soviet leader.

Gorbachev considered executing a titanic task, although he did so with mixed success.

He did not succeed in economic reform or in the thorny question of nationalities, but he did manage to forge the political transformation of the USSR and establish a new stage in international relations.

Although he was unable to fully cope with the agony of a dinosaur, he passed the basic test with flying colors: he refused to use force to accomplish his goals.

And that was a decisive blow to the logic of totalitarianism.

On the political level, he promoted the internal democratization of the PCUS, the modification of the Constitution to allow multi-party system and the conversion of the country into a presidential republic.

In foreign policy, he withdrew Soviet troops from

normalized relations with China, signed nuclear disarmament agreements with the United States, and unilaterally withdrew thousands of Red Army soldiers stationed in Europe.

He launched measures that came late to bring the system closer to the market economy, promoting the liberalization of prices set by the State or the creation of cooperatives.

He did not pay enough attention to interethnic tensions.

When he wanted to realize the danger that this posed for the very existence of the Soviet Union, the secession of the Baltic Republics was already a fait accompli.

Perestroika

or restructuring and

transparency derailed because they implied a quadruple and simultaneous transformation of the Soviet regime.

But above all they failed to achieve their goals because the changes were ruthlessly torpedoed by reformists and conservatives alike.

The first, led by the unpredictable Russian president

because they wanted the process to speed up as much as possible.

The latter, allies of

because they feared losing their privileges.

Gorbachev's main mistake was that he did not act more quickly and decisively.

He let a large part of his collaborators conspire against his plans and perpetrate a coup in August 1991 that had the whole world on edge for three days.

The coup failed because some were unwilling to return to the past.

He dreamed of "socialism with a human face" and was sincere when he thought that "more democracy, more socialism."

Then his experience showed him that this was impossible in his country.

As

"There are many famous names that have shaped the course of recent history:

They are all leaders who at decisive moments determined the course of their countries' history. But only one leader - Gorbachev - determined the long-term history of the global order."

He was undoubtedly the main character in a Greek drama;

he transformed the world board and in favor of peace, but in his homeland he was considered a

or even a traitor to the homeland.

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