Soviet Leader. Born in a rural Soviet Socialist Republic, he was exposed to the horrors of the Second World War when the German Army invaded the U.S.S.R. in Operation Barbarossa. Academically gifted, he was admitted to Moscow State University where he studied law. Following his graduation in 1955, he became an official member of the reigning Communist party, taking a job in the Soviet Procurator's functionary, before transferring to a regional division of that body. Following the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the U.S.S. R. underwent a period of "De-Stalinization" under his eventual successor, Nikita Khrushchev. During this period, Gorbachev quickly rose through the ranks of the party, eventually being named as the leader of the youth division of the Stavropol city Communist organization in 1956. Five years later he was appointed as the regional First Secretary of the regional division. In 1968 he became the second most senior regional officer, and the following year was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Following his senior officer's promotion in 1970, Gorbachev was left as the most powerful Soviet official in the Stavropol division. The position afforded him great executive powers over the politics of the region and ensured a position on the executive leadership of the Soviet Union, the Central Committee. During his tenure as the leader of the Stavropol region, he oversaw a number of agrarian and infrastructure reforms, all the while catching the eye of the party elites in Moscow. A recipient of the Soviets' second highest award, the Order of the October Revolution, Gorbachev was eventually promoted to a higher echelon within the party, becoming a Secretary of the Central Committee in the Autumn of 1978. Within this section of the Soviet executive, he became a leader in the attempted Soviet agricultural reforms in the late 1970's. In October of 1980 he was promoted to full standing membership within the Soviet Politburo, the supreme policy making organ within the Soviet government. Following the death of Leonid Brezhnev and the succession of Yuri Andropov, Gorbachev was groomed for a future leadership role within the Politburo. Upon Andropov's death in 1984, he was succeeded as General Secretary by Konstantin Chernenko who appointed Gorbachev to the Chair position of the Foregin Affairs Committee of the Soviet Union. The following year he assumed the highest rankin position within the Soviet government, when, upon the sudden death of Chernenko, he was unanimously elected as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Seen as a moderate compared to the hardline leadership style of Brezhnev, Gorbachev's election to the Soviet leadership was looked upon with hope by the West. Known for his two signature policies of Perestroika and Glasnost, he sought to restructure and open the Soviet Union in order to strengthen the growing weaknesses he has witnessed within the Party. The policies were meant to restructure both the Soviet command style economy and the repressed society of the Soviet empire. With Glasnost, he hoped to open the inner workings of the Soviet leadership and to allow for a greater extent of dialogue within the government and press. Over the course of four years, Gorbachev attempted to institute a number of domestic reforms, all the while striving to advance Soviet interests on the foreign relations stage. In 1987, in one of the highlights of his tenure as First Secretary, he met with President Ronald Reagan in Washington D.C., where the two men concluded the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty which brokered a mutual disarmament of a number of the two parties land bases nuclear missiles. A further two conferences occurred between the two men, leading the a further reduction of the number of Soviet armed forces and a withdrawal of Soviet forces from the Eastern Bloc in Europe. Gorbachev's hopes for a restructured U.S.S.R. began to collapse following a number of democratic revolutions in late 1989. A majority of the Warsaw Pact nations of the Communist bloc fell during the mostly peaceful regime changes, leaving the Soviet Union greatly diminished. Internal tensions were rife within the Soviet leadership at the time, forcing Gorbachev to reorganize his executive position as First Secretary into a presidency. Following the further erosion of Communist control of continental Europe, coupled with a critical recession of the Soviet economy, revolution became inevitable. In August of 1990 a group of eight Soviet hardliners attempted to launch a takeover of the government, holding Gorbachev and his immediate family hostage within his private dacha. Though the so-called "August Putsch" was not immediately successful it did affect the final straw in the Soviet system's collapse. On August 23rd, Gorbachev resigned as the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, and further urged the dissolution of the Central Committee. Six days later the Supreme Soviet ended all Communist Party activities. Over the next four months, Boris Yeltsin consolidated power, while Gorbachev vainly hoped for any prospect of saving the Soviet Union. On December 25, 1990 he was forced to publicly announce his resignation as President of Soviet Union, and the following day the Soviet Union was voted out of existence. Following his abdication from government, he established the non-profit, Gorbachev Foundation before briefly attempting another foray into politics. During the 1996 Russian Federal election, he was soundly defeated by Yeltsin. Though he would never again hold public elected office, he established the short lived Russian United Social Democratic Party, a central left political movement which he hoped would provided an alternative to President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party. Though he initially received Putin as a welcome change from his old adversary Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev eventually became critical of the long time leader's domestic, foreign, and executive policies. Much of his last years were spent pushing for a reset of Russian-U.S. relations for the sake of the global community. In recognition of his decisive role in slowing the nuclear arms race, his contributions to ending the Cold War, and his fostering of more peaceful international relationships, he was bestowed the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize.