Mikhail Gorbachev

Last leader of the Soviet Union and an important figure in the end of the Cold War.

Mikhail Gorbachev worked in late Soviet politics and served as the final general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and first executive president of the USSR. His leadership pursued perestroika, glasnost, limited political pluralization, arms-control diplomacy, withdrawal from Afghanistan, reduced coercion in Eastern Europe, and attempted preservation of a reformed union.