Gorbachev as Leader

Abstract

Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev’s election as Secretary-General of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) on 11 March 1985 was a watershed in Soviet politics. Not only was Gorbachev the youngest man to become Party leader since Stalin, he was the youngest member of the Politburo and he was the first born under the Soviet flag. Fortune smiled on him: he was the right man in the right place at the right time. He was fortunate that Leonid Brezhnev lived until November 1982. Since he was incapable of leading the Party in his last years those around him increased their power and influence. Brezhnev was followed by the mortally ill Yury Andropov and he in turn by the emphysemic Konstantin Chernenko. Under Chernenko, Gorbachev ‘led’ the CC Secretariat and chaired sessions of the Politburo when the Secretary-General had been too ill to attend. Due to the stability of membership of the Politburo Gorbachev only had to face two serious rivals: Grigory Romanov, like himself a CC secretary and full member of the Politburo and Viktor Grishin, first secretary of the Moscow City Party organisation. However Grishin was greatly handicapped by not being in the CC Secretariat. Chernenko’s death was unexpectedly sudden and Gorbachev’s allies, first and foremost Andrei Gromyko, seized the opportunity to have him selected by an incomplete Politburo and elected by an incomplete Central Committee.