Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022) was the last leader of the Soviet Union, serving as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1985 until the union's dissolution in 1991. He introduced the reform policies of glasnost, or political openness, and perestroika, or economic restructuring, aiming to revitalize the Soviet system, but the reforms instead accelerated political liberalization across the Eastern Bloc and within the Soviet Union itself. His tenure saw the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the largely peaceful end of Soviet control over Eastern Europe, developments for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. He survived an attempted coup by hardline officials in August 1991, but the Soviet Union formally dissolved into independent states by the end of that year, ending his time in power.
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