News / Russia

Ex-Soviet leader presents new book

Monday, 29 February 2016 6:55 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 01 March 2016 12:57 PM ]

This photo taken on November 20, 2014 shows former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev presenting his book "After the Kremlin" in a bookstore in Moscow.(AFP Photo)

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has presented a new 700-page book named "Gorbachev in Life" which is a collection of memoirs, interviews, letters, documents and articles by him and others.

"The more I think about my life, the more I see that the biggest and most important events took place unexpectedly. Absolutely," Gorbachev said on Monday.

The 84-year-old was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 when the party was dissolved.

Gorbachev, whose ideas would change Russia drastically, was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Russian-Ukrainian family. He studied law in Moscow State University in the early 50s, and joined the Communist Party when he was still a student there. He steadily rose in party ranks and was elected General Secretary by the politburo in 1985.

File photo taken in the late 1930s shows Mikhail Gorbachev with his Ukrainian maternal grandparents

After assuming the Soviet leadership in 1985, he introduced the policies of glasnost ("openness") and perestroika ("restructuring") aimed at allowing greater personal freedoms and overcoming the economic stagnation the communist country was caught in.

These new policies changed the strategic aims of the Soviet Union and contributed to the end of the Cold War.

It also removed the constitutional role of the Communist Party in governing the state, and unexpectedly led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

For his contributions to world peace and achievements in the creation of a fundamentally new political order he was awarded numerous prizes, including the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development in 1987, the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 1989 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

Gorbachev said he hopes his book would help Russians understand their current history.

The former Soviet leader, who turns 85 on Wednesday, has over 51 books listed under his name on Goodreads books website.

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