Gorbachev as leader: personality, aims and power base; reasons for perestroika, glasnost and demokratizatsiya; withdrawal from Afghanistan and readiness to end the Cold War; summit meetings leading to the Malta Agreement
Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader in 1985 and launched three radical reform programmes to save communism from collapse. He also ended the Cold War through a series of summit meetings with US President Reagan and then Bush.
Real World
The 1986 Reykjavik summit between Gorbachev and Reagan came within hours of agreeing to abolish all nuclear weapons — an extraordinary moment that showed how dramatically the Cold War's rules had changed under Gorbachev's willingness to make sweeping concessions.
Exam Focus
Link each reform — perestroika, glasnost, demokratizatsiya — to a specific problem Gorbachev faced; examiners reward precise cause-and-effect reasoning over general description.
Essay Framework
Use PEEL to structure every paragraph. Tap each step for guidance and an example.
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