James Watt

1781: Converted reciprocal engine motion to rotary motion. The inherent contradictions in this approach - praising Lenin, admiring Sweden's social model and seeking to maintain the annexation of the Baltic states by military force - were difficult enough. 1774: Started a business in Soho, near Birmingham, with Matthew Boulton to manufacture his improved Watt steam engine. Gorbachev had aimed to maintain the CPSU as a united party but move it in the direction of social democracy. 1769: Patented separate condensing chamber for steam engine. Those arrested for high treason include the "Gang of Eight" that had led the coup. 1767: Surveyor of Forth and Clyde canal. Furthermore, Gorbachev was forced to fire large numbers of his Politburo and, in several cases, arrest them.

1765: While wandering through the Glasgow Green's "Golf Course", comes upon the idea of a separate condensing chamber for the steam engine. However, upon his return, Gorbachev found that neither union nor Russian power structures heeded his commands as support had swung over to Yeltsin. 1763: Repaired a Newcomen steam engine, which started him thinking about ways to improve the engine. During this time, Gorbachev spent three days (August 19 to 21) under house arrest at a dacha in the Crimea before being freed and restored to power. 1754: Learned the trade of mathematical-instrument making in London before returning to Glasgow. Conservatives in the Soviet leadership launched the August Coup in 1991 in an attempt to remove Gorbachev from power and prevent the signing of the new union treaty. 1736: Born in Greenock, Scotland. On the eve of the treaty's signing the conservatives struck.

In contrast to the reformers' lukewarm approach to the new treaty, the conservatives, still strong within the CPSU and military establishment, were completely opposed to anything which might lead to breakup of the Soviet motherland. However, the more radical reformists, such as Russian SFSR President Boris Yeltsin, were increasingly convinced that a rapid transition to a market economy was required and were more than happy to contemplate the disintegration of the USSR if that was required to achieve their aims. The new treaty was strongly supported by the Central Asian republics, who needed the economic power and markets of the Soviet Union to prosper. Gorbachev's response to growing republic separatism was to draw up a new treaty of union which would have created a truly voluntary federation in an increasingly democratised USSR.

Gorbachev had accidentally unleashed a force that would ultimately destroy the Soviet Union. Nationalist feeling also took hold in the Soviet republics of Georgia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan. Calls for greater independence from Moscow's rule grew louder, especially in the Baltic republics of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, which had been annexed into the Soviet Union by Stalin in 1940. Gorbachev's relaxation of censorship and attempts to create more political openness had the unintended effect of re-awakening long-suppressed nationalist and anti-Russian feelings in the Soviet republics.

Despite being an attempt to revitalize Soviet socialism, the democratization of the USSR and Eastern Europe tore away the power of the CPSU and Gorbachev himself. The loosening of Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe effectively ended the Cold War, and for this, Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 15, 1990. With the exception of Romania, the democratic revolutions against the pro-Soviet communist regimes were all peaceful ones. Moscow's abandonment of the Brezhnev Doctrine led to a string of revolutions in Eastern Europe throughout 1989, in which communism collapsed.

This proved to be the most far-reaching of Gorbachev's foreign policy reforms with his Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov jokingly calling his new doctrine the Sinatra Doctrine. Also during 1988, Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union would abandon the Brezhnev Doctrine, and allow the Eastern bloc nations to determine their own internal affairs. In February 1988, Gorbachev announced the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, which was completed the following year. This led to the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 1987.

President Ronald Reagan met in Reykjavik, Iceland to discuss reducing intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe. On October 11 1986, Gorbachev and U.S. In international affairs, Gorbachev sought to improve relations and trade with the West. In December 1988, the Supreme Soviet approved the establishment of a Congress of People's Deputies, which constitutional amendments had established as the Soviet Union's new legislative body.

In June 1988, at the CPSU's Nineteenth Party Conference, Gorbachev launched radical reforms meant to reduce party control of the government apparatus. In January 1987, Gorbachev called for democratization: the infusion of democratic elements such as multi-candidate elections into the Soviet political process. Gorbachev's goal in undertaking glasnost was to pressure conservatives within the CPSU who opposed his policies of economic restructuring, and he also hoped that through different ranges of openness, debate and participation, the Soviet people would support his reform initiatives. The press became far less controlled, and thousands of political prisoners and many dissidents were released.

This was a radical change, as control of speech and suppression of government criticism had previously been a central part of the Soviet system. Gorbachev's introduction of glasnost gave new freedoms to the people, such as a greater freedom of speech. Under this provision, cooperative restaurants, shops, and manufacturers became part of the Soviet scene. The law initially imposed high taxes and employment restrictions, but these were later revised to avoid discouraging private-sector activity.

For the first time since Vladimir Lenin's New Economic Policy, the law permitted private ownership of businesses in the services, manufacturing, and foreign-trade sectors. The Law on Cooperatives enacted in May 1987 was perhaps the most radical of the economic reforms during the early part of the Gorbachev era. However, many of his reforms were contrary to the beliefs of many in the Soviet government at the time. Domestically, Gorbachev implemented economic reforms that he hoped would improve living standards and worker productivity as part of his perestroika program.

As de facto ruler of the Soviet Union, he tried to reform the stagnating Communist Party and the state economy by introducing glasnost ("openness"), perestroika ("restructuring"), and uskorenie ("acceleration", of economic development), which were launched at the 27th Congress of the CPSU in February 1986. He became the Party's first leader to have been born after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Upon the death of Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev, at age 54, was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party on March 11, 1985. In 1984, he traveled to the United Kingdom, where he met with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

In 1975, he led a delegation to West Germany, and in 1983 he headed a Soviet delegation to Canada to meet with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and members of the Canadian House of Commons and Senate. His positions within the new CPSU created more opportunities to travel abroad that would profoundly affect his political and social views in the future as leader of the country. He was also close to Konstantin Chernenko, Andropov's successor, serving as second secretary. During this time Grigory Romanov, Nikolai Ryzhkov, and Yegor Ligachev were elevated, the latter two working closely with Gorbachev, Ryzhkov on economics, Ligachev on personnel.

With responsibility over personnel, working together with Andropov, 20 percent of the top echelon of government ministers and regional governors were replaced, often with younger men. There, he received the patronage of Yuri Andropov, head of the KGB and also a native of Stavropol, and was promoted during Andropov's brief time as leader of the Party before his death in 1984. He was elevated to the Politburo in 1979. In 1972, he headed a Soviet delegation to Belgium and two years later, in 1974, he was made a Representative to the Supreme Soviet, and Chairman of the Standing Commission on Youth Affairs.

His career moved forward rapidly, and in 1970, he was appointed First Secretary for Agriculture and the following year made a member of the Central Committee. In 1966, at age 35, he graduated from the Agricultural Institute as an agronomist-economist. Gorbachev joined the CPSU in 1952 at the age of 21. They were married in September 1953 and moved to Gorbachev's home region of Stavropol in southern Russia when he graduated in 1955.

He studied law at Moscow University, where he met his future wife, Raisa. Mikhail Gorbachev was born into a peasant family in the village of Privolnoye near Stavropol. . His attempts at reform led to the end of the Cold War, but also caused the end of the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

See International Phonetic Alphabet." class="IPA" style="white-space: nowrap; font-family:'Code2000', 'Chrysanthi Unicode', 'Doulos SIL', 'Gentium', 'GentiumAlt', 'TITUS Cyberbit Basic', 'Bitstream Vera', 'Bitstream Cyberbit', 'Arial Unicode MS', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro'; font-family /**/:inherit; text-decoration: none">/mixaˈɪɫ serˈgejevɪtʃ gərbaˈtʃof/) (born March 2, 1931), was leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov (Gorbachev)  listen^? (Russian: Михаи́л Серге́евич Горбачёв; pronunciation: