Talk:Mikhail Gorbachev

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Mikhail Gorbachev has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
October 13, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed
January 7, 2020	Good article nominee	Listed

Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on March 11, 2004, December 25, 2004, December 25, 2005, December 25, 2006, December 25, 2007, December 25, 2013, December 25, 2016, and December 25, 2021.

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Section sizes

Section size for Mikhail Gorbachev (45 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	13,424	13,424
Early life and education	32	12,408
1931–1950: childhood	6,258	6,258
1950–1955: university	6,118	6,118
Early CPSU career	24	12,359
1955–1969: Stavropol Komsomol	7,265	7,265
1970–1977: heading the Stavropol region	5,070	5,070
Secretary of the Central Committee of CPSU	8,088	8,088
General Secretary of the CPSU	2,069	48,147
1985–1986: early years	2,645	21,720
Domestic policies	12,676	12,676
Foreign policy	6,399	6,399
1987–1989: further reforms	111	24,358
Domestic reforms	5,835	5,835
Forming the Congress of People's Deputies	3,995	3,995
Relations with China and Western states	7,177	7,177
Nationality question and the Eastern Bloc	7,240	7,240
Unraveling of the USSR	1,519	29,476
1990–1991: presidency of the Soviet Union	4,037	19,503
German reunification and the Gulf War	6,793	6,793
August coup and government crises	8,673	8,673
Final days and collapse	8,454	8,454
Post-USSR life	22	37,491
1991–1999: initial years	7,935	9,471
1996 presidential campaign	1,536	1,536
1999–2008: promoting social democracy in Putin's Russia	6,040	6,040
2008–2022: growing criticism of Putin and foreign policy remarks	21,958	21,958
Political ideology	6,949	6,949
Personal life	3,819	7,742
Personality	3,923	3,923
Death	2,367	19,317
Preceding deterioration of health	6,971	6,971
Funeral and burial	1,714	1,714
Reactions	8,265	8,265
Reception and legacy	7,901	7,901
Awards and honors	5,697	5,697
Bibliography	544	544
In popular culture	2,179	2,179
See also	135	135
Explanatory notes	37	37
References	17	2,621
Citations	34	34
Sources	2,570	2,570
Further reading	2,562	2,562
External links	5,752	5,752
Total	222,829	222,829

Archives

Archive 1

Archive 2

Youngest Secretary of the Central Committee

The article formerly stated that Gorbachev was the youngest man to hold the position of Secretary of the Central Committee and cited p163 of Taubman's biography. I'm unsure whether this accurately reflects what the source says, but regardless it is plainly incorrect; Vyacheslav Molotov was 32 when he held the job after the secretariat was reformed in 1922 and several Stalin-era Secretaries were in their late 30s. --RaiderAspect (talk) 13:00, 4 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Why would someone address everything in past tense in this section: Personal life? The man is still alive so describing attributes of him as if he was not is just stupid.

In the sentence..

He was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Sevastopol Regional Committee in 1970, in which position he oversaw construction of the Great Stavropol Canal.

"Sevastopol Regional Committee" seems to be incorrect. Should it be "Stavropol Regional Committee"? __Chaduvari (talk) 05:52, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Variety of English consistency

The article currently has a mix of American and British/Commonwealth English spelling. According to MOS:ARTCON, it should be consistent one way or another. Since MOS:TIES doesn't seem to apply, according to MOS:RETAIN we use the variety found in the first post-stub revision that introduced an identifiable variety, unless there is a consensus to do otherwise. It appears that American English was established by at least 2002, see: Special:Diff/398181 (traveled, democratization). Unless there is a reason to use something else, I will run the WP:EngvarB script to make that the consistent variety throughout the article. --IamNotU (talk) 00:28, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There are way too many semicolons in this article. The semicolon should be used rarely, not every time one writes two adjoining sentences that relate to each other. NoNonsenseHumJock (talk) 16:33, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Update Works Section please

2019 Meeting Gorbachev https://play.google.com/store/movies/details/Meeting_Gorbachev?id=5jN_A_ADCG0.P

Please unblock Gedium account. I do not wish to be a sock puppet! Your admins are idiots and do not follow procedure or protocol as stated by other admins.

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

RIAN archive 852682 XXVII Congress of the CPSU.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 08:54, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

General Secretary of the CPSU

On 10 March 1985, Chernenko died.[153] Gromyko proposed Gorbachev as the next General Secretary; as a longstanding party member, Gromyko's recommendation carried great weight among the Central Committee.[154] Gorbachev expected much opposition to his nomination as General Secretary, but ultimately the rest of the Politburo supported him.[155] Shortly after Chernenko's death, the Politburo unanimously elected Gorbachev as his successor; they wanted him over another elderly leader.[156]

Reading the book "Why Gorbachev Happened" by Robert Kaiser, a leading U.S expert on the Soviet Union (aka a Kremlinologist.)

There are a couple parts here this book disputes.

It is true that Gorbachev nomination ultimately was by acclimation, but that was De Jure as by this time, all additions to the Politburo and all nominations to General Secretary were officially by acclamation. De Facto, Gorbachev was opposed by Viktor Grishin. It seems to have been a very close vote in the Politburo with Gorbachev making sure at least one and possibly two of Grishin's supporters were away and unable to attend the vote (Vladimir Shcherbitsky and possibly Dinmukhamed Kunayev.) It also wasn't so much of older versus younger as opposed to reformers (Andropov's people on the Politburo) vs status quo (Brezhnev's people.)

In the end however, it was De Jure acclimation with Grishin officially nominating Gorbachev for the post. (Pages 80-82.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.6.140.177 (talk) 06:34, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To be sure, it is true that those who supported Gorbachev didn't realize the extent of the reforms Gorbachev ultimately pursued or how they would end up destroying the Soviet Communist Party. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.6.140.177 (talk) 06:39, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

hi

he had a policy of "Glasnost" --52.144.111.126 (talk) 02:52, 3 March 2021 (UTC)JZ[reply]

"Vladimir Gorbachev" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Vladimir Gorbachev. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 March 3#Vladimir Gorbachev until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 17:06, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Image

I suggest that we use an image from this video (which is licensed with a CC BY licence) for the infobox photo. --Love and Parting (talk) 01:44, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Gorbachev?

Really? Not Gorbachov or Gorbachyov? Strange... --2A02:908:1460:CF80:44F8:C8C1:71F5:9BF7 (talk) 19:46, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Portrait

The current portrait used is not the best to use for good ol' Gorby.

I propose we change it to one of these images.

Khalif Ali Husain the Third (talk) 09:32, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Past tense

The "Personal life" section uses past tense for him: "Throughout his life, he tried", "he drank", "he was", etc. Using past tense that way implies he is dead, but he is not.

Semi-protected edit request on 4 December 2021

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Dulxolixb (talk) 07:35, 4 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I want to suggest putting my photograph of Mikhail Gorbatchev that I took when he was visiting Paris in 1989. This photograph is already in the French version. Here is its code:

Thanks Olivier DUMAY

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Please say where you'd like the photo to go. Thanks. --Ferien (talk) 14:01, 4 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On whether Gorbachev was given assurances NATO would not expand

This claim is geopolitically important, and is becoming more important as Vladimir Putin continues to use it to justify his opposition to Ukraine's desire to join NATO. The source that was already here (a biography by William Taubman published in 2017) claims that Gorbachev was offered assurances that NATO would not expand eastward. In an interview in 2014, Gorbachev himself says that nothing of the kind was even part of the conversation (http://rbth.com/international/2014/10/16/mikhail_gorbachev_i_am_against_all_walls_40673.html). This is backed up by analysis from folks who have reviewed transcripts from the meetings at the time (https://www.rferl.org/a/nato-expansion-russia-mislead/31263602.html). I don't know if the article, as I've edited it, follows NPOV, or if it's giving undue weight to any source, and I'd appreciate review.--140.162.13.134 (talk) 18:55, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]