He was the last premier of the Soviet Union, and tried to introduce policies of openness to that nation.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has died at the age of 91
But the reforms quickly overtook him and resulted in the collapse of the authoritarian Soviet state, the freeing of Eastern European nations from Russian control and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation, bringing the Cold War to a conclusion. Ultimately, he was pushed by democratic activists led by Moscow's mayor, Boris Yeltsin, to abolish the Communist Party, eliminating a totalitarian regime that had taken over Eastern Europe and spread communism worldwide.
Under his rule, the Soviets began withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in 1988, ending a disastrous 10-year military campaign that saw 15,000 Soviet soldiers and about 1 million Afghan civilians killed. Gorbachev's changes were criticized at home as either too much too fast or not enough, as common goods grew scarce on store shelves, civic unrest grew, particularly among the Baltic and Caucasus states, and national economic problems deepened.
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