Gorbachev takes Soviet helm

March 11, 1985

At fifty-four, Mikhail Gorbachev became the youngest Politburo member to lead the Soviet Union since Stalin, succeeding a string of ailing old men who had died in office. He believed the system needed openness (glasnost) and restructuring (perestroika) to survive. It did not survive, and that turned out to be his greatest, if unintended, achievement. Within six years the USSR was gone.