Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Russian and Soviet politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union. As the country’s head of state from 1988 to 1991, he served as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991, and President of the Soviet Union from 1990 until the country’s dissolution in 1991. Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism but moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s.
Gorbachev died at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow on 30 August 2022, at the age of 91. He died after a “severe and prolonged illness,” according to the hospital, having been under the continuous supervision of doctors since the beginning of 2020. As requested in his will, Gorbachev was buried in Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999.