Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev

Born on 2 March 1931 in Stavropol, Russian. As a child, Gorbachev saw many family members and half the population of Stavropol die of starvation due to a famine across the USSR. Both of his grandfathers were convicted of false charges and imprisoned. The USSR policy of secrecy at the time contributed to the catastrophic effects and charged the government to deny anything had even happened. In his career as a statesmen, he sought to reform the communist party, mostly with expansion and repurposing of democratic powers (founders of communism always expected _very_ limited use democracy within the government leadership). He changed the policies of glasnost and perestroika allowing for greater government transparency and greater economic freedom. He instituted gospriyomka (nationalised quality control of production) but tailored this governmental body over time towards reforming production to depend less on the state and more on limited forms of privatisation. The number of entities under authority of Gospriyomka would grow as its power over the entities decreased. It was designed to become more about accountability and less about control. A very basic premise of communism is taking what one produces and dividing it equally among everyone (the producer getting same share as everyone else). Gospriyomka was to eventually have the entities of production taking the first share of their product and giving the surplus to be divided between other. This is notable as similar to a judeo-christian belief that the producer is entitled to his product that was originally quite pervasive in western governments even before Democracy was common. Gorbachev used to power of the state to fight alcoholism among its citizenry. He encouraged limited forms of freedom of speech, criticism of government and governmental self-criticism, his very own instituted policies being placed on the top of the criticism list. He also instituted the legalisation of small scale private businesses (of a sort), mostly co-ops (a type of small scale communism). The combination of reforms where all leaning towards democratic and even capitalistic solutions. However, the goal was to continue progression towards socialism; which communism in its previous form was failing to do. To this day (2013), Gorbachev remains committed to socialism but is working to see it achieved through democratic means. Reducing the influence of the communist party and giving member countries more autonomy was one more way Gorbachev was trying to fix economics and politics that were failing to lead to socialism. It was expected that his reforms would appease citizens that had strong feelings corrosive to socialistic ideals. But many experts say that the reforms ignored the strong feelings of people that had never forgotten that the USSR was a empire that acquired most of it's citizens by conquering them. Rather it treated the citizens as if they had willingly joined the state because of common goals.

Mikhail Gorbachev, though no longer a statesmen, continues his unique way of fighting for socialism. He encourages transparency of governments, limited capitalism, co-ops, self-rule for citizens (democracy). He is a Club of Madrid. He has predicted the Washington Consensus economic model will fail and has expressed support for solutions like the International Monetary Fund

Mikhail Gorbachev has received numerous awards, honours, and recognitions for his actions, services, and talents:
Courage of Conscience award
Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album
Grawemeyer Award for improving world order
Honoris Causa Doctorate from University of Liège in Liège, Belgium
Honorary degree in Doctor in Laws Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
Honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, University of Louisville, Kentucky.
Honorary degree, The University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Honorary Doctorate from Durham University, County Durham
Indira Gandhi Prize
Jubilee Medal "Forty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945"
Legum Doctor, honoris causa
Medal "For Labour Valour"
Medal "For Strengthening Military Cooperation"
Medal "In Commemoration of the 1500th Anniversary of Kiev"
Nobel Peace Prize
Order of Honour
Order of Lenin
Order of October Revolution
Order of St. Andrew
Order of the Badge of Honour (1966)
Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1947). He was awarded when he was only 16 and was one of the youngest recipients of the award.
Otto Hahn Peace Medal
Point Alpha Prize
Ronald Reagan Freedom Award
Conferred with The Freedom of the City of Aberdeen

In 1996, 5 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union and just after a failed presidential campaign, Gorbachev made his first know public statement in positive reference to God; "I don't know how many years God will be giving me, [or] what His plans are". Socialist founding father Karl Marx (a Lutheran Christian himself) called religion "the opium of the people". He along with other founders believed that religion was merely a tool used by the ruling classes to give the working classes false hope. It was also seen as form of protest by the working classes against their poor economic conditions; but ultimate rejected for having no practical value. Other founders were more harsh, calling religion a poison. Lenin compared religion to venereal disease and necrophilia. Communist states all implemented some form of state atheism. Basically, declaring non-existence of God and using the force of law to punish any competing faith. In the USSR it was named gosateizm and consisted of a organised effort of ceasing church property, harassment of believers, propaganda against them, inventing a new state calendar (confusion and elimination of religious holidays and religious holiday that fell on Sunday being a minor but noted effect of the change), and from 1922 to 1926 execution of more than 1200 religious leaders. Despite this, many faith-based groups actively participated (or were used) to promote and spread communism early in its history. At the time Gorbachev made his first public reference to God, it was no longer illegal for him to do so. In 1992 he revealed to Christian minister that he was "indeed a Christian and had been baptized by his grandfather in the Volga River many years before." He has since described himself as atheist but in the context of denying he is secretly a Catholic.