Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev dies at 91

By Our Special Correspondent

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, has died at the age of 91, Russian state media reported, and his personal press secretary, Vladimir Polyakov, confirmed to News.

The cause of his death was not immediately released, but Gorbachev's office said earlier that he was being treated at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow, according to the Associated Press.

Gorbachev served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991. During his time in this role, he oversaw the escalation of the Cold War, which led to the dissolution of the USSR and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

He didn't look like a revolutionary, or set out to become one, but Gorbachev changed the course of history.

Born into a farming family in the then Soviet Union in 1931, Gorbachev moved to Moscow to study law, joined the Communist Party and met and married Raisa Gorbacheva. Together they changed the face of communism.

Before Gorbachev, Soviet leaders had never taken to the streets, let alone pressed flesh. But in 1985, the Communist Party's youngest general secretary cast aside the old ways. His twin policies of Glasnost and Perestroika opened up the country.

Gorbachev's unprecedented charisma and style on the world stage signaled the thawing of the Cold War. In 1987, the U.S. met in Washington, D.C. to sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. When Gorbachev met President Ronald Reagan, it became clear that the former enemies had something in common.