Born in 1931.

On March 11th 1985, Mikhaïl Gorbachev became General secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR. Gorbachev believed in the Communist regime, provided it reforms itself. That is the aim of the "Perestroïka", which needs political transparency (glasnot) and to put an end to bureaucratism.
The "perestroika" consists in reorganising the economic processes by concerning the workers (glasnost), and giving them more rights to express themselves.
It also helped in politics and diplomacy. Indeed it admitted that the system was in crisis. Gorbatchev (after his election as president in 1990) also negotiated with the American presidents Reagan and Bush to improve the relationships between their countries, and to enable the disarmament. However he could' t avoid the end of the USSR in 1991, and had to resign on the 25th of December in 1991.

Sebastien F.

CHIANG KAI- SHEK

Chiang Kai-shek was born in 1887 in Zhejiang Province. He went to military in China and then in Tokyo, Japan. In 1911, he integrated the republican Chinese army. He started to play an important political role in 1920. After having spent a while in a Soviet military department, he went back to China and took after Sun Yat-sen's death, the head of the Guomindang (the Chinese nationalist party).
Chi and marries Sun Yat-sen's sister in law, Soon Mailing. By this meant he was linked to the financial circle and was notably under the influence of his brother in law TV Soong, rich businessman who was affected by the progress of the Communist Party.

 

 

As the winner of the civil war and master of central China, Chiang Kai-shek could, in 1927, break off relations with Communists. After he had unified China under his own leadership, Chiang is the early and mid-1930s launches a new series of campaigns against the Communists lead by Mao Zedong and Shou Enlai. This policy forced the communists on their Long March in 1934. Simultaneously, Chiang resists Japanese Forces, which had invaded Manchuria in 1931. He also managed to threaten in an equal position with the Allies (at the Cairo conference).
But this results are not so convincing in internal politics: his authorities and corrupted regime quickly looses popularity, as he often seemed to privilege a civil conflict against communist forces to the common fight against Japanese attack. As these were pushed off in 1945 the civil war got active again, but this time, in the advantage of this enemy Mao Tse Toung: in 1947, the Communist army conducted a general offensive, scoring a series of victories. When the commander of the Beijing-Tianjin region surrendered to the Communist in early 1949, the Kuomintang forces collapsed. After this surrender, the Communists rapidly won control of the entire country, and Chiang went to the Island of Taiwan.
At this point, Taiwan's government is the only power officially recognised by the western countries for China and his present in the Security Council of the UNO. But in the early 1970's, Chiang's government suffered serious setback when both Japan and the USA began to improve relations with the Chinese Communist government.
He dies in 1977.
Christophe C.

 

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