No Service Under Stalin : Charming Gorbachev a ‘New Style’ Leader

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who took over the Soviet Union’s leadership today after the death of Konstantin U. Chernenko, epitomizes a new generation of Soviet leaders--unmarked by party service under Stalin’s iron rule, well-educated and reared in the postwar years that saw major advances in Soviet living standards.

The 54-year-old Gorbachev, who is balding and wears glasses, is considered highly intelligent and during several trips abroad charmed his hosts with a polished manner.

“This is a new style of Soviet leader,” former British Foreign Secretary Denis Healey said when Gorbachev and his wife made a highly publicized trip to London last December.

Affable Manner

The stocky Soviet official impressed the British news media and the Britons he met with his affable manner and willingness to engage in give-and-take discussion.

A Western diplomat called him “absolutely charming.” Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said: “I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together.”

Gorbachev’s wife, Raisa Maximovna, a trim brunette and a trained philosopher, won over Britons with smiles and fashionable clothes rarely worn by older Kremlin wives.

The Gorbachevs have at least one daughter and one granddaughter, but nothing else is known about the family.

Gorbachev’s swift rise to the top of the conservative Soviet leadership suggests that he is an orthodox politician and a tough infighter careful not to offend the old guard with radical views.

While he has called for “deep transformations” in the Soviet economy, it is not clear how far he supports economic reform.

Gorbachev’s views on foreign affairs, where he has little experience to date, are even less well-known.

Alone among top Politburo members, he has not had a collection of speeches and articles published in the Soviet Union.

Born to Peasant Family

Born March 2, 1931, to a peasant family in the village of Privolnoye in the Stavropol region of the northern Caucasus, Gorbachev was a teen-ager during World War II, but it is not known if he was in the village when the Nazis occupied it in 1942-43.

From 1946 to 1950 he worked at a tractor station in the Stavropol region. He then went to Moscow State University, graduating after the standard five-year law course in 1955.

It was in Moscow, in 1952, that Gorbachev joined the Communist Party. Returning home, he moved up through Stavropol party ranks to become first secretary in the city organization in 1970.

In 1978, he transferred to Moscow to take the agriculture portfolio in the Central Committee secretariat.