Mikhail Gorbachev is the man whose actions inserted the terms perestroika and glasnost (openness) into the international vernacular. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union, presiding over a remarkable five-year span in until-then unimaginable democratic reforms were instituted, the Berlin Wall fell, and communism was virtually wiped from Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Republic crumbled.