Mikhail Gorbachev is elected as the first President of the Soviet Union on March 14, 1990. He had served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 and as head of state beginning in 1988 and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989.
He was awarded the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize 1990. Gorbachev resigned form the presidency on December 25, 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrated. More