His family suffered during Stalin’s ‘Great Purge’

Stalin launched a vigorous program of systematic socialization at the beginning of the 1930s. Rapid industrialization, collective farming, and the eradication of "class enemies" were all parts of putting Stalin's plan into action. Gorbachev's paternal uncles and aunt perished in the catastrophic famine that Stalin's actions caused in Ukraine between 1931 and 1933. Both of his grandfathers were later detained and deported to gulags when the government searched for "enemies of the people."

Mikhail Gorbachev was raised in a divisive political environment. Gorbachev endured the agony of witnessing his maternal grandpa Pantelei Gopkalo's incarceration during the Great Purge when he was a little child in the 1930s. Gopkalo spent 14 months in prison and under torture after being charged of being a Trotskyite counterrevolutionary. He was spared from death, much to the relief of his family. Growing up, Mikhail Gorbachev experienced a turbulent economic environment. Southern Russia experienced a severe drought in 1933. Due to the area's reliance on agriculture for both food and revenue, its citizens experienced famine, and many of them perished from starvation.