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Those who knew Gorbachev as a young party activist agree that he was a true believer among cynical careerists. He had some reservations about particular policies, but when he spouted the Stalinist line of the moment, he did so with evident conviction. Lev Yudovich, who graduated two years ahead of Gorbachev, recalls having the young ideologue pointed out to him as someone to fear. There was reason to be wary of him: Neznansky asserts that when Gorbachev discovered that some fellow students had parents who were in political disgrace, he called for their expulsion from the Komsomol and perhaps from the university as well. Michel Tatu, a prominent French Kremlinologist and author of a forthcoming biography of Gorbachev, is convinced that he joined in the vicious anti-Semitic rhetoric of Stalin's last purge, launched just before the dictator's death in early 1953. Mlynar does not deny that, but he insists that Gorbachev steered clear of any individual persecutions.
By 1955, the year of Gorbachev's graduation, the Stalinist ice had broken in the Soviet Union. Nikita Khrushchev had taken over and was winding down the terror. Ghostly figures began drifting back into Moscow from the labor camps. But at the start of this period of ferment and change, Gorbachev removed himself and Raisa from the relative sophistication of Moscow and returned to the Stavropol area, where he was to stay for the next 23 years. According to Neznansky, the young graduate tried for a position with the Moscow Komsomol apparatus but lost out to a classmate and had little choice but to return to the provinces if he wanted to continue a career in party politics. It may be too that Gorbachev felt an obligation to the Stavropol Krai (territory) authorities, who had apparently paid part of his university expenses, or that he was simply homesick.
In any event, the Stavropol period remains the most obscure of Gorbachev's life. It is known that he rose fast, from a minor job in the local Komsomol to its first secretary after less than a year, then through a variety of Komsomol and, later, party jobs. By 1962, when he was only 31, he was choosing party members for promotion throughout Stavropol Krai. Finally in 1970, at the age of 39, he became first secretary of the territory, a job equivalent to governor of an area roughly the size of South Carolina, with about 2.4 million people. Along the way, he became a specialist in farming, the main activity of the area. He took correspondence courses from Stavropol Agricultural Institute, and in 1967 added a degree in agriculture to his Moscow law degree. Soviet emigres and Stavropol residents provide some intriguing glimpses of Gorbachev on his way up the party apparat.