228 Gorbachev and Perestroika
37.2.2: Gorbachev and Perestroika
Gorbachev launched perestroika to rescue the Soviet economy from stagnation, but did not intend to abandon the centrally planned economy entirely.
Learning Objective
Explain Gorbachev’s reasons for launching perestroika
Key Points
- Gorbachev’s primary goal as general secretary was to revive the Soviet economy after the stagnant Brezhnev and interregnum years.
- Gorbachev soon came to believe that fixing the Soviet economy would be nearly impossible without also reforming the political and social structure of the Communist nation.
- The purpose of reform was to prop up the centrally planned economy—not to transition to market socialism.
- Gorbachev initiated his new policy of perestroika (literally “restructuring” in Russian) and its attendant radical reforms in 1986. Policy reforms included the Law on State Enterprise, the Law on Cooperatives, and the opening of the Soviet economy to foreign investment.
- Unfortunately, Gorbachev’s economic changes did not do much to restart the country’s sluggish economy.
- In 1988, Gorbachev introduced glasnost, which gave the Soviet people freedoms that they had not previously known, including greater freedom of speech.
- In June 1988, at the CPSU’s Party Conference, Gorbachev launched radical reforms meant to reduce party control of the government apparatus, proposing a new executive in the form of a presidential system as well as a new legislative element.
Key Terms
- glasnost
- Roughly translating to “openness”, reforms to the political and judicial system made in the 1980s that ensured greater freedoms for the public and the press as well as increased government transparency.
- perestroika
- Literally “restructuring” in Russian, a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the 1980s, widely associated with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1985 until 1991, when the party was dissolved. Gorbachev’s primary goal as general secretary was to revive the Soviet economy after the stagnant Brezhnev and interregnum years. In 1985, he announced that the economy was stalled and that reorganization was needed, proposing a vague program of reform that was adopted at the April Plenum of the Central Committee. His reforms called for fast-paced technological modernization and increased industrial and agricultural productivity. He also tried to make the Soviet bureaucracy more efficient.
Gorbachev soon came to believe that fixing the Soviet economy would be nearly impossible without also reforming the political and social structure of the Communist nation. He started by making personnel changes, most notably replacing Andrei Gromyko with Eduard Shevardnadze as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Gromyko had served at his post for 28 years and was considered a member of the