Perestroika: A Soviet Leader Calls for Change (1987)

Throughout the 1970s, Soviet leaders resisted pressure for political and economic reform, refusing to acknowledge the inequities, inefficiencies, and injustices of the Soviet system. The party leaders that controlled the government were insulated and inflexible. Years of focus on military production and heavy industry had created a shortage of consumer goods, a situation that led the West German chancellor to liken the Soviet Union to an abysmally poor African country, but with rockets. Soviet leaders could not, however, ignore reality forever. In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev became head of the Communist Party. Convinced that the survival of the Soviet Union was at stake, Gorbachev committed himself to the reform of the Soviet economy and the apparatus by which the party controlled information. These changes were referred to, respectively, as perestroika—"restructuring"—and glasnost—"openness."

This selection has been omitted intentionally in this electronic edition.

From Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), pp. 3-5, 7-8, 10, 22-24.