Perestroika allowed more independent actions from various ministries and introduced manymarket-like reforms. The purported goal ofperestroika was not to end theplanned economy, but rather to makesocialism work more efficiently to better meet the needs of Soviet citizens by adopting elements of liberal economics.[2] The process of implementingperestroika added to existing shortage and created political, social, and economic tensions within the Soviet Union.[3][4] Furthermore, it is often blamed for the political ascent of nationalism and nationalist political parties in the constituent republics.[5]
The motivation for perestroika stemmed from a combination of entrenched economic stagnation, political sclerosis, and growing social dissatisfaction that had taken root in the early 1980s. These conditions compelled Gorbachev and his allies to initiate broad reforms to save the system from collapse.[6]
Gorbachev first used the term during a speech on December 10, 1984, and began implementing his reforms 3 months later when coming to power.[7][8]Perestroika lasted from 1985 until 1991, and is often argued to be a significant cause of thecollapse of the Eastern Bloc and thedissolution of the Soviet Union.[9]
Russian-British sociologist Mikhail Anipkin viewsperestroika as a revolution of quadragenarians. In his 2024 book,Party Worker: The Rise of a Soviet Regional Leader, Anipkin argues thatperestroika was desperately sought by the younger generation of Party functionaries, and Mikhail Gorbachev sensed that demand. Anipkin draws his arguments from the political biography of his own father, Alexander Anipkin, a high-ranking Party apparatchik, who enthusiastically acceptedperestroika and sought to further democracy within the Party.[10]
With respect to the foreign policy Gorbachev promoted "new political thinking": de-ideologization of international politics, abandoning the concept ofclass struggle, priority of universal human interests over the interests of any class, increasing interdependence of the world, and mutual security based on political rather than military instruments. The doctrine constituted a significant shift from the previous principles of theSoviet foreign politics.[11][12][13] This marked the end of theCold War.[14]
Gorbachev had concluded that implementing his reforms outlined at theTwenty-Seventh Party Congress in February 1986 required more than discrediting the "Old Guard", those with aMarxist-Leninist political orientation. He changed his strategy from trying to work through the CPSU as it existed and instead embraced a degree of political liberalization. In January 1987, he appealed over the heads of the party to the people and called for democratization. Earlier members of localsoviets were appointed by local Communist Party branches; now they were to be elected by the people from among various candidates.
TheMarch 1989 election of theCongress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union marked the first time that voters of the Soviet Union ever chose the membership of a national legislative body. The results of the election stunned the ruling elite. Throughout the country, voters crossed unopposed Communist candidates off the ballot, many of them prominent party officials, taking advantage of the nominal privilege of withholding approval of the listed candidates.
In May 1985,Mikhail Gorbachev gave a speech inLeningrad in which he admitted the slowing of economic development, and inadequate living standards.[15]
The program was furthered at the27th Congress of the Communist Party in Gorbachev's report to the congress, in which he spoke about "perestroika", "uskoreniye" (acceleration), "human factor", "glasnost" (transparency), and "expansion of thekhozraschyot" (accounting).
During the initial period (1985–1987) of Mikhail Gorbachev's time in power, he talked about modifyingcentral planning but did not make any truly fundamental changes (uskoreniye; "acceleration"). Gorbachev and his team of economic advisors then introduced more fundamental reforms, which became known asperestroika (restructuring).
In July 1987, theSupreme Soviet of the Soviet Union passed the Law on State Enterprise.[16] The law stipulated that state enterprises were free to determine output levels based on demand from consumers and other enterprises. Enterprises had to fulfil state orders, but they could dispose of the remaining output as they saw fit. However, at the same time the state still held control over the means of production for these enterprises, thus limiting their ability to enact full-cost accountability. Enterprises bought input from suppliers at negotiated contract prices. Under the law, enterprises became self-financing; that is, they had to cover expenses (wages, taxes, supplies, and debt service) through revenues. Finally, the law shifted control over the enterprise operations fromministries to elected workers' collectives.Gosplan's responsibilities were to supply general guidelines and national investment priorities.
TheLaw on Cooperatives, enacted in May 1988,[17] was perhaps the most radical of the economic reforms during the early part of the Gorbachev era.[18] For the first time sinceVladimir Lenin'sNew Economic Policy was abolished in 1928, the law permittedprivate ownership of businesses in the services, manufacturing, and foreign-trade sectors. The law initially imposed high taxes and employment restrictions, but it later revised these to avoid discouraging private-sector activity. Under this provision, cooperative restaurants, shops, and manufacturers became part of the Soviet scene.
Alexander Yakovlev was considered to be the intellectual force behind Gorbachev's reform program ofglasnost andperestroika.[19] In the summer of 1985, Yakovlev became head of the propaganda department of the CPSU Central Committee. He argued in favor of the reform programs and played a key role in executing those policies.
After theXX Congress, in an ultra-narrow circle of our closest friends and associates, we often discussed the problems of democratization of the country and society. We chose a simple – like a sledgehammer – method of propagating the "ideas" of lateLenin. A group of true, not imaginary reformers developed (of course, orally) the following plan: to strike with the authority of Lenin atStalin, atStalinism. And then, if successful, – to strike with Plekhanov andSocial Democracy – at Lenin, and then – with liberalism and "moral socialism" – at revolutionarism in general....The Soviet totalitarian regime could be destroyed only throughglasnost and totalitarian party discipline, while hiding behind the interests of improving socialism. [...] Looking back, I can proudly say that a clever, but very simple tactic – the mechanisms of totalitarianism against the system of totalitarianism – has worked.[20]
The most significant of Gorbachev's reforms in the foreign economic sector allowed foreigners to invest in the Soviet Union in the form ofjoint ventures with Soviet ministries, state enterprises, and cooperatives. The original version of the Soviet Joint Venture Law, which went into effect in June 1987, limited foreign shares of a Soviet venture to 49 percent and required that Soviet citizens occupy the positions of chairman and general manager. After potential Western partners complained, the government revised the regulations to allow majority foreign ownership and control. Under the terms of the Joint Venture Law, the Soviet partner supplied labor, infrastructure, and a potentially large domestic market. The foreign partner supplied capital, technology, entrepreneurial expertise, and in many cases, products and services of world competitive quality.
Gorbachev's economic changes did not do much to improve the country's sluggish economy in the late 1980s. The reforms decentralized things to some extent, although price controls remained, as did the ruble's inconvertibility and most government controls over the means of production.
Perestroika andDeng Xiaoping'seconomic reforms have similar origins but very different effects on their respective countries' economies. Both efforts occurred in large socialist countries attempting to liberalize their economies, but while China's GDP has grown consistently since the late 1980s (albeit from a much lower level), national GDP in the USSR and in many of itssuccessor states fell precipitously throughout the 1990s, a period often referred to asthe wild nineties.[21] Gorbachev's reforms weregradualist and maintained many of the macroeconomic aspects of the planned economy (including price controls, inconvertibility of the ruble, exclusion of private property ownership, and the government monopoly over most means of production).[22]
Reform was largely focused on industry and on cooperatives, and a limited role was given to the development of foreign investment and international trade. Factory managers were expected to meet state demands for goods, but to find their own funding.Perestroika reforms went far enough to create new bottlenecks in the Soviet economy but arguably did not go far enough to effectively streamline it.[citation needed]
Chinese economic reform was, by contrast, a bottom-up attempt at reform, focusing on light industry and agriculture (namely allowing peasants to sell produce grown on private holdings at market prices).[23] Economic reforms were fostered through the development of "Special Economic Zones", designed for export and to attract foreign investment, municipally managedTownship and Village Enterprises and a "dual pricing" system leading to the steady phasing out of state-dictated prices.[24] Greater latitude was given to managers of state-owned factories, while capital was made available to them through a reformed banking system and through fiscal policies (in contrast to the fiscal anarchy and fall in revenue experienced by the Soviet government duringperestroika).Perestroika was expected to lead to results such as market pricing and privately sold produce, but the Union dissolved before advanced stages were reached.[citation needed]
Another fundamental difference is that whereperestroika was accompanied by greater political freedoms under Gorbachev'sglasnost policies, Chinese economic reform has been accompanied by continuedauthoritarian rule and asuppression of political dissidents, most notably atTiananmen Square. Gorbachev acknowledged this difference but maintained that it was unavoidable and thatperestroika would have been doomed to defeat andrevanchism by thenomenklatura withoutglasnost, because conditions in the Soviet Union were not identical to those in China.[25] Gorbachev cited a line from a 1986 newspaper article that he felt encapsulated this reality: "The apparatus broke Khrushchev's neck and the same thing will happen now."[26]
Another difference is that Soviet Union faced strong secession threats from its ethnic regions and a primacy challenge by theRSFSR. Gorbachev's extension of regional autonomy removed the suppression from existing ethnic-regional tension, while Deng's reforms did not alter the tight grip of the central government on any of their autonomous regions. The Soviet Union's dual nature, part supranational union of republics and part unitary state, played a part in the difficulty of controlling the pace of restructuring, especially once the newRussian Communist Party was formed and posed a challenge to the primacy of theCPSU. Gorbachev described this process as a "parade of sovereignties" and identified it as the factor that most undermined the gradualism of restructuring and the preservation of the Soviet Union.[citation needed]
"Wall of Sorrow" at the first exhibition of the victims ofStalinism in Moscow, 19 November 1988
One of the final important measures taken on the continuation of the movement was a report from the central committee meeting of the CPSU titled "On Reorganization and the Party's Personnel Policy".[27][28][29] Gorbachev emphasized the need of a faster political personnel turnover and of a policy of democratization that opened the political elections to multiple candidates and to non-party members.[28]
This report was in such high demand in Prague and Berlin that many people could not get a copy. One effect was the abrupt demand for Russian dictionaries in order to understand the content of Gorbachev's report.[citation needed]
In an interview with Mieczyslaw Rakowski he states the success ofperestroika was impossible withoutglasnost.[30]
Despite early enthusiasm, the reforms of perestroika and glasnost ultimately failed to deliver lasting improvements. By the late 1980s, the Soviet Union faced deepening economic crisis, with widespread shortages and deficits. Gorbachev’s leadership lost credibility as the public saw little tangible progress. Scholars argue that he and his advisors underestimated the severity of the crisis and the political risks of decentralization. Without a clear strategy and amid rising public disillusionment, these reforms contributed to growing instability and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.[31]
A young boy andRonald Reagan in Red Square, Moscow, 1988
During the 1980s and 1990s the United States PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush pledged solidarity with Gorbachev, but never brought his administration into supporting Gorbachev's reform. In fact, "no bailout for Gorbachev" was a consistent policy line of the Bush administration, further demonstrating the lack of true support from the West. President Bush had a financial policy to aidperestroika that was shaped by a minimalist approach, foreign-policy convictions that set Bush up against other U.S. internal affairs, and a frugal attitude, all influencing his unwillingness to aid Gorbachev. Other factors influenced the West's lack of aid, for example; the "in-house Gorbi-skeptics" advocacy, the expert community's consensus about the undesirability of rushing U.S. aid to Gorbachev, strong opposition to any bailout at many levels including foreign-policy conservatives, the U.S. Congress, and the American public at large. The West seemed to miss an opportunity to gain significant influence over the Soviet government. The Soviets aided in the expansion of Western capitalism to allow for an inflow of Western investments, but theperestroika managers failed. President Bush had the opportunity to aid the Soviet Union in a way to bring closer ties between the governments, likeHarry S. Truman did for many nations in Western Europe.
Early on, asperestroika was getting under way, I felt like the West might come along and find it a sensible thing to do—easing Russia's difficult transition from totalitarianism to democracy. What I had in mind in the first place, was the participation [of the West] in conversion of defense industries, the modernization of light and food industries, and Russia's inclusion on an equal-member footing in the frameworks of the international economic relations ... [U]nlike some democrats, I did not expect "manna from Heaven", but counted on the Western statesmen to use their common sense.[32]
President George H. W. Bush continued to dodge helping the Russians and thePresident of Czechoslovakia,Václav Havel, laid bare the linkage for the Americans in his address to a joint session of Congress on 21 February 1990:
... I often hear the question: How can the United States of America help us today? My reply is as paradoxical as the whole of my life has been: You can help us most of all if you help the Soviet Union on its irreversible, but immensely complicated road to democracy. ... [T]he sooner, the more quickly, and the more peacefully the Soviet Union begins to move along the road toward genuine political pluralism, respect for the rights of nations to their own integrity and to a working—that is a market—economy, the better it will be, not just for Czechs and Slovaks, but for the whole world.
When theUnited States needed help withGermany's reunification, Gorbachev proved to be instrumental in bringing solutions to the "German problem" and Bush acknowledged that "Gorbachev was moving the USSR in the right direction". Bush, in his own words, even gave praise to Gorbachev "to salute the man" in acknowledgment of the Soviet leader's role as "the architect ofperestroika ... [who had] conducted the affairs of the Soviet Union with great restraint as Poland and Czechoslovakia and GDR ... and other countries [that had] achieved their independence", and who was "under extraordinary pressure at home, particularly on the economy".
^Professor Gerhard Rempel, Department of History, Western New England College (2 February 1996)."Gorbachev and Perestroika". Mars.wnec.edu. Archived fromthe original on 28 August 2008. Retrieved31 March 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Mikhail Gorbachev, '"Perestroika (New York: HarperCollins, 1987), quoted in Mark Kishlansky, ed.,Sources of the West: Readings in Western Civilization, 4th ed., vol. 2 (New York: Longman, 2001), p. 322.
^Kolesnikov, Andrei (August 8, 2022)."Gorbachev's Revolution".Carnegie Politika. Archived fromthe original on September 2, 2022. RetrievedFebruary 2, 2024.
^Anipkin, Mikhail.Party Worker: The Rise of a Soviet Regional Leader (Lanham, Boulder, New York, London: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 2025)
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