648 Chapter 32
gan refused to back down from his star wars program,
even when Gorbachev offered to eliminate all nuclear
arms by the year 2000.
The Communist Party Congress of 1986 heard
Gorbachev denounce the stagnation of the Brezhnev
era (1964–82), much as Khrushchev had attacked
Stalin thirty years earlier. The congress endorsed
Gorbachev’s program, and for the next four years an
astonished world watched historic changes unfold.
Gorbachev scored his first successes by responding to
his human rights critics. During 1986 prominent dissi-
dents such as Sakharov were gradually released from
confinement. Anatoly Shcharansky was freed from
his thirteen-year sentence to a prison camp for his
campaign to help Russian Jews emigrate. In 1987
Gorbachev denounced Stalin’s terror and praised
Khrushchev’s report on the crimes of the Stalin era;
he most shocked devout Communists by admitting that
Lenin had relied upon terror, too. A few months later,
Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union would
withdraw its army of 120,000 men from Afghanistan.
By early 1988 he was promising religious freedom.
Gorbachev’s campaign for perestroikaalso stunned
the Western world. In 1987 he unveiled a startling plan
to dismantle the one-party political system by allowing
multiple candidates and a secret ballot. He explained
that the Communist Party bore much of the blame for
Russian economic stagnation and that only greater
democracy could revitalize the USSR. Soviet police
even tolerated a few limited demonstrations, chiefly by
Baltic and south Asian peoples. More surprisingly, Gor-
bachev told a nation accustomed to policies defined by
the tenets of Marxism-Leninism that he wanted “social-
ism extricated from the slag heap of dogma.”
Gorbachev increased the pace of democratization
in 1988. A special congress of the Communist Party
voted a remarkable agenda: the enlargement of glasnost
and perestroika,the reform of the judicial system, a war
on bureaucratic intransigence, greater rights for minor-
ity nationalities, and the rehabilitation of Stalin’s oppo-
nents purged in the 1930s. Legislation began to transfer
decision making from the central government to the lo-
cal level, while reducing government guarantees and fi-
nancing. At this point, the speed of change began toDOCUMENT 32.3
Mikhail Gorbachev: Perestroika
and Glasnost(1987)
What is perestroika? What prompted this idea of restruc-
turing?
At some stage—this became particularly clear in the
latter half of the seventies—something happened that
was at first sight inexplicable. The country began to lose
momentum. Economic failures became more frequent.
Difficulties began to accumulate and deteriorate, and
unresolved problems to multiply....
The 27th Congress of the Communist Party of
Soviet Union [1986]... was a courageous congress. We
spoke openly about the short-comings, errors, and diffi-
culties....
The main idea... was the development of democ-
racy. It is the principal guarantee of the irreversibility of
perestroika. The more socialist democracy there is, the
more socialism we will have. This is our firm conviction,
and we will not abandon it. We will promote democracy
in the economy, in politics and within the Party itself....
The greatest difficulty in our restructuring effort lies
in our thinking, which has been molded over the past
years. Everyone, from General Secretary [Gorbachev] to
worker, has to alter this thinking.... We have to over-
come our conservatism....
The new atmosphere is, perhaps, most vividly mani-
fest in glasnost. We want more openness about public
affairs in every sphere of life... .Truth is the main thing.
Lenin said: More light! Let the Party know everything....
Glasnost is a vivid example of a normal and favorable spir-
itual and moral atmosphere in society, which makes it pos-
sible for people to understand better what happened to us
in the past, what is taking place now... and, on this basis
of this understanding, to participate in the restructuring
effort....
Gorbachev, Mikhail. Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and
the World. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. Copyright © Mikhail
Gorbachev.