He began his offensive against the old system on two fronts, introducing elements of private property and the market in Soviet economic space and opening political space for debate. For Gorbachev and his liberal advisers, the two fronts were interrelated, and victory on one was impossible without victory on the other. As the party’s old guard resisted economic change, Gorbachev used political reform to soften up or crush his opponents. The key component of perestroika was the notion of glasnost, or openness—a series of measures that lifted restrictions on political debate and made party
...more
