What were Gorbachev's intentions when he launched Glasnost and Perestroika, and how far did he achieve them?

From 1987, Gorbachev initiated Glasnost, which called for increased freedoms of expression and information.  It is not clear how far Gorbachev wanted full democracy.  It has already been argued that Gorbachev was unwilling to immediately let go of the centralised state system, although there is also evidence to suggest he favoured the multi-party system: Speaking in Khabarovsk in 1986, Gorbachev used a phrase that was actually omitted from the published text of his speech.  Glasnost and self-criticism were necessary, he argued, because “we don’t have any opposition parties, comrades.”  Gorbachev said that he envisaged Glasnost to be a “wider concept” than freedom of speech.  Rather, it was the right to criticise whatever got in the way of Gorbachev’s reforms.  Gorbachev said in 1988 that Glasnost included “the duty of the ruling party and organs of the state to be open about their activities.”  It is not clear whether this is Gorbachev’s rhetoric or real intention, especially as Glasnost was increasingly used to criticise Gorbachev himself, for the slowness of reform to the failure of Perestroika.  In introducing Glasnost, it seems as if Gorbachev favoured greater free expression and a gradual move towards a multi-party system, but not necessarily towards full democracy.  However, Glasnost did indeed contribute greatly to the start of democratisation in the Soviet Union.  

Gorbachev’s policy was to enlist popular support for reform so that the conservatives in the Communist Party could not resist the changes.  Gorbachev’s policies, particularly his shifts to more and more radical forms of democracy, looked like concessions forced on him by the unintended events caused by his own actions.  This is why Gorbachev’s intentions when he initiated Glasnost and Perestroika, and whether he achieved them, are questioned.  Roxburgh says that Gorbachev’s advisors suggest Gorbachev was aware that when he first began speaking about democratisation in 1986, it must lead to the end of the one-party system, and that from 1988, he had begun to work out a step-by-step plan towards full, multi-party democracy.  If this is true, Gorbachev intended, then, by means of Glasnost and Perestroika, to move the Soviet Union in the direction of democracy.  However, his advisors were talking in hindsight and may have been trying to excuse the fact that Gorbachev’s policies of Glasnost and Perestroika actually began a wave of unprecedented, and radical, consequences that ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Perestroika was defined by the Party Plenum of January 1987: “Perestroika is the decisive defeat of the processes of stagnation, the destruction of the braking mechanism, the creation of a reliable and effective mechanism for increasing the pace of the social-economic development of society.”  At this time, it seems as if Gorbachev’s aim was to get state enterprises to respond to consumer needs with higher quality products, rather than any large-scale enterprise or the free market.  This is shown by the fact that Gorbachev goes on to say, “Perestroika is the steady elevation of the role of intensive factors in the development of the Soviet economy, the reestablishment and development of the Leninist principles of democratic centralism in the direction of the national economy.”  This indicates how Gorbachev believed that the old system remained viable, and that the essentials of central state planning should remain.  Perestroika, Gorbachev insisted at its beginning, had been prompted by “an awareness that the potential of socialism has been underutilised.”

By launching Perestroika, Gorbachev sought to increase productivity and quality while modernising the economy.  However, these goals conflicted with each other.  Modernisation meant abolishing outdated factories and techniques, but in order to meet increased demands for high quality consumer goods, all available production facilities would be needed.  To diminish the role of central administration, by curtailing the role of Gosplan, Gorbachev granted independence to several major industries, putting them in charge of obtaining their own raw materials and determining prices for their finished goods.  However, this led to higher costs for products and the public was highly critical of increased prices.  Writing in Sovetskaya Rossiya in 1990, Gorbachev explained: “at first we had the desire to achieve a new level of productivity and growth of national income.  It did not work…we became convinced nothing would work unless we changed the economic relations themselves.”  Here, Gorbachev may have been excusing the fact that once the changes began, they could not be restrained by regime-led reform, as Gorbachev had intended:

Gorbachev’s strategy, says Richard Sakwa, was based on the CPSU retaining a predominant role, but the Party was to guide rather than lead.  Attempts to modernise the economy under Perestroika led to a growing democratic movement calling for modernisation of the entire system, especially the political system.  A member of the Politburo of the time, Vladimir Dolgikh, says that it was put to the Politburo in 1988 that they ought to make a stand for or against a multi-party system, since it was already being raised in the press.  Dolgikh says that Gorbachev stated: “I think we are all agreed that there should be one party, the Communist Party.”  At this stage, perhaps, Gorbachev believed the Communist Party should remain in control to prepare the way for a multi-party system and eventually democracy.  After all, as Gorbachev’s aide Georgy Shakhnazarov said, in 1988, such a concept could not even have been mentioned, as it was far too revolutionary.  The expansion of Perestroika, combined with Glasnost, meant that the people were fiercely and publicly critical of Gorbachev and his policies, which were not producing results as quickly as the public wanted.

Glasnost was both an objective and a tool.  It was tool because Gorbachev wanted popular support for reform, so that the conservative party elite would be forced to accept the changes.  However, the new radicalised public opinion could not be relied upon to obey Gorbachev.  The freedom of expression, especially in the press, had begun to be used to criticise Gorbachev and the ineffectiveness of his reforms, anything from the demise of the CPSU to the new, but extremely flawed, parliamentary system.  Despite the opening up of the press, the Soviet “mania” for secrecy remained.  Every newspaper had a directory of forbidden topics issued by Glavlit, the state censorship agency.  Glavlit had the right to ban the publication of anything it deemed to be sensitive.  On the other hand, Roxburgh argues that Glasnost had the effect of “unshackling the Soviet mind.”  In the Literaturnaya Gazeta, in September 1986 (just a year and a half after Gorbachev came to power), Alexander Gelman wrote: “We already scarcely recognise ourselves sometimes.  Are we really the same people…the same people who accepted things yesterday that we won’t accept today...the same people who yesterday did not dare to think about things we now write about in the papers?  Yes, we are the same people.”  Gorbachev introduced Glasnost, as he believed a free circulation of ideas was crucial to the development of society.  For example, a very important moment concerning the policy of Glasnost was the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.  After initial silence, complete disclosure and honesty followed, indicating the commitment of Gorbachev to openness on the part of government.  With Glasnost, Gorbachev also intended to bring the Soviet intellectuals over to his side and support him against a party elite, which was very protective of its own privileges.  Gorbachev hoped the Soviet intelligentsia could identify problems with the economy and suggest solutions, ultimately improving Soviet socialism.

Gorbachev’s intentions were somewhat diminished when the economy was not improved and opposition to Glasnost caused ethnic problems and dissident movements, calling for independence for the republics.  Many of the Soviet republics insisted on publications in their own languages, and using their own languages in the workplace.  Some dissident movements called for further democratic reform.  It is not widely believed that Gorbachev intended, when he launched Glasnost, to bring about the kind of democratic reform that would make the Soviet Union’s political system similar to those of the Western countries.  Glasnost, and Perestroika, were intended to strengthen Soviet socialism, as Gorbachev recognised that Soviet socialism had to be reformed in order to remain and improve.  Instead of strengthening the system as Gorbachev had intended, the revelations made possible by Glasnost undermined the regime as a whole.  New historical revelations and information on the workings of the Soviet institutions meant that people challenged the legitimacy of the Soviet regime as a whole.  If Gorbachev intended to use public opinion to push his reform measures through, he did not achieve what he intended, since Glasnost meant he himself was criticised for his reforms.  Gorbachev was a reformer and understood democracy meant a free, multi-party system.  Being a committed Soviet socialist however, he tried to give the CPSU time to renew itself and be capable of winning a free election.  However, the structures and the freedoms he created brought about a situation that demanded the transition to be made much faster than he wanted.  Gorbachev’s inability to convert the CPSU into the instrument of reform as he had intended was also one of the main reasons for the failure of his Perestroika policy.

Perestroika did not give the results Gorbachev had intended.  As a socialist, he would have preferred to make the planned economy work, if only it was feasible.  Despite encouraging a partial market economy by proposing limited private ownership in Soviet industry and agriculture, the Communist centralisation of power was maintained and there were no economic miracles.  In 1991, Gorbachev admitted that: “I should have taken advantage of the stability and popular consensus that existed in the first stage of Perestroika, and moved more swiftly towards a market economy.”  In the last two years of Gorbachev’s rule, it could not be said that the economy was still a command economy, but it was not yet a market system.  Gorbachev did not succeed in substituting, or at least subsidising, the old system with viable new one that produced far more quality goods, as he had intended.  In fact, his policies caused much disaffection because results were not immediate.  “Empty store shelves and housing problems,” stated a Soviet economist, “have made the process difficult, but something absolutely vital has taken place in Russian terms: a change in our way of thinking.”  According to this statement, Gorbachev achieved his intention of freedom of expression on the part of the Soviet people.  Even if Gorbachev had intended to move towards a more pluralistic political system and a partial market economy, he did not achieve his aims in the way he had intended.  His earlier insistence that the CPSU should have a leading role in the reform process gave way to the unprecedented rate of democratisation.  The new political structures became increasingly dominated by more radical politicians, and Gorbachev found himself in the centre, no longer leading the reforms but acting as a conciliator between the conservatives and the radicals, who wanted to go much further than he did.  Gorbachev ultimately did not achieve what he set out to do as the Soviet leader, which was to save the country’s existing social and political system by reforming within, using the policies of Glasnost and Perestroika.  Despite cautiousness in the beginning, Gorbachev certainly unleashed powerful forces of change.  Gorbachev himself summarised the results of all his policies: “Having embarked upon the road of radical reform, we have crossed the line beyond which there is no return to the past…things will never be the same again in the Soviet Union.”  In fact, four months after an attempted coup against him in August 1991, Gorbachev resigned as leader on 25th December, and as a result, the Soviet Union collapsed.

Bibliography:

Brown, Archie, The Gorbachev Factor, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997

Roxburgh, Angus, The Second Russian Revolution, London: BBC Books, 1991

Sakwa, Richard, Russian Politics and Society 2nd Edition, London: Routeledge, 1996

Sakwa, Richard, Russian Politics and Society 3rd Edition, London: Routeledge, 2002

WWW:

Andreessen, Marc, “Internal Workings of the Soviet System,” http://www.sunsite.unc.edu

Brown, Archie, “Reform, Coup and Collapse,”

Dunn, John, “Glasnost,”

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