Perestroika was a major policy initiative introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev into the Soviet Union, soon after he assumed power in 1985. The word means “restructuring”, and was a term that had been use for bureaucratic (and personal) “reconstructions” back in the 1930s. Now, however, far from the intensification of Stalinism, “restructuring” was to be applied to a wide range of administrative, economic and political institutions and practices (along with the policy of glasnost’, meaning in effect “openness”, or “transparency” and accountability) and with a far greater efficiency uppermost in mind. <…
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Citation: Cornwell, Neil. "Soviet Literature - Perestroika [Reconstruction]". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 September 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1594, accessed 21 November 2024.]