The focus of the Gorbachev's reforms was liberal, pro-Western. The aim of Gorbachev was to create a liberal, as he hoped, social-democratic opposition to weaken the position of the conservative apparatchiks and, thus, to avoid the fate of Khrushchev, as well as to avoid the forced resignation.
Moreover, Gorbachev from the beginning considered the first free elections in the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR in March 1989 as a tactical move, aimed at the weakening of the position of the conservative party apparatus (Jha).
Perestroika is the general name of the reforms and the new ideology of the Soviet Union, used to refer to the large-scale changes in the economic and political structures of the Soviet Union in the second half of 1980 - the beginning of the 1990’s. The aim of the reforms was the comprehensive democratization of the established in the USSR, socio-political and economic system (Kushner).
For the first time the need to improve the existing economic system - so-called Acceleration - was proclaimed by Mikhail Gorbachev at the plenum of 23 April 1985. However, these measures referred only to the economy, and were largely administrative in nature and did not affect the substance of the ‘developed socialism.’
The tightening of repressions meant the escalation of the conflict with the West, a complete loss of chance of getting a Western state credits. Moreover, such a policy could trigger the development of the events on the model of the beginning of 1917 in Russia. A political liberalization on the background of the economic crisis has created the serious risks to the stability of the regime (Kushner).
The new Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev did not want blood and repressions and argued for the political liberalization. He recognized the hopelessness of the arms race and the senselessness of the nuclear war, gave up trying to save the Soviet empire at the expense of a large blood, gave the peoples of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union the right to freedom of choice, in fact, Gorbachev dismantled the world communism, which could for a long time to rot and would end life in mad convulsions nuclear war (Jha).
Perestroika as a revolution from above is clearly ahead of the event, because the population was not ready even to the lessons of the historical truth, about which Gorbachev wanted to tell through his publicity.
Works Cited
Jha, Prem S. The perilous road to the market : the political economy of reform in Russia, India, and China. London Sterling, Va: Pluto Press, 2002. Print.
Kushner, Tony. Perestroika. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1994. Print.
