Word: demokratizatsiya
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Even as Mikhail Gorbachev extolled the virtues of perestroika in Poland, the potential pitfalls of demokratizatsiya continued to be embarrassingly apparent in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Delaware-size region that is geographically part of the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan but whose people are predominantly Armenian. After five months of protests by Armenian activists who wanted the enclave to become part of the Armenian Republic, the ruling council of Nagorno-Karabakh voted unanimously last week to secede from Azerbaijan. According to TASS, the council also decided to rename the area "the Artsakh Autonomous Region of Armenia" and to be governed by Armenia...
Mikhail Gorbachev's calls for glasnost (openness),* demokratizatsiya (democratization) and perestroika (restructuring) have become the watchwords of a bold attempt to modernize his country's creaky economic machinery and revitalize a society stultified by 70 years of totalitarian rule. In televised addresses, speeches to the party faithful and flesh- pressing public appearances -- often with his handsome wife Raisa -- he has spread his gospel of modernization. Translating his words into action, he is streamlining the government bureaucracy, reshuffling the military, moving reform-minded allies into the party leadership and allowing multicandidate elections at the local level. He has loosened restrictions...
...providing more journalistic and cultural freedom, Gorbachev has been able to produce an immediate, highly visible burst of reform at relatively little cost. A more difficult task will be introducing more demokratizatsiya into the political system, though here too the Soviets have taken some tentative first steps. Late last month, for the first time since the early days of Soviet power, voters in 5% of the country's roughly 52,000 districts were allowed to choose from party-appointed electoral lists with more candidates on the ballot than positions to be filled. The Supreme Soviet, the country's nominal parliament...
...mean the same in the Soviet Union as in the West, and their application will certainly remain limited by Western standards. There is cause for concern that an economically rejuvenated Soviet Union would be an even more dangerous military rival than it is now. Yet if glasnost, demokratizatsiya and perestroika result in less repressiveness and more economic security, and if that helps make the U.S.S.R. a better global citizen and the world a safer place -- some very big ifs -- then the West too may benefit from Gorbachev's reforms...