Word: gorbachev
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...once again, he did all that, and more. In his attempt to break the ministries' stranglehold on the economy, Gorbachev made decentralization one of the cornerstones of perestroika. Under the slogan of demokratizatsiya, he created conditions around the country for popular local leaders, frequently outspoken nationalists, to defeat Moscow's minions. As a result of glasnost, the Kremlin faced up to some of the uglier truths of Soviet history, including the illegality of Stalin's annexation of the three Baltic republics...
Most important, by dismantling the Ministry of Fear, Gorbachev made it possible for people to voice their grievances against "the center" and their desire for self-determination...
Throughout 1990, Gorbachev's initiatives and their consequences, intended and otherwise, began to call into question whether the Soviet Union could survive in anything like its existing form. Gorbachev's daredevil act was veering toward a new red line: the 39,000-mile border around the periphery of the U.S.S.R. Ideology, economics, foreign policy, military alliances, they were one thing; real estate was something else. Could Gorbachev actually give up what many of his colleagues in the leadership and the Soviet power structure considered to be pieces of the motherland...
...three days last week, the answer seemed to be no. By the beginning of this year, it was clear that if Gorbachev's policies continued, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would eventually leave the U.S.S.R. and re-establish their independence. Gorbachev repeatedly said he accepted "in principle" the Baltics' right to independence. He was always quick to add his insistence that the leaders in those republics pursue their goal by "constitutional means." Everyone knew what that phrase meant: a slow process during which the central government would try to control both the throttle and the brake...
...Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, nationalists indignantly rejected the notion that they should play by the Kremlin's rigged rules. But in Moscow, Gorbachev's apparent willingness to accept even the idea of Baltic freedom further antagonized the hard-liners and set in motion the chain of events that led to last week's coup d'etat...