Word: perestroika
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...Deputies, which holds its inaugural session on May 25. The strong showing by reformist candidates gave Gorbachev the proof he needed to persuade skeptical party functionaries that the solution to the country's economic woes lies in accelerating reforms, not braking them. "The elections unequivocally said yes to perestroika," Gorbachev told the plenum. Added he: "We should have enough courage and ability to pursue consistently the line we have marked out under difficult conditions...
Long a source of grim jokes and bitter complaints by the Soviet public, the chronic shortage of many consumer goods has only worsened under perestroika. Nonetheless, the Kremlin has been reluctant to dip into its hard-currency reserves (around $40 billion, according to Western estimates) to buy consumer goods from the West. But faced with rising discontent, Deputy Minister of Trade Suren Sarukhanov announced last week that the Soviet Union has signed contracts with companies from ten foreign countries to supply products with a retail value of some $2 billion in the hopes of at least temporarily quelling demand. Among...
...national liberation. But Gorbachev's words in Havana seemed intended to reinforce his professed determination to replace such vaporous ideology with solidly grounded pragmatism -- obtaining influence in Latin America, say, by diplomatic means and not just by Cuban proxy. But as Castro boldly rejected the Moscow model of perestroika and glasnost, Gorbachev bit his tongue and signed a new friendship treaty. The Soviet Union was not about to provoke an immediate change in its close relationship with Cuba...
...overall advance of the Gorbachev cause overseas. It is, of course, domestic imperatives that have forced Gorbachev to readjust, even reconstruct Soviet foreign policy. Henry Trofimenko, a specialist at Moscow's Institute of U.S.A. and Canada Studies, laid the Kremlin's newly realistic approach squarely on three forces: money, perestroika and the need for Western assistance. Said Trofimenko: "First of all, we should spend less money abroad. Second, there should be a concentration of people's efforts on our internal situation. Third, we are trying to improve relations with the West...
True, Gorbachev's temperamental preference is for the practical. But not even Gorbachev would be so eager to reduce expensive commitments beyond his borders if his country were not in such desperate straits. Though a military superpower, the Soviet Union is struggling economically. To make perestroika succeed, Gorbachev cannot afford to squander huge sums of money and material on foreign adventures...