Word: perestroikas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...thing that can be said with certainty about perestroika is that it has exposed how difficult rebuilding the Soviet economy will be. The obstacles are greater, the situation more dire and the fixes more fundamental than even Gorbachev suspected four years ago. "Frankly speaking, comrades, we have underestimated the extent and gravity of the deformations," he told a Party Conference last year. Nikolai Shmelev, one of the country's radical economic gadflies, has put it more vividly: "We are now like a seriously ill man who, after a long time in bed, takes his first step with the greatest degree...
This does not make perestroika popular. A middle-aged book translator in Moscow says that votes for Yeltsin were votes against the establishment and Gorbachev. But doesn't Gorbachev represent change? "Who gives a damn about change when you can't buy cheese and aspirin anymore? They've had their circus. Now we want bread." Izvestia reports that when miners in southern Russia lined up for hours to wait for their pay packets, they began to jeer, "And this is perestroika...
...only empty shelves is to miss the remarkable nature of the Soviet reforms. Gorbachev believes that the three prongs of his program are inextricably linked. Demokratizatsiya goes hand in glove with perestroika, he argues, because individual initiative is impossible in a society where decision-making is alienated from the people. And for either prong to work, there must be open discussion of ideas and criticism of the system's flaws. "It is only by combining economic reform with political changes, demokratizatsiya and glasnost that we can fulfill the tasks we have set for ourselves," Gorbachev told a party plenum...
...next stage of perestroika will probably be even harder than the latest. For market incentives to work, prices will have to be decontrolled -- a frightening prospect given the pent-up inflationary pressures. Rents and the prices of meat, bread and milk have been kept at the same level for decades; if decontrolled, they would be likely to rocket. Gorbachev understands the challenge. "Socialist markets cannot be formed without price reform," he told a party meeting in February. But having reached that daunting precipice, he blinked. Rents and basic food prices, he promised, will not be raised for at least...
...commanding presence that Gorbachev has been able to exert on the world stage has helped shore up his power at home. This week he is again on the road. In his visit with Cuba's Fidel Castro, who is no fan of perestroika or glasnost, the Soviet leader will have a chance to show whether his rhetoric about new thinking translates into taking concrete steps toward easing tensions in Central America. Afterward, he plans to go to London to see if Margaret Thatcher still believes, as she once said of Gorbachev, that "we can do business together...