Word: perestroikas
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Price reform has been acknowledged by Gorbachev as an essential element of perestroika and an eventual certainty on the Soviet agenda. But mindful of the disruption that such reform has caused not only in China but also in parts of Eastern Europe, he has done virtually nothing to cut back on state subsidies for everything from bread to meat and butter, which keep prices low but drain off billions of rubles annually. So far the leadership has not presented any plan for price reform, but the issue has triggered public debate. Says a parliamentary deputy: "Prices are not so much...
...Soviet leader hopes to circumvent entrenched conservatives in the bureaucracy and pitch his policy of perestroika directly to the people, he has good reason to turn to television. Not all rural areas of the Soviet Union may have indoor plumbing, but TV antennas rise above the rooftops of wooden peasant huts in even the most isolated villages. In 1960 there were only 22 television sets for every thousand Soviets; by 1986 the number had climbed to 299. Gosteleradio surveys have found that up to 86% of their sample group consider television to be their primary source of news about...
...state television system responded to Gorbachev's call for perestroika by adding four more hours of programming each day to the two national channels. You can stay up late; you can get up early. A morning show called 90 Minutes proved so popular that it soon expanded to 120 Minutes. Now collective-farm workers can turn on their sets and get an update on how the harvest is faring in the Volgograd district. For prurient relief, they can watch music videos of East German TV dancers, slinking about in peekaboo sequined costumes...
Even Time (Vremya), the stodgy evening news program, regarded as something of a national institution in the Soviet Union, has had an injection of "new thinking." A ten-minute investigative report, called Searchlight of Perestroika, has been tacked onto the end of the broadcast. The mini- documentary covers everything from illegal trading in moonshine to the environmental crisis of the shrinking Aral Sea and the problems of buying artificial limbs...
...Critic Lidiya Polskaya of Literaturnaya Gazeta even suggests that the two national channels should compete with each other to spur greater imagination and innovation. "The workings of Central Television are like a closed black box," she argues. "There is no place for such a monopoly during a period of perestroika. The truth is that even after 40 years, Soviet television is still in the cradle...