Word: perestroikas
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...assets last week were put at about 4.5 billion rubles. But as last week demonstrated, there was a hollowness behind the bland facade of power. Eaten away by corruption, nepotism, privilege and old age, the party could not stand up to the storm of glasnost and the hammering of perestroika...
...perestroika does have its appeal for some restive segments of the armed forces who could capitalize on the failed coup. The reform-minded Shchit (Shield) organization of former officers, which wants to abolish compulsory service in favor of a volunteer, professional army, may get more attention. Middle-ranking officers, especially veterans of the Afghan war, are impatient for a switch from massive conventional forces to the high-tech systems that the U.S. fielded so ably in the Persian Gulf. In their view, a market economy and the dismantling of the defense bureaucracy offer the only hope for modernizing the military...
...split identity derives from the origins of the Gorbachev era. The President was the handpicked successor of Yuri Andropov, the former Soviet leader who was once the KGB chief. From the outset, the KGB acceded to Gorbachev's programs of glasnost and perestroika, which were intended to help the Soviet Union catch up to the achievements of the West. During the first three years of perestroika, the agency was largely untouched by the changes that were pressing upon other institutions, and strove to promote Gorbachev's goals of improving work discipline, attacking corruption and fostering greater industrial efficiency...
...last week -- and effectively extends it to the entire country. For decades the party structures behind the scenes in government, industry and the security forces had controlled all official decisions. They had also put up some of the toughest rearguard opposition to Gorbachev's efforts to press on with perestroika...
...just the people involved in the coup who were tainted; the institutions from which they came -- the party, army and KGB -- were also finally discredited last week. If Gorbachev is really intent on perestroika, which means restructuring, this is his golden moment. He can purge, break up and decentralize at will. In fact, he and the other leaders of the society will need virtually to reinvent the government and then find new people to staff...