Word: perestroikas
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...fact, to pronounce perestroika either a success or a failure at this stage is to misperceive its nature. At best, it is the beginning of a protracted and massive undertaking that could take a generation or more. "During the past 70 years, a new man has been created who is obedient and easily frightened," says the poet Bulat Okudzhava, a veteran Soviet-reform advocate. "What has been created over decades cannot be undone in a day." Energizing an empire of 285 million people and turning it into a modern economy ranks among the most daunting tasks of modern times...
Like Dr. Johnson's remark about dogs who walk upright and women who preach, the amazing thing about perestroika is not that the Soviets are doing it well but that they are doing it at all. "We so quickly and lightly overlook the remarkable existence of perestroika and focus on the obstacles," says Robert Legvold, director of Columbia University's Averell Harriman Institute, "that we underestimate the significance of the fact that it has begun at all." Whatever happens, and whatever course it finally takes, the Gorbachev revolution has already become one of the greatest dramas and most momentous events...
Five of the six men who have led the Soviet Union have clung to power until their deaths. But the one exception -- Nikita Khrushchev, the earthy reformer of a generation ago -- stands as a cautionary reminder of the perils of perestroika. The combination of glasnost and demokratizatsiya runs the risk of giving conservatives the chance to point to a breakdown in social order. This is a major consideration in one of the most order-obsessed regimes on earth. Gorbachev's situation, like the fate of his reforms, will thus remain precarious...
...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...