Glasnost was a policy of openness and transparency implemented by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. It allowed for honesty in discussing the country’s problems and shortcomings, encouraged the dissemination of information, and reduced corruption and censorship. It led to greater freedom of the press and dissent, and enabled public debate and political engagement. The policy ultimately led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, but also introduced Western customs and ideas to the Soviet Union.
Glasnost was the Soviet government’s official policy of openness and transparency implemented in the mid-1980s. It allowed for honesty in discussing the country’s problems and shortcomings, and for consultation in the government and leadership of the USSR. Glasnost, which can mean “advertisement”, encouraged the dissemination of information and was initiated by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 as a part of its emerging perestroika policy. It was used by Gorbachev to reduce corruption among the Communist leaders of the Soviet government and to limit the censorship that was characteristic of the Communist government.
Gorbachev, then general secretary of the country’s governing body, and later appointed president in 1991, used glasnost in tandem with economic decentralization and freedom. While the combined policies would ultimately lead to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it would result in greater freedom of the press and freedom of dissent. In leading the people of the USSR to a policy of glasnost, Gorbachev hoped to purge many communist policies from the country’s government and society and to bring democracy to Russia.
The policy of glasnost was the core of a three-pronged program implemented by Gorbachev and was important in enabling a public voice. Glasnost gave Russians for the first time in recent memory the ability to engage in political debate, the forum to disagree with politicians, and the power to promote change. Academic and scientific voices were for the first time allowed to debate the Communist hierarchy under glasnost, and this engagement would lead to the dissolution of Communist power.
It was through glasnost that the media was first afforded uncensored coverage of the country’s government policies. This led to initial coverage of perestroika programs and eventual Russian knowledge of the program’s shortcomings. The new freedom encouraged criticism of Gorbachev’s failed economic programs and found revolutionaries around the Soviet Union dissenting. Russia’s satellite states began to crumble under this new political freedom in 1991, and were followed by the democratization of many other Eastern European countries during the 1990s.
Throughout the Soviet Union, glasnost imposed looser restrictions in all areas of life. The resulting ties to the Western world were evident as the Soviets began to travel more, introducing American and European customs, ideas, and policies, and doing business with Western entrepreneurs. While glasnost failed to reform the Soviet Union toward a more unified set of states, the collapse of 1991 was not absent from the new experience of democratic practices by millions.
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