Glasnost
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| Translit: glasnost |
| English: openness |
Glasnost (Russian: гл́асность IPA: [ˈglasnəsʲtʲ]) is a Russian word for "transparency" or "openness." Mikhail Gorbachev used the term to describe a program of reform introduced to the Soviet Union in 1985 whose goals included combating corruption and the abuse of privilege by the political classes. In the broadest sense, it aimed to liberalize freedom of the press gradually, and to allow for freedom of dissent. [1] The policy met resistance during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, when authorities hid the true extent of the nuclear accident for several days.
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[edit] Objectives
Through his policy of glasnost, Gorbachev pressured conservatives within the Party who opposed perestroika, his programs of economic restructuring. By cultivating a spirit of intellectual and cultural openness which encouraged public debate and participation, Gorbachev hoped to increase the Soviet people's support for and participation in perestroika.
[edit] Areas of concern
While in the West the notion of "glasnost" is associated with freedom of speech, the main goal of this policy was to make the country's management transparent and open to debate, thus circumventing the narrow circle of apparatchiks who previously exercised complete control of the economy. Through reviewing the past or current mistakes being made, it was hoped that the Soviet people would back reforms such as perestroika.
Glasnost gave new freedoms to the people, such as a greater freedom of speech — a radical change, as control of speech and suppression of government criticism had previously been a central part of the Soviet system. There was also a greater degree of freedom within the media. In the late 1980s, the Soviet government came under increased criticism, as did Leninist ideology (which Gorbachev had attempted to preserve as the foundation for reform), and members of the Soviet population were more outspoken in their view that the Soviet government had become a failure. Glasnost did indeed provide freedom of expression, far beyond what Gorbachev had intended, and changed citizens' views towards the government, which played a key role in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
[edit] Effects
Relaxation of censorship resulted in the Communist Party losing its grip on the media. Before long, much to the embarrassment of the authorities, the media began to expose severe social and economic problems which the Soviet government had long denied and covered up. Long-denied problems such as poor housing, food shortages, alcoholism, widespread pollution, creeping mortality rates and the second-rate position of women were now receiving increased attention. Moreover, under glasnost, the people were able to learn significantly more about the horrors committed by the government when Joseph Stalin was in power. Although Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin's personality cult, information about the true proportions of his atrocities was still suppressed. In all, the very positive view of Soviet life which had long been presented to the public by the official media was being rapidly dismantled, and the negative aspects of life in the Soviet Union were brought into the spotlight. This began to undermine the faith of the public in the Soviet system.
Political openness continued to produce unintended consequences. In elections to the regional assemblies of the Soviet Union's constituent republics, nationalists swept the board. As Gorbachev had weakened the system of internal political repression, the ability of the USSR's central Moscow government to impose its will on the USSR's constituent republics had been largely undermined. During the 1980s calls for greater independence from Moscow's rule grew louder. This was especially marked in the Baltic Republics of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, which had been annexed into the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin in 1940. Nationalist feeling also took hold in other Soviet republics such as Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Starting in the mid-1980s, the Baltic states used the reforms provided by glasnost to assert their rights to protect their environment and their historic monuments and, later, their claims to sovereignty and independence. When the Balts withstood outside threats, they exposed an irresolute Kremlin. Bolstering separatism in other Soviet republics, the Balts triggered multiple challenges to the Soviet Union. Supported by Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, the Baltic republics asserted their sovereignty.
The rise of nationalism under glasnost also reawakened simmering ethnic tensions throughout the union. For example, in February 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly ethnic Armenian region in the Azerbaijan SSR, passed a resolution calling for unification with the Armenian SSR. Violence against local Azeris was then reported on Soviet television, which provoked massacres of Armenians in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait.
The freedoms generated under Glasnost enabled increased contact between Soviet citizens and the western world, particularly with the United States. For example, restrictions on travel were loosened, allowing increased business and cultural contact. For example, one key meeting location was near San Francisco in the Dakin Building, owned then by American philanthropist Henry Dakin who had extensive Russian contacts:
During the late 1980s, as glasnost and perestroika led to the liquidation of the Soviet empire, the Dakin building was the location for a series of groups facilitating United States-Russian contacts. They included the Center for U.S.-U.S.S.R. Initiatives, which helped more than 1000 Americans visit the Soviet Union and more than 100 then-Soviet citizens visit the U.S.[2]
While thousands of political prisoners and many dissidents were released in the spirit of glasnost, Gorbachev's original goal of using glasnost and perestroika to reform the Soviet Union was not achieved. In 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved following a failed coup by conservative elements who were opposed to Gorbachev's reforms.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Gorbachev's Glasnost: The Soviet Media in the First Phase of Perestroika by Joseph Gibbs
- ^ Cyberspace, San Francisco Chronicle, Page A-14, November 20, 1995
