Gorbachev, perestroika, and glasnost

 Week 31: Cold War IDs

 

Gorbachev, Perestroika, and Glasnost

 

Mikhail Gorbachev :

 

USSR ruler after 1985; renewed attacks on Stalinism; urged reduction in nuclear armament; proclaimed plicies of glasnost and perestroika.

 

Perestroika:

 

Policy of Mikhail Gorbachev calling for economic restructuring in the USSR in the late 1980s; more leeway for private ownership and decentralized control in industry and agriculture. 

 

Glasnost:

 

Policy of openness of political liberation in the Soviet Union put forward by Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s.

 

Gorbachev modified the USSR's Cold War stance, reducing nuclear armament and in 1987 he negotiated a new agreement with the United States that limited medium-range missiles in Europe.  He ended the war in Afghanistan and brought the Soviet troops home.  Gorbachev and his policies had a massive impact on the Cold War, almost single-handedly ending the conflict and bringing peaceful times to the world. 

 

 

 

A photograph of Mikhail Gorbachev, one of the most influential men of the Cold War.