Glasnost

   Glasnost was the policy of introducing and maximizing openness, transparency, and publicity of government, military, and media institutions in the Soviet Union. It was introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev as part of his philosophy of the country’s modernization known as perestroika, which also included such concepts as uskoreniie> (acceleration) and informatization. Glasnost occurred as a result of relaxation of censorship and came to be viewed as a stride toward liberalization of the regime. The events that caused the change of course were the Chernobyl disaster and the SovietAfghan War, which collectively demonstrated the Soviet government’s callous disregard toward and disconnection from the will and needs of its people. One of the main political objectives of glasnost was to lessen the power of the apparatchiks; however, the effects of glasnost were uncontrollable as it effectively changed the course of history in the Eastern Bloc.

   The new glasnost environment provided Soviet citizens with greater freedom of access to information and greater freedom of speech. Glasnost was the first step in the process of democratization of the Soviet Union. At the outset, glasnost facilitated the processes of uncovering the truth about the Soviet past, especially about Stalinera crimes. It was an ideological doctrine that was quickly accepted by the Soviet media and which eventually enabled criticism of the Soviet regime itself. Initially perceived with skepticism by the general public, glasnost quickly became a means of influencing local governments and the nomenklatura>. Over time, increasing political openness caused decentralization of power in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), with the union republics taking the lead in multicandidate local and national elections. The rise of nationalism in Soviet republics stirred social and ethnic tensions, leading to ethnic violence in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The term “glasnost” may also be used to refer to the historic period of the late 1980s in the USSR when the principles of openness and transparency were introduced.