The Development of Gorbachev's Idea of Glasnost

Gorbachev used glasnost as a tool within perestroika to encourage open dialogue to build support for his economic reforms. Because the idea of openness may seem incompatible or iconoclastic with the ideological rigidity present in the Soviet Union, it is key to understand the conceptual evolution of glasnost. There were three fateful events in Gorbachev’s upbringing that influenced the creation of this policy. 

The first was the arrest of both of Gorbachev’s grandfathers. Andrei, his paternal grandfather, was arrested in 1934 for refusing to participate in Stalin’s collectivization campaign and was accused of being a “saboteur”. Similarly, Gopkalo, his maternal grandfather, was arrested in 1937, when Gorbachev was six years old. A victim of Stalin’s purges, Gopkalo was charged with being a member of a “counterrevolutionary, right-wing Trot-skyite organization”, and was tortured in order to extract a confession. There was no credible evidence that Gopkalo committed any crime; this demonstrated the unjust nature of Stalin’s purges because even the most loyal could be deposed. 

A seminal inflection point in his life, Gorbachev described the arrest as the “first upheaval in my life”; for this reason, the event was “ingrained [...] forever in [his] memory.” Following Gopkalo’s arrest, Gorbachev’s family was shunned by neighbors; their relatives only secretly visited at night because “enemies of the people” were ostracized. While the arrest of his grandfather did not immediately radicalize Gorbachev’s views, it made him aware of the cruelty and repression present in the Soviet Union. As such, he believed government accountability was crucial to rebuild trust between the people and the state, which glasnost later aimed to foster.  

The second pivotal event was Gorbachev’s university experience, where he described teaching amounting to ideological drill. He stated, “the learning process was designed to put shackles on the young spirit, to inculcate in the young heads a set of in-alienable truth and to save them from the temptation of reasoning indepen-dently, [...]. The iron brackets of ideology, [...] were always felt.”  Gorbachev’s description of the Soviet educational system as “shackles on the young spirit” demonstrates his disillusionment with the system as a tool of ideological conditioning as opposed to spurring free and open thought. Glasnost aimed to dismantle these chains that stifled esprit. 

The third source of influence for glasnost was the time Gorbachev spent in Western nations (Italy in 1971, Belgium in 1972, West Germany in 1975, France in 1976, Canada in 1983, and Britain in 1984). Gorbachev was able to make these trips abroad because he was trusted by the state. On these trips, Gorbachev was not yet the General Secretary of the Soviet Union, allowing him to engage in the local cultures in a manner that few other Soviet leaders had done. Gorbachev was exposed to completely different political systems, and was most surprised by the openness of Western society and the huge discrepancies in the quality of life. This distortion resulted in a realization that Soviet propaganda had painted a skewed picture of life under capitalism. He writes, “Irrespective of their purpose, the visits were instructive for me [...] because [they underlined] the fact that the information we received from abroad was meager and also carefully filtered.” 

This exposure to the West launched Gorbachev into a cycle of candid introspection. Gorbachev recognized the disparities in the quality of life, writing that “perhaps the most important thing which I brought back with me from my trips abroad was the realization that people there live in better conditions and have a higher standard of living [than in the Soviet Union]. Why do we live worse than the other developed countries?” This question was a driving force behind Gorbachev’s push for change and subsequent perestroika and glasnost reforms. In doing so, Gorbachev articulated that the Soviet Union’s “aged leaders were not especially worried about our undeniably lower living standards, our unsatisfactory way of life, and our falling behind in the field of advanced technologies.” His exposure to Western countries made him realize the issues pervading the Soviet Union, inspiring the need for reforms. 

However, perestroika was more greatly influenced by the economic conditions at the time than Gorbachev’s personal experience. The vigorous Soviet economy of the late-1960s and early 1970s quickly fell victim to the factor that had contributed to its success: central planning. The Soviet economy reached a stage of stagnation marked by declines in growth rates, labor productivity, and return on capital investment. Economic growth in the USSR by 1985 was in decline, falling to less than half their 1970 levels—there was a drop in the annual growth rate from 7.5% in 1966-70 to 2.5% since 1981. To investigate why the Soviet economy was in decline, Gorbachev commissioned a study known as the Novosibirsk Report, which argued that the Soviet Union’s stagnant economy stemmed from entrenched structural flaws. The report questioned the fundamental precepts of Soviet centralized planning, arguing that the five-decades old system of state management had become “incredibly entangled and outdated”, no longer suited to the demands of the modern economy. The system of state planning prioritized the performance of the obedient over those of more talented workers, stifling growth because the system rewarded conformity over productivity and innovation. As a result, the Soviet system failed to “make provision for the [...] sufficiently effective use of the labor potential and intellectual resources of society.” To fix these structural issues, the Novosibirsk Report argued that there needed to be a “profound restructuring of the state economic system”, which would be achieved by “abandoning administrative methods of management with a high degree of centralized decision making.” 

The declining Soviet economy, coupled with the death of Leonid Brezhnev in 1982 triggered a juncture for Soviet leadership as they grappled with determining the future direction of the Soviet Union. The Politburo chose Yuri Andropov as Brezhnev’s successor, who began to expose the issues in the Soviet Union through anti-corruption campaigns. However, Andropov’s death in 1984 made the Politburo choose a new leader—Konstanin Chernenko. Chernenko’s ineffective leadership only exacerbated the economic and bureaucratic issues present in the Soviet Union. After Chernenko’s death in 1985, the Politburo chose to elect Mikhail Gorbachev (the Politburo’s youngest member) as the next General Secretary because the country needed a dynamic, younger leader to address the nation’s challenges. Vladimir Dolgikh, a Politburo member, confirmed his support of Gorbachev’s election as the General Secretary, stating, “We are all united, in the opinion that Gorbachev not only has great experience in the past, but he also has a future. Today, our country needs an energetic leader who would be capable of going deeply into the substance of problems, a leader who is sincere, courageous, and demanding.”

Dolgikh perfectly epitomized what the Soviet Union got from Gorbachev. As he took his position as the General Secretary of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev realized that Soviet society had to be reinvigorated with fresh ways of doing things, under the governance of the Communist Party. Consequently, perestroika would become Gorbachev’s platform to revitalize the stagnant bureaucracy and economy. While the initial focus of perestroika was on economic reforms, Gorbachev expanded its scope through introducing new tools to build support for his reform agenda. One of these tools was glasnost: Gorbachev realized previous attempts at reform had failed due to bureaucratic resistance which is why glasnost was introduced as a political tool to push change. Glasnost was the strategic bet he needed for the government and populace to catalyze each other to change and mutually adopt perestroika. The goals of glasnost were three-fold: to stimulate bottom-up momentum for economic reform, to increase bureaucratic accountability, and to foster public trust.  

The first goal of glasnost was to stimulate bottom up momentum for economic reform through increased civic participation. Defining glasnost as the “freedom to express views that reflect different interests”, Gorbachev aimed to generate populist pressure for the revitalization of the economy. Glasnost offered a platform where citizens—especially those disillusioned with economic stagnation—could voice their frustrations, which would increase public support for revitalizing the economy. Moreover, Gorbachev linked such expression to productivity reform, arguing that “broad, timely and frank information is testimony to trust in people [which] raises the activeness of the toilers.” As the Soviet populace became more informed and felt trusted by the state, they would be motivated to participate in reform efforts, increasing their productivity and commitment to economic revitalization. 

The second goal of glasnost was fostering stronger accountability of bureaucratic processes. Prior to glasnost, government decision making was opaque and occurred behind closed doors with little input from the public. As a result, incompetence and corruption were rampant in the Politburo because the public could not criticize officials. This lack of openness in Soviet society was seen as protecting “incompetence and irresponsibility.” However, glasnost upended this system by serving as an “effective means of struggle against bureaucratic distortions.” By holding officials subject to public scrutiny through glasnost, party officials would be incentivized to perform better in their respective positions, allowing them to more effectively govern the country and revitalize its economy. 

The third goal of glasnost was fostering public trust between the government and the proletariat. Gorbachev intended for the implementation of glasnost to be the transparent disclosure of information by the state. By being more open and honest about the USSR’s past, Gorbachev used glasnost as a means of making the Communist Party seem more legitimate, trustworthy, and connected to the people. In turn, Soviet citizens would be more likely to believe in and follow his political and economic lead. As historian Lapidus explains, glasnost was a calculated expansion of public discourse to acknowledge past failures as a means of legitimizing future reforms. 

As much as Gorbachev sought these democratic reforms, he was a loyal Communist and did not intend to dismantle the tenets of the Communist state. Instead, he sought controlled reforms and measured liberalizing change within the nation. As such, Gorbachev aimed to keep glasnost and freedom of speech within manageable limits, but it quickly exceeded those boundaries. In his endeavor of glasnost, Gorbachev did not act alone: he had the backing of the Politburo and many prominent reformist members including Alexander Yakovlev, Edward Shevardnadze, and Vadim Mededev. All of these members were frustrated by the economic and social stagnation of the Brezhnev years; as such, they believed in glasnost as a mechanism to overcome bureaucratic stagnation. This heavy backing from numerous Politburo advisors allowed for glasnost to open the door to an intensifying public debate that challenged the very legitimacy of the Soviet order itself. 

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