Toward the late 1970s/early 1980s, computers and other technological outbreaks began to spread around the world. America and other democratic countries embraced this new technology, which left the Soviet Union with a decision to make: should they continue to censor their media and their citizens, or should they allow a newfound policy of transparency. Soviet leader at the time Mikhail Gorbachev opted with the latter: and thus implemented a policy called Glasnost throughout the Soviet Union.
As Gorbachev began to carry out his Glasnost policy, the Soviet people began to think that they could have it better. When they were exposed to Democratic nations, many began to believe that democratic people had it better. Gorbachev continued to listen to his people, giving more and more and trying to make communism more desirable to the Soviet people. However, the more Gorbachev gave, the more the people wanted.
Glasnost is the policy of transparency. The United States had been embracing this policy for awhile, which resulted in other countries influential countries doing so as well. You touched on the fact that the Soviet Union needed to decide whether or not they were going to continue this trend or if they wanted to totally change the economical layout that past leaders had been practicing for years.
ReplyDeleteGlasnost, the policy of a more open and consultive government with wider spread of information to the people, is something that the United States and many other countries has been doing for awhile. In my opinion, Gorbachev began this policy as a correct and step towards letting the citizens access mass information and make the idea of communism much more desirable. Without an access of information, people will have a more eager desire to leave the country to gain more information on the outside world and connect with others.
ReplyDeleteGorbachev's decision to eliminate the strict censoring of the time could be considered therefore both a success and a failure. For the Society Union's citizens at the time, it allowed them to see the world in a way which they hadn't in a long time. On the other hand, for the Communist Party, while Glasnost might have been a policy change see as favorable, by expanding the freedoms of its people and increasing accessibility to other sources of information and ideas, it might have ultimately been the beginning of the end.
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