Knowra Glasnost Glasnost Glasnost was a Soviet policy of greater openness in public discussion and government affairs, introduced under Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s. It loosened censorship and enabled wider scrutiny of official history and policy.
Censorship in the Soviet Union : State control over publication and broadcast in the Soviet Union, used to restrict information and criticism. Glasnost relaxed these controls without immediately abolishing state censorship.
Mikhail Gorbachev : The Soviet leader from 1985 to 1991 who introduced glasnost and perestroika. He made greater openness a central part of his effort to reform Soviet governance.
Katyn massacre : The 1940 execution of thousands of Polish prisoners by the Soviet secret police. Glasnost enabled wider acknowledgment of Soviet responsibility for a crime long blamed on Nazi Germany.
Khrushchev Thaw : A period of reduced repression and cultural liberalization in the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev. The Thaw offers an earlier, more limited precedent for loosening censorship and discussing Stalinism.
Perestroika : Gorbachev’s program of restructuring the Soviet economy and political system, begun in the 1980s. Openness accompanied restructuring, exposing problems reform was meant to address.
Leonid Brezhnev : The Soviet leader from 1964 to 1982, whose era was marked by political stability and prolonged economic stagnation. The stagnation associated with his era formed part of the backdrop to Gorbachev’s reforms.
Khrushchev's Secret Speech : Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 speech condemning Joseph Stalin’s cult of personality and abuses of power. Its partial, earlier challenge to official history foreshadowed later public discussion of Soviet crimes.
Samizdat : The clandestine copying and circulation of prohibited texts in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc states. Samizdat circulated forbidden writing outside the official channels glasnost began to open.
Soviet mass media : Newspapers, radio, television, and other communications operating within the Soviet political system. Media outlets became prominent channels for newly permitted criticism and public debate.
Soviet economic stagnation : The prolonged slowdown in Soviet economic growth and productivity, especially evident from the 1970s. Public discussion made economic failures harder for officials to conceal or dismiss.
Show all 20