History of the Soviet Union since 1917
December 2, 2002
Perestroika and the Ambiguities of Socialism, Part I
I. Thoughts on writing the "history of the present"
II. The Brezhnev succession
- The last years of Brezhnev: view from the Kremlin
- The last years of Brezhnev: view from afar
- urbanization
- education
- civil society
- pressures for reform
- Brezhnev's heirs
- Yuri Andropov
- Konstantin Chernenko
- Mikhail Gorbachev
III. Gorbachev's slogans
- acceleration (uskorenie)
- restructuring (perestroika)
- openness (glasnost)
- democratization (demokratizatsiia)
IV. What made Gorbachev run?
- cynical desire for power
- vision of the structural problems of the Soviet economy
- Brezhnev's "mature" economy of shortages
- Andropov's attempts at reform
V. Gorbachev's solutions
- acceleration
- perestroika
- market-like reforms
- regulated free enterprise (cooperatives)
- more radical proposals
- shock therapy
- 500 day plan
- obstacles to reform
- net changes by 1991
