Mikhail Gorbachev and the end of Communism

Milhail Gorbachev became the communist party leader. He was the youngest Soviet leader ever since Stalin. His opponent for the title of communist party leader was Victor Grishin. Gorbachev wanted to pursue new ideas for the Soviet Union. In 1985 Gorbachev announced a policy named glanost. Glanost means openness. He decided to follow this policy because he realize that the ecomomic and social reforms would not happen if the Soviet Union did not have free flow of ideas and information. With the new policy people were allowed to publications of books and reporters could talk about social and government problems, which were not allowed when the soviet Union was a totalitarian state. With this law people began to complain about the economic sitituation of the government. Gorbachev blamed those problems on how efficient the system of central planning was. Gorbachev decided to make another policy this time to fix the complianing of the people. The policy was called perestroika which was an economic restructuring.

Gorbachev plan was not to over throw communisn. His plan was to make the system efficient. To make his plan work Gorbachev had to losen the grip that the Communist Party had on the Soviet society and politics. He then mad a policy called democratization that would open the political system of the Soviet Union. This plan had to make a legislative body. With the new ideas that Gorbachev had, the Soviet Union became less and less Communist.