Terry Simmons

Glasnost, Perestroika and the New Thinking: Gorbachev's Reforms Terry Simmons

Mikhail Gorbachev's visions of a reformulated Soviet Union encompassing glasnost, perestroika and The New Thinking after the abrupt departure of the ailing Konstantin Chernenko revolutionized Soviet foreign policy and the CPSU as well. Though mentored by the infamous Yuri Andropov, Gorbachev was not a product of the Great Patriotic War but rather a new-age Russian technocrat who realized that the experiment of the CPSU was coming to a close. He could not anticipate that he would unleash a dynamic torrent of unintended consequences that would cause the implosion of the entire Soviet Union and its satellite system transforming the Russian experiment in socialism to a new phase of experimental engagement with western-style democracy. Students of the political dynamics of the Russian empire will observe the evolutionary nature of the transition that the visionary Gorbachev precipitated. Historians and comparative political scientists will understand the gravity and important implications that this dramatic twist in Russian political history has wrought and the continued dramatic changes in store for the Medvedev-Putin siloviki administration in the current nationalized Russian state.