In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev, the new general secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, announced the course of the Soviet Union towards perestroika. Three decades have passed since then, but some of the consequences of these events still cannot be estimated as objectively as possible.
The need for adjustment
The main reason for the beginning of perestroika in 1985-1991 was the difficult economic condition of the USSR, which the country fell into at the beginning of the decade. The first attempts to rebuild the state system were made by Yuri Andropov, who began the fight against pervasive corruption and theft, which dragged the state into the abyss of economic chaos, and tried to strengthen labor discipline. His attempts to bring about change were merely attempts, without producing the desired effect. The state system was in a severe crisis, but officials of the state apparatus did not understand and did not realize this.
The perestroika initiated by Gorbachev did not imply the transition of the state to another form of government. Socialism was to remain a state system. Perestroika was understood as the global modernization of the economy within the framework of the socialist model of economy and the updating of the ideological foundations of the state.
The top leadership did not have an understanding in which direction the movement should begin, although there was collective confidence in the need for change. Subsequently, this led to the collapse of a huge state, which occupied 1/6 of the land. However, one should not assume that in the case of the effective implementation of reforms, sooner or later this disintegration did not occur. Too much society needed new trends and changes, and the level of distrust was at a critical level.
