Perestroika+hojoon

**What is Perestroika?**
A policy that Gorbachev introduced intended to rescue the Soviet Union from further declination. After Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the Soviet Union, he introduced perestroika that was intended to revive the Soviet Union.

In very many ways, Gorbachev was a man of vision who sincerely wanted to help USSR reach its "Golden Age" under communism. He was a liberal man too, and was responsible for introducing many ideas and concepts that are considered democratic. Therefore, he was also met with strong opposition from the old Conservatives under the Lenin and Stalin era. He, however, realized the underlying problem of Soviet Union--the lack of competition.

**Political reforms ** (Masakach pg. 326)
For the first time in the history of the Soviet Union, he encouraged multi-candidate elections. (It is important to note, however, that it was not a multi-party election.) Before, there was only one party, one candidate, so in essence, it was not really an election. Why was this important? Because multi-candidate elections introduced competition into the voting system. For a candidate to be voted in, he or she had to come up with better ideas, better solutions to win the hearts of the people. Thus, a candidate would work harder and contribute more to the society to get voted. This was the first step Gorbachev took in order to ensure a much more secure, competitive society with lots of potentials for improvement.

**Economic reforms ** (Masakach pg. 326)
To rescue the failing economy, Gorbachev took different measures, too, from his predecessors. He allowed foreign investments into the country. By doing so, he was hoping for a rise in valuation of the national currency. In addition, he, too, believed in a free market economy. And one of the more radical measures he took, therefore, was decentralization. Until then, the planned economy meant that the government regulated the whole market, including the setting up of prices of goods. This was a major obstacle towards a vibrant economy and thus came the opportunity to rebuild the Soviet market.

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(Commanding Heights 49:00-52:00/ Masakach pg. 317) While Gorbachev was still largely unsuccessful in changing the economy, the Chinese, another Communist state, had an opposing result. In 1978, China proposed its economic plans to open up their markets while adopting “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (Deng). Through cheap labor costs, China attracted many foreign and domestic investors. This in turn strengthened the Chinese currency and was the stepping stone towards developing a strong market that we witness today. Under Deng Xiaoping’s guidance, China had prospered at a rapid pace, and this sign is still ongoing in the 21st century.

But why couldn't the USSR put into effect the same kind of policies? In fact, Gorbachev's Perestroika was very similar to the Chinese. The fact that China and the USSR having shared many common points, such as its belief in Communist ideologies, seemed convincing enough that the plan would eventually work out. However, what Gorbachev had failed to realize was the differences. China was a country with 80% of its population outside the city, heavily concentrated on agriculture. USSR was, by then, an urbanized, heavily industrialized country with 80% of the population INSIDE the city. It is important to note that the Soviet Union was already an industrialized nation with heavy exports for oil and fossil fuels. Therefore, to stem the problem, the Soviets had to implement much more radical, quick changes; they could not start from the scratch like the Chinese did. And they failed to save their market. This failure will be further analyzed in the next section: **Why did it fail**