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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (55225)	6/2/2009 2:05:37 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 149317

He believed, and according to interviews I recall hearing, in socialism. He wanted to maintain it in the USSR but make it more open and humanistic than it had been. Gorbachev launched his program of perestroika (restructuring) of Soviet society and economy to enhance and modernize the system, not to bring it down. His initial approach was to tighten discipline within party ranks and in workplaces and to stage a campaign against alcohol consumption. Within a year, Gorbachev assumed more radical positions and recruited advisers who favored a far-reaching overhaul of Soviet practices and institutions. In the economic realm, Gorbachev resurrected some pieces of Lenin’s New Economic Policy of the 1920s, authorizing the formation of cooperatives and family businesses and permitting collective farms to sell some of their produce on the market at the going price. The government also relaxed restrictions on foreign trade and investment and reduced central control over the managers of state-owned firms. In addition to pursuing economic reforms, Gorbachev soon launched ambitious political and social reforms. The most dramatic change was adopting glasnost (candor or openness) about public affairs. In quick succession, the Soviet authorities released Sakharov and other dissidents from prisons and exile, relaxed censorship in the mass media, kindled debate over the sins of the Soviet past, and lifted a ban on independent associations and organizations. encarta.msn.com