GLASNOST AND PERESTROIKA IN USSR: ADJUSTMENT OF THE SYSTEM OR SYSTEMIC CHANGE?

This article interrogates whether glasnost and perestroika represented incremental adjustment or a deeper systemic transformation of the Soviet order as perceived in 1987. It situates reforms within a long arc of Soviet experimentation—Kosygin measures, enterprise autonomy pilots, and periodic moral campaigns—arguing that Gorbachev’s project fused political liberalization with economic restructuring in unusual sequence. The discussion reviews transparency drives in media and culture, probes factory-level incentives and investment allocation, and examines center-republic bargaining that complicated recentralization and decentralization alike. Attention is paid to ideological reinterpretation—how “socialist pluralism,” anti-stagnation rhetoric, and limited contestation reframed legitimacy. External constraints, including commodity prices, CMEA trade rigidities, and Western technology controls, are treated as forcing variables that narrowed policy space. By comparing announced blueprints with bureaucratic follow-through, the paper assesses whether reform vectors could remain contained within Leninist constitutionalism or were destined to erode it. The conclusion weighs path-dependence against tipping dynamics, suggesting that even partial transparency could unlock feedback loops that elites might struggle to manage.

The body develops a three-level analysis of reform mechanics. At the macro level, it reconstructs growth shortfalls, investment misallocation, and soft-budget practices that undermined discipline, explaining why campaign governance lost potency. At the meso level, it tracks ministries and branch associations, showing how they hedged against loss of privilege through procedural delay, target inflation, and reinterpretation of decrees. At the micro level, workplace responses—limited quality circles, shadow shortages, and moral hazard—are used to illustrate why incentives without competitive exit channels yielded ambiguous results. Political openings are then examined: editorial liberalization, historical revisionism, and cautiously widened civil society raised expectations faster than institutional capacity, creating a credibility gap. External signaling—arms control overtures, trade outreach, and image diplomacy—strengthened resource access yet heightened scrutiny of domestic delivery. A comparative excursion situates the Soviet sequence against East Asian reform pathways, noting the absence of disciplined market tests and subnational competition. The article closes by outlining scenarios: bounded renewal through selective marketization; destabilization via center-republic bargaining spirals; or transformative change catalyzed by legitimacy shocks. Each scenario hinges on whether transparency can coexist with command coordination without triggering an irreversible reallocation of authority.