Ace the 2026 Global Leaders & Movements Quiz – Unlock 20th Century Secrets!

Perestroika, meaning restructuring, is the policy most closely tied to the economic overhaul of the late Soviet era. It was introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s with the aim of reviving a stagnant economy by reforming the system from within: reducing some of the rigidities of central planning, granting more autonomy to factories and ministries, and allowing limited market mechanisms and private enterprise to operate alongside state control. The broader idea was to boost efficiency, productivity, and innovation by giving people more decision-making power and creating incentives to perform better.

This economic shift did not happen in isolation. It overlapped with glasnost (greater openness and transparency in government and society) and demokratizatsiya (political democratization), which expanded public discussion and political participation. Censorship, on the other hand, represents the tightening of information control and is not a reform aimed at restructuring the economy. Understanding Perestroika in this way clarifies why it’s the term most associated with the late Soviet economic changes.