ABSTRACT
Changes in the present result in changes in the way we look at the past. For the historian one of the most exciting parts of the Gorbachev era between 1985 and 1991 was the rediscovery of the Soviet past, a process which, it can be argued, played a surprisingly large role in the collapse of Communism and the end of the Soviet Union. It is not possible here to consider all the reasons for that collapse, which would cover economic and ecological problems, nationality issues and the effects of the democratization of the political system. Of Gorbachev’s three slogans, perestroika, glasnost and democratization, I want to focus on one area of glasnost; the rediscovery of the past. Glasnost, or openness, was introduced to get popular support for perestroika, or economic restructuring, and involved a virtually free press, and the discovery of a western-type, investigative journalism. Gorbachev miscalculated, however. Instead of encouraging support for the new policies, glasnost proved to be a licence to grumble, and fatally undermined support for the Communist Party. As was the case with Alexander II in the 1860s, by allowing greater freedom of ideas, Gorbachev-was to create his own opposition. The Congress of People’s Deputies in the summer of 1989-the first partially freely elected assembly since the Constituent Assembly was dissolved in January 1918-was a turning-point. As debates were broadcast live on television, the nation watched spellbound as deputies talked frankly about the problems facing Soviet society, such as pollution, the drying up of the Aral sea, and crime, and openly mentioned previously forbidden facts about the past-the impact of collectivization on their villages or their experiences of the purges. The myth of party infallibility was publicly and rudely broken.
