ABSTRACT
Reform efforts have been a regular feature of the political landscape in the USSR since the time of Joseph Stalin, and most of the measures proposed have a lineage reaching back several years, if not decades. Mikhail S. Gorbachev's housecleaning began before he assumed the post of general secretary, for Andropov had placed him in charge of personnel with a mission to begin replacing the leadership at the level of district and regional party secretaries. In the arts and media, as Timothy Colton rightly points out, retirements and replacements have been a key weapon in the "thaw." Specialists have noticed a decline in the rate of turnover after the spring of 1986. This may be a sign of the inevitable slowdown ensuing once a general housecleaning had been conducted, and the old "Dnepropetrovsk mafia" swept out. The policy of democratization is extremely controversial, and Gorbachev failed to win acceptance for his election platform at the January plenum.
