glastnost
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''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, and so on. It has been used in Russian to mean "openness and transparency" since at least the end of the 18th century. In the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
of the late-19th century, the term was particularly associated with reforms of the judicial system. Among these were reforms permitting attendance of the press and the public at trials whose verdicts were now to be read aloud.
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
repeatedly emphasized the importance of glasnost as the most important feature of
democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...
. In the mid-1980s, it was popularised by Mikhail Gorbachev as a political slogan for increased government transparency in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
.


Historical usage

Human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
activist
Lyudmila Alexeyeva Lyudmila Mikhaylovna Alexeyeva (russian: Людми́ла Миха́йловна Алексе́ева, ; 20 July 1927 – 8 December 2018) was a Russian historian and human-rights activist who was a founding member in 1976 of the Moscow Helsink ...
argues that the word ''glasnost'' has been in the Russian language for several hundred years as a common term: "It was in the dictionaries and lawbooks as long as there had been dictionaries and lawbooks. It was an ordinary, hardworking, non-descript word that was used to refer to a process, any process of justice or governance, being conducted in the open." In the mid-1960s it acquired a revived topical importance in discourse concerning the cold-war era internal policy of the Soviet Union.


In the USSR


The dissidents

On 5 December 1965 the Glasnost rally took place in Moscow, considered to be a key event in the emergence of the Soviet civil rights movement. Protesters on Pushkin Square led by Alexander Yesenin-Volpin demanded access to the closed trial of Yuly Daniel and
Andrei Sinyavsky Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky (russian: Андре́й Дона́тович Синя́вский; 8 October 1925 – 25 February 1997) was a Russian writer and Soviet dissident known as a defendant in the Sinyavsky–Daniel trial in 1965. Sinyav ...
. The protestors made specific requests for "glasnost", herein referring to the specific admission of the public, independent observers and foreign journalists, to the trial that had been legislated in the then newly issued Code of Criminal Procedure. With a few specified exceptions, Article 111 of the Code stated that judicial hearings in the USSR should be held in public. Such protests against closed trials continued throughout the post-Stalin era.
Andrei Sakharov Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, nobel laureate and activist for n ...
, for example, did not travel to Oslo to receive his
Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...
due to his public protest outside a Vilnius court building demanding access to the 1976 trial of
Sergei Kovalev Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov (also spelled Sergey Kovalev; russian: link=no, Сергей Адамович Ковалёв; 2 March 1930 – 9 August 2021) was a Russian human rights activist and politician. During the Soviet period he was a diss ...
, an editor of the ''
Chronicle of Current Events ''A Chronicle of Current Events'' (russian: Хро́ника теку́щих собы́тий, ''Khronika tekushchikh sobytiy'') was one of the longest-running ''samizdat'' periodicals of the post-Stalin USSR. This unofficial newsletter reported v ...
'' and prominent rights activist.


Gorbachev

In 1986, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and his advisers adopted ''glasnost'' as a political slogan, together with the term '' perestroika''.
Alexander Yakovlev Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev (russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Я́ковлев; 2 December 1923 – 18 October 2005) was a Soviet and Russian politician, diplomat, and historian. A member of the Politburo and Secreta ...
, Head of the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, is considered to be the intellectual force behind Gorbachev's reform program. Glasnost was taken to mean increased openness and transparency in government institutions and activities in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
(USSR). ''Glasnost'' reflected a commitment of the Gorbachev administration to allowing Soviet citizens to discuss publicly the problems of their system and potential solutions. Gorbachev encouraged popular scrutiny and criticism of leaders, as well as a certain level of exposure by the mass media. Some critics, especially among legal reformers and dissidents, regarded the Soviet authorities' new slogans as vague and limited alternatives to more basic liberties. Alexei Simonov, president of the Glasnost Defence Foundation, makes a critical definition of the term in suggesting it was "a tortoise crawling towards Freedom of Speech".


Various meanings

Between 1986 and 1991, during an era of reforms in the USSR, glasnost was frequently linked with other generalised concepts such as perestroika (literally: restructuring or regrouping) and demokratizatsiya (democratisation). Gorbachev often appealed to glasnost when promoting policies aimed at reducing corruption at the top of the Communist Party and the Soviet government, and moderating the abuse of administrative power in the Central Committee. The ambiguity of "glasnost" defines the distinctive five-year period (1986–1991) at the end of the USSR's existence. There was decreasing pre-publication and pre-broadcast censorship and greater
freedom of information Freedom of information is freedom of a person or people to publish and consume information. Access to information is the ability for an individual to seek, receive and impart information effectively. This sometimes includes "scientific, Indigeno ...
. The "Era of Glasnost" saw greater contact between Soviet citizens and the Western world, particularly the United States: restrictions on travel were loosened for many Soviet citizens which further eased pressures on international exchange between the Soviet Union and the West.


International relations

Gorbachev's interpretation of "glasnost" can best be summarised in English as "openness". While associated with freedom of speech, the main goal of this policy was to make the country's management transparent, and circumvent the holding of near-complete control of the economy and bureaucracy of the Soviet Union by a concentrated body of officials and bureaucratic personnel. During Glasnost, Soviet history under Stalin was re-examined; censored literature in the libraries was made more widely available; and there was a greater freedom of speech for citizens and openness in the media. It was in the late 1980s when most people in the Soviet Union began to learn about the atrocities of Stalin, and learned about previously suppressed events. Information about the supposedly higher quality of consumer goods and quality of life in the United States and Western Europe began to be transmitted to the Soviet population, along with western popular culture.


Outside the Soviet Union

Glasnost received mixed reception in communist states, especially outside the Eastern Bloc.


Support

Glasnost and similar reforms were applied in the following communist states: * Bulgaria * Czechoslovakia * East Germany * Hungary * Mongolia * Poland * Vietnam (see đổi mới) Furthermore, in the socialist state of
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
, similar reforms also existed, with the first major reforms beginning in
Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
.


Opposition

Glasnost or similar reforms were not applied in the following communist states: * China (had its own non-Soviet-inspired reforms) * North Korea * Romania (opposed by
Nicolae Ceaușescu Nicolae Ceaușescu ( , ;  – 25 December 1989) was a Romanian communist politician and dictator. He was the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and the second and last Communist leader of Romania. He ...
)


In Russia since 1991

The outright prohibition of censorship was enshrined in Article 29 of the new 1993
Constitution of the Russian Federation The Constitution of the Russian Federation () was adopted by national referendum on 12 December 1993. Russia's constitution came into force on 25 December 1993, at the moment of its official publication, and abolished the Soviet system of gov ...
. This however has been the subject of ongoing controversy in contemporary Russia owing to heightened governmental interventions restricting
access to information Access may refer to: Companies and organizations * ACCESS (Australia), an Australian youth network * Access (credit card), a former credit card in the United Kingdom * Access Co., a Japanese software company * Access Healthcare, an Indian BPO s ...
for Russian citizens, including
internet censorship Internet censorship is the legal control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet. Censorship is most often applied to specific internet domains (such as Wikipedia.org) but exceptionally may extend to all Int ...
. There has also been pressure on government-operated media outlets to not publicize or discuss certain events or subjects in recent years. Monitoring of the infringement of media rights in the years from 2004 to 2013 found that instances of censorship were the most commonly reported type of violation.


See also

* 1965 Glasnost rally * Demokratizatsiya (Gorbachev's "Democratization") * Glasnost Bowl * Perestroika (Gorbachev's "Restructuring") * Uskoreniye (Gorbachev's "Acceleration") * Common knowledge (logic) * Mutual knowledge *
Pluralistic ignorance In social psychology, pluralistic ignorance refers to a situation in which the minority position on a given topic is wrongly perceived to be the majority position or where the majority position is wrongly perceived to be the minority position. Thi ...
*
Stag hunt In game theory, the stag hunt, sometimes referred to as the assurance game, trust dilemma or common interest game, describes a conflict between safety and social cooperation. The stag hunt problem originated with philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau ...


Notes


References

* * * {{Authority control Soviet phraseology Soviet internal politics Transparency (behavior) Dissolution of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev 1980s in the Soviet Union Political catchphrases Perestroika Reform in the Soviet Union Soviet democracy movements Russian words and phrases Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1980s in politics