Glasnost

Glasnost
Russian	гла́сность
Romanization	glasnost
Literal meaning	publicity

In the Russian language the word glasnost (Russian: гла́сность, IPA: [ˈɡlasnəsʲtʲ]) has several general and specific meanings. Its meaning "publicity" in the sense "the state of being open to public knowledge" has been used in Russian at least since the end of the 18th century. In the Russian Empire of the later 19th century the latter meaning was particularly associated with reforms of the judicial system, ensuring that the press and the public could attend court hearings and that the sentence was also read out in public. It was made popular in the 1980s by Mikhail Gorbachev as a slogan for increased government transparency.

Glasnost, explained Soviet human rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva, is a word that "had been in the Russian language for centuries. It was in the dictionaries and lawbooks as long as there had been dictionaries and lawbooks. It was an ordinary, hardworking, nondescript word that was used to refer to a process, any process of justice or governance, being conducted in the open."

In 1986 the term was used by Mikhail Gorbachev as a political slogan for increased openness and transparency in government institutions and activities in the Soviet Union. Critics aware of the term's recent history regarded the Soviet authorities' new slogan as a vague and limited alternative to more basic liberties; According to Alexei Simonov of the Glasnost Defence Foundation, "Glasnost is a tortoise crawling towards freedom of speech".

In the six years when the USSR attempted to reform itself glasnost was often linked with the similarly vague slogans of perestroika (literally: restructuring or regrouping) and Demokratizatsiya (democratization). Glasnost was frequently invoked by Gorbachev in connection with 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.

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