Mikhail Gorbachev introduced measures that sought a flexibilization and liberalization of the Soviet political system.
Explanation:
When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, he found a country with serious problems. After the death of Stalin three decades earlier, the denunciation of his repressive methods never led him to question the communist monopoly of power. On the other hand, the arms race with the West had contributed to economic stagnation.
To change things, Gorbachev announced a program of reforms that would become popular through the slogans of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (transparency). His objective was not to establish a democracy, but to proceed to a revitalization of socialism.
Gorbachev's opening program seduced the West, but not so much the Soviets. The change aroused too many illusions of freedom and the fears of the old communist guard. The reforms were unable to translate into tangible facts.
Perestroika attacked the inefficient state planning economy, but had not created a market system capable of taking over it. That is why the population ended up identifying Gorbachev's policy with scarcity.
Eager to revive the economy of the USSR, Gorbachev wanted to cut military spending and reached a disarmament agreement with the United States. He also drew the attention of the world by announcing the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, where the Soviets had engaged in an endless war, comparable to what Vietnam had been for the United States. In turn, in Eastern Europe, the Kremlin expressed its willingness not to intervene in the affairs of the satellite countries.
When it became clear that Moscow was not going to suppress political discontent, a democratizing wave shook Eastern Europe. First was the success of non-communists in Poland. Then the Berlin Wall fell. In Czechoslovakia, the "velvet revolution" brought the dissident Vaclav Havel to the presidency.
To stop liberalization, the harder sectors of the Communist Party encouraged a coup that failed. Although Gorbachev retained the presidency, his office was already empty of content. Boris Yeltsin was the new strong man.
The USSR unraveled, splitting up in various republics. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which had announced their emancipation from Moscow a year earlier, carried it out. The Russian Federation, Belarus and Ukraine constituted the Commonwealth of Independent States, in which the remaining twelve ex-republics of the USSR would soon be integrated.
