The Soviet Union’s last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, passed away on Tuesday at 91 in Moscow after a prolonged illness. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who negotiated a historic nuclear arms pact with the West, is known for ending the cold war. Here’s a look at the economic policies under the last Cold War era leader and the subsequent Russian heads:
The Gorbachev Era: Under Gorbachev, the Soviet Union witnessed the implementation of two reforms — Perestroika (restructuring) and Glasnost (openness). Perestroika involved decentralizing economic controls in order to bring the Soviet Union at par with capitalist economies like the United States, Japan, and Germany. The majority of the Soviet economic bureaucracy was known to be against this program, fearing it would take away their privileges and powers.
