GLASNOST and The Need To Reform The Party

Question 1

The whole apparatus of the party and the state had become

Answer 1

Huge and unmanageable

Question 2

Under Brezhnev the apparatus had grown to resemble

Answer 2

Blocs of vested interests who competed with each other

The rivalry was wasteful, competition between branches had led to corruption and nepotism

Question 3

BREZHNEV Aussie of relations between the central planning apparatus in Moscow and that at

Answer 3

Regional level in each republic luv

Question 4

Gorbachev recognised that the whole political system under Brezhnev needed

Answer 4

Streamlining

Question 5

Streamlining the party would provide the additional benefit of offering the opportunity to remove

Answer 5

Those officials who were against reform

Question 6

What highlighted the need for reform?

Answer 6

The impact of glasnost

Question 7

GLASNOST

What happened?

Answer 7

What started as a method of getting new ideas to revitalise the communist party
and re-engage the population with the party

Descended

Into an open attack on its practices

Question 8

Key criticisms of the party were as follows:

Complaints about

Answer 8

Poor housing were popular

Question 9

Key criticisms of the party were as follows:

Investigations of soviet history revealed details of

Answer 9

Stalin’s mass terror
The famine of the 1930s
The Katyn Massacre

Question 10

Key criticisms of the party were as follows:

Even the more sensitive issue of the

Answer 10

Soviet victory in the Second World War was discussed. The myth of the Great Patriotic War was undermined by revelations of the reckless waste of human life

Question 11

Key criticisms of the party were as follows:

Environmental issues were a popular topic

Answer 11

Promoted by exposés of the damaging impact on the Aral Sea of government irrigation schemes

Question 12

It was difficult for Gorbachev to call a halt to ________ once it had started, even if he had wanted to

Answer 12

Glasnost

Question 13

What convinced Gorbachev that glasnost was essential?

Answer 13

The soviet governments response to the Chernobyl nuclear accident in April 1986

A wave of radioactive fallout drifting across much of Northern Europe
No official announcement was made by the soviet government until it was forced to respond to urgent calls for information after scientists from Scandinavia picked up readings of unusually high reactivity in their air space

Question 14

The soviet governments delayed admission of an accident had disastrous results for its own people

Answer 14

An evacuation of people living in toxic areas was delayed, adding to the human cost
An increase in cases of leukaemia and birth deformities

Question 15

The Chernobyl affair reflected many of the weaknesses of the Soviet Union

Answer 15

The nuclear power plant was badly damaged
If used outdated equipment
Had a poor record of health and safety
Deficiencies covered by secrecy and evasion

Question 16

Chernobyl did little to help gorbachevs international

Answer 16

Reputation

The whole situation justified glasnost to him

Question 17

By what year was the population much more politicised?

Why?

Answer 17

1989

Glasnost

Question 18

By 1989 how many informal groups and clubs were holding meetings, organising demonstrations and adding their voices to the call for political reform?

Answer 18

Over 60,000

Question 19

Instead of producing support for Gorbachev, glasnost resulted in a

Answer 19

Wave of criticism against the party

Much of it directed at Gorbachev for his weakness in pursuing radical reform

Question 20

Glasnost -> many reformers in positions of power were unwilling to defend

Answer 20

The communist party- of which they were members

No surprise that some leading reformers decided to resign from the party

Question 21

The katyn massacre

Who was murdered? How many?

When?

Where? Who discovered them? When?

What was the lie and when did it continue till?

Answer 21

Over 4000 polish army officers

April and May 1940

Buried in a mass grave at Katyn forest in western Russia — discovered by German troops in April 1943

Soviet government accused the German army of having carried out the massacre— a lie that continued till 1991
Glasnost.

Question 22

The Aral Sea— during the ______ years the rivers that emptied into the Aral Sea in ______ were

Answer 22

Brezhnev

Kazakhstan

Diverted to irrigate the expansion of the area where cotton was grown

Question 23

What was the result of diverting the rivers to irrigate the expansion of the area where cotton was grown? (Aral Sea)

Answer 23

An environmental disaster of huge proportions

Shrunk 90% 1960-2004
Soil contained a concentration of salt and toxic substances from pollution that created an uninhabitable desert
Remaining water undrinkable
Altered climate in area around the sea— hotter drier

GAINED PUBLICITY DURING GLASNOST

Question 24

The Aral Sea covered an area of ________ in 1960.

By 2004 it had shrunk by

Answer 24

68,000 km^2

90%

Question 25

The irrigation scheme had been directed by the

Answer 25

Communist party and involved the embezzlement of large sims of money by corrupt local officials

The scandal therefore added to the growing criticism of the party