[inquest]

There was a defector (or two) back in the '80s who said that the whole "perestroika" thing was just smoke and mirrors, and that the same power structure was just going to be humming right along under a different mask. He got (and I think still gets) lampooned a lot, but I have to wonder...

[familyop]

"There was a defector (or two) back in the '80s who said that the whole "perestroika" thing was just smoke and mirrors, and that the same power structure was just going to be humming right along under a different mask. He got (and I think still gets) lampooned a lot, but I have to wonder..."

Most of the officials in various ministries of the USSR did intend to carry on with business as it was. Gorbachev and his small group of scattered friends were surrounded by them.

But Gorby and his friends were serious about it, and it worked. Even a little free press can open the gates, if the writers and speakers who want the change have done a few years of homework in disseminating convincing political speech and growing organizations by way of cells.

...problem since then was and is the more prevailing tendency to censor, spread misinformation and go around puffed up like roosters. To change a government is not so difficult compared to trying to change a whole culture and ways of thinking.