By the mid 1980s,
the Soviet economy was in such a sorry state,
that the idea of reform gained support even at the very top.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the new party leader,
went further than any of his predecessors.
His policies of Glasnost' (openness) and Perestroika
(reconstruction or transformation) introduced a gradual
deideologization and liberalization of political life.
Pluralism of thought and the relative freedom of information.
Economic liberalization allowed elements of
private enterprise in industry, agriculture and trade.
Mikhail Gorbachev presented a new image.
His wife was often with him,
which was unusual for a Soviet leader.
He also liked to meet people face to face and speak with them.
He was very popular at that time.
Gorbachev believed that glasnost' and Perestroika ultimately,
liberalization and intensification of production,
would change the economy and society.
This is how he saw it.
Perestroika is reliance on the live creativity of the masses, this poster says.
But the masses knew no other system,
except the one created by Stalin,
the command administrative system.
Another poster: "glasnost'!"
It is a bit complicated,
but have a look.
On the left is the wall which says "slander, forgery,
bribe", on the right is the wall which says "bureaucracy and lies".
This is the wall that glasnost' was supposed to break,
and that perhaps was the main Gorbachev's achievement.
People learned to speak.
But this was not enough to rid the society of such evils as bureaucracy,
lies, slander, forgery, bribes.
The society knew no other ways.
Gorbachev went further.
He tried to increase the power of the Soviet government at the expense of party.
He introduced contested elections to the Congress of people's deputies,
and allowed independent candidates to stand.
Here you see the first Congress of the people's deputies in 1989.
And Andrei Sakharov, the symbol of opposition to the Soviet regime, is speaking.
He was elected.
In 1990, the party lost its constitutional monopoly on power.
A frank and critical debate on Stalin and Stalinism started in the media.
These innovations went right to the heart of the Soviet system.
This time, the Soviet leader really did want to destroy the foundations of Stalinism,
but the opposition to Gorbachev got stronger by the day.
Stalin's faithful followers began to grasp where the new leader was driving the country.
Gorbachev believed in democratic socialism,
but for many in the USSR,
the only real socialism was Stalin socialism.
Gorbachev was trying to create a new system from the building blocks of the old one,
leaving some of them intact.
This was of course impossible.
This system could either reproduce itself or collapse.
It collapsed and it took the Soviet State with it.
On 19th August 1991,
the old guard attempted a coup against Gorbachev.
Gorbachev survived, but the state did not.
Stalinism was the core of the Soviet state.
Without it, the state could not exist in its former shape and form.
Here is Boris Yeltsyn,
President or the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic,
at the time of the coup.
He speaks to the people on 19 August 1991,
denouncing the attempted coup.
In a few months, he was to become president of the independent Russian Federation.
It seemed that Yeltsyn buried Stalinism for good.
But it was only an illusion.