Perestroika (restructuring)-glasnost (transparency)-uskoreniye (acceleration)

On the right and left of you are collages, composed from the headlines, posters, slogans, and photos of the 1980s. “Transparency, acceleration, restructuring”, “Détente”, “More democracy, more socialism”: these are the slogans of the era of Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev, or Gorby for the western audience, was a liberal reformer and an initiator of restructuring in the Soviet system.
Gorbachev first began to talk about restructuring in April 1985. As soon as he said the words “perestroika” and “glasnost” in one of his speeches, governmental censorship started to collapse. The media could now talk about nearly anything and an article about prostitutes was even run in the very popular “Moskovskij Komsomolets” magazine. It was just beginning.
Soon, the status of "secrecy" was removed from special depositories, archives were opened, manuscripts were printed, and the names erased from history were returned. The young generation, born in the 50's and 60's, came out of the shadows and talked about freedom, which were no longer regulated on the Party Congress. They were waiting for change and their voices appeared in the rock music of Kostya Kinchev, Boris Grebenshchikov, and Viktor Tsoi.
Our hearts require the changes,
Our eyes require the changes,
Into our laugh and our tears,
And into pulse of veins
Changes!
We are waiting for changes.
(Victor Tsoi “Change”)
Change was coming and the country was ready to participate in elections. The country was interested in its recent history again; glasnost brought a new level of understanding. Topics, which were previously glossed over, now garnered the attention of the press: the Stalin era, the privileges of the party nomenklatura, and the bureaucracy of the Soviet state machinery. The result of these changes was the growth of political activity in the population.