Chernenko was succeeded as general secretary by Mikhail S. Gorbachev; at age 54, Gorbachev was the youngest Soviet leader since Lenin. Gorbachev understood that the arms race with the United States was diverting much needed resources from the civilian economy, and he moved boldly to bring the Cold War to an end. He also understood the severity of the basic internal problems besetting the Soviet Union, and he moved to correct them as well. Gorbachev's glasnost, or openness, policy exposed the system's faults and generated new ideas to reform it. Perestroika, or reconstruction, tried to reform the apparatus by which the government and the economy were administered. Demokratizatsiia, or democratization, tried to reduce the influence of the Communist Party by involving the great mass of people in economic and social planning.

At first, glasnost seemed like a breath of fresh air to the Soviet people. For the...