Information, ideology and power: how Glasnost’ affected the demise of the Soviet Union

This article seeks to offer some insight into how Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost’ (‘openness’ in the media) contributed to the disintegration of the Soviet Union as a territorial state, a unifying ideology of governance, and a system of governing institutions and élites. Official ideology, the Soviet system of information filtration, and Soviet power structures were so intimately bound together that when Gorbachev sought to alter one (by releasing information from its ideological strictures and governmental control) he did irreparable damage to the power of the Soviet ideal. This loss of legitimacy greatly contributed to the dramatic decline and collapse of the Soviet Union over five years. As the surreal structures of Soviet ideology were exposed to the glasnost’ information explosion, popular faith in the Soviet vision and its governing elites crumbled. In response, new political visions stepped in to fill the void, finally breaking up the Soviet Union as a territorial state and a governing institution