A glasnost-era play by Mikhail Shatrov (1932-2010) that opened, without the cuts censors had previously requested, at the Lenin Komsomol Theater in Moscow in February 1986. 

A photograph of letter department workers at Moscow's television and radio guide, Govorit i pokazyvaet Moskva (1973-1990), processing mail from citizens writing in about the upcoming 27th Communist Party Congress in 1986.

The front cover of Glasnost. Information Bulletin from 1987, along with the Editor’s introduction to the first issue. One the first self-published journals to be released during perestroika, Glasnost was an early instance of the fledgling independent late-Soviet press. 

In 1989, Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007) capitalized on the gains of glasnost to secure widespread support for his candidacy to the Congress of People’s Deputies, overcoming a contentious past with General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022) and emerging as a popular figure against conservative elements inside the Soviet Communist Party.

During perestroika, the Soviet government encouraged media to foster closer ties with citizens, leading to unprecedented reader engagement and evolving perceptions of press independence. In this June 1988 issue of the national weekly Literaturnaia gazeta, a reader objects to the editors’ choice to send a copy of his letter to the Party Central Committee.

In 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022) signed into law a press reform that reinforced existing commitments to speech and press freedoms, as articulated in the version of the Soviet Constitution adopted in 1977 under Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982).