As we all know, "public opinion openness" was an important part of Gorbachev's reforms, and the open press reform based on this had an important impact on Soviet society.
In the early stage of reform, the openness of news and public opinion played a positive role in strengthening the social functions of the Soviet Union, effectively extending the supervisory function of news and public opinion, and impacting the rigid system of the Soviet Union. However, the negative effect is also obvious, the loss of control of news and public opinion has caused chaos in Soviet society, which eventually led directly to the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
In fact, the Soviet Union was not established by public opinion control. On the contrary, the Bolsheviks continued to grow and develop when the hostile forces were dominant, and the public opinion attacks of the hostile forces failed to stop the growth of the Red Soviet Union, but on the contrary gained the trust and support of the people. It was only later that Stalin and his successors made a change in the psychology of the Soviet people.
With the advent of the late 1980s, the institutional ills of Soviet society were too great to return, and only a strong dose of needle catalysis was left.
Faced with the country's domestic and foreign difficulties and the precipice of economic development, the newly installed Gorbachev urgently needs a reform to mobilize the enthusiasm of the whole society. As a result, economic policies such as the so-called "acceleration strategy" and "streamlining strategy" were carried out in full swing in the Soviet Union.
But to little effect, the economic situation in the Soviet Union did not improve a year later. The setbacks encountered in the initial economic reforms made Gorbachev himself realize that economic policy alone could not change the shortcomings of the Soviet model, and that bureaucracy and privilege in the system seriously hindered the development of Soviet society. That is why reform must begin with the political process and must move towards a rigid Soviet model.
Political reform was easy, however, and the backlash from the privileged classes alone overwhelmed Gorbachev. For this reason, Gorbachev's reforms must be supported by the lower classes, and this involves a question of public opinion. In the absence of "openness," the Soviet public had become accustomed to some phenomena, even some grassroots officials.
In view of this, Gorbachev hopes to promote the effective dissemination of information by loosening the government's control over news and public opinion, so that the public can obtain open government information. There is no doubt that this was a great attraction for the Long-Suppressed Soviet people.
And all of this is inseparable from the openness of the news media. As a tool of public opinion, the main responsibility of the news media is the role of social supervision. However, during the period of Stalin and his successors, the press did not play an effective role, and the Gulag prison of that year was a bloody lesson.
In June 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR passed the Press and Publications Act, which clearly stipulated that state organs, political parties, social organizations, religious groups, and Citizens of the Usser Of the Usser's 18th Century had the right to create tools of public opinion. This effectively deregulated the government's public opinion and fully legitimized the opposition's private newspapers.
According to records, in October of the year of deregulation of public opinion alone, more than 700 newspapers and periodicals sprang up throughout the Soviet Union, and one-seventh of them were privately owned. Of course, these private presses did not enlighten the people as Gorbachev thought, but took advantage of the "partiality" of the Soviet people to openly oppose the Soviet government.
At the same time, the newspapers founded by the Soviet government itself also had problems in the guidance of public opinion, and lost the role of the government's mouthpiece. Many organ newspapers, such as the Moscow Press, the Literary Journal, the Izvestia, etc., declared their independence one after another, and even the Lyevil newspapers threw themselves into the arms of the opposition and local "democrats" and criticized the Soviet government for a long time.
The changes in Soviet society show that Pandora's box of public opinion has been opened, and all kinds of anti-Soviet forces have rushed out like a tide.
In a period when Soviet public opinion was completely out of control, Stalin became a "demon", Lenin was smeared by the people, and the entire history of the Soviet Union even became a crime, and they did not hesitate to go against the laws of history and vigorously erase the merits of the October Revolution. Along with this, Western capitalism has become a paradise in people's hearts.
In fact, since Gorbachev completely liberalized the control of public opinion, there has been no shortage of sincere self-criticism within the Soviet Union. However, the voice of self-criticism is mainly domestic, and the channels to spread to the international community are relatively limited. Coupled with the deliberate smear of those who have a heart, the self-purification within the Soviet Union has not been taken seriously by the people, which has also spawned a series of evil consequences.
On the contrary, the voices that deliberately belittled the Soviet Union were widely disseminated in the international community and became the mainstream opinion of the Western world in evaluating the Soviet system.
According to records, the voices of these opposition speeches are particularly popular with Western countries led by the United States, and their voices are frequently invited to attend various international conferences. At the meeting, you can often see a funny scene, and these "dissidents" tearfully accuse the Soviet government of various "repressive" measures, which seem to be ridiculous.
When the image of the Soviet government was wiped out by various mainstream media, the credibility of the Soviet government naturally fell to a minimum. The loss of control of public opinion caused the Soviet people to have doubts about the state system, and eventually formed the catalyst for the collapse of the Soviet Union!