orbachev introduced reforms which gradually ended the Cold War between the superpowers. However, those reforms also created new tensions among the more conservative members of the Communist party.
One of Gorbachev's reforms was known as perestroika, or "restructuring." This restructuring included a reduction in nuclear weapons, the introduction of elements of a free-market system, and an effort to decentralize the power of the Communist party. Many party hard-liners considered such reforms to be unnecessarily extreme. One issue that was particularly troubling to the party hard-liners was that of the independence of the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Gorbachev emphasized that he was seeking slow, conservative reform in this area. Nevertheless, "Gorbachev's apparent willingness to accept even the idea of Baltic freedom further antagonized the hardliners and set in motion the chain of events which led to... [the attempted] coup d'etat" (Talbott, 1991, p. 51). Another reform which troubled conservative Communist party members was glasnost, or "openness." This reform gave more freedom of speech to the Soviet people and thereby "undermined the Communist party's claim to a monopoly on truth" (Kirkpatrick, 1990, p. 277). As a result of glasnost, the Soviet people learned the truth about the Communist atrocities under Stalin. In addition, glasnost gave the people an opportunity to express their own opinions regarding the faults of the party (Talbott, 1991, p. 50). Because these reforms caused a reduction in the centralized control of the Communist party, there was a great deal of opposition and resistance among both politicians and military leaders in the Soviet Union. In short, "enthusiasm for greater openness among Gorbachev's colleagues had never been overwhelming" (Laqueur, 1989, p. 250).
As threatening as Gorbachev's reforms were, the Communist party was even more concerned with the rise in power of Boris ...