, that checked and balanced each other. Even the previously invisible KGB were forced to be more public and open with information, holding press conferences at colleges, etc. They even had a 'Miss KGB'. The main target of the new law was to go after corrupt officials and organized crime rings, such as one in Uzbekistan that was fed by the proceeds of a cotton harvest, protected by high-level political contacts, and defended by hired assassins (White 43).

             Glasnost was the other major half of Gorbachev's political theories. Glasnost, literally translated, meant openness (White 77). To Gorbachev, glasnost stopped well short of Western artistic and journalistic freedom (Church). But to the Russians it meant more than that, and they carried it further than anyone had dreamed (White 77). It meant it was time for the government to know what the people thought of it, and hear what the people had to say (Naylor 80). Gorbachev is quoted as saying that the fear and the lies had to stop and people need to know what is good and what is bad (Sproule 40-41). Russia had been in oppression for 70 years, but in the 1950's, while in learning, Gorbachev saw Khrushchev's secret speech denouncing Stalin at the 20th Communist Party Congress, which was a brief taste of freedom, but it was temporary. This gave Gorbachev a large part of his fire today (Church).

             Half of glasnost was the freedom to criticize the government. You could say if you didn't like the president, or what he was doing, or anything about him. Newspaper articles, comic books, pamphlets, and books could be written about new ideas and say things how they were (Sproule 49). Speeches like Khrushchev's no longer had to be done in secret (Naylor 82). A large incident that received a lot of attention and gave glasnost its first big push was the Chernobyl incident. A nuclear reactor at Chernobyl melted down and sent radioactive waves hundreds of miles, killing or making thousands of people sick (White 50).