Perestroika (Russian: перестройка [pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə] ( listen)) was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev along with his other major policy reform he introduced known as glasnost, meaning "openness". Its literal meaning is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system.

Perestroika is often argued to be a cause of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe, and the end of the Cold War.

Perestroika allowed more independent actions from the various ministries and introduced some market-like reforms. The intention of perestroika, however, was not to end the command economy but rather to make socialism work more efficiently to better meet the needs of Soviet consumers. The process of implementing perestroika arguably exacerbated already existing political, social and economic tensions within the Soviet Union and no doubt helped to further nationalism in the constituent republics. Perestroika and resistance to it are often cited as major catalysts leading to the breakup of the Soviet Union. Although perestroika did, in fact, cause undue social unrest, it also gave the Soviet Union a new direction of foreign policy that achieved greater political power than ever before. Gorbachev changed the meaning of freedom for the people of the USSR. Previously, freedom had meant recognition of the Marxist-Leninist Regime. Now, however, freedom meant escaping all constraints. He also ceased the persecution of religion under perestroika and allowed the publishing of previously banned books, such as 1984, Animal Farm, and Doctor Zhivago. Although Gorbachev's attempts at Perestroika ultimately failed, he drastically changed the perceptions of the outside world towards his country.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (Russian: Михаи́л Серге́евич Горбачёв, tr. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov; IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil sʲɪrˈɡʲejəvʲɪtɕ ɡərbɐˈtɕof] ( listen); born 2 March 1931) is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the Soviet Union, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991. He was the only general secretary in the history of the Soviet Union to have been born during the Communist rule.

Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family, and in his teens operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While he was at the university, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and soon became very active within it. In 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Kraikom, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of the Politburo in 1979. Within three years of the deaths of Soviet Leaders Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko, Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo in 1985. Before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level.