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.