Perestroika, which in English translates to "restructuring," was General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's program to restructure the Soviet economy in an attempt to revitalize it.
To restructure, Gorbachev decentralized the controls over the economy, effectively lessening the government's role in the decision making processes of individual enterprises. Perestroika also hoped to improve production levels by bettering the lives of workers, including giving them more recreation time and safer working conditions. The overall perception of work in the Soviet Union was to be changed from corruption to honesty, from slacking to hard work. Individual workers, it was hoped, would take a personal interest in their work and would be rewarded for helping to better production levels.
See also: Glasnost
