Perhaps in response to this strategy, the Communist Party’s
Politburo elected in 1985 a political reformer who had built a
reputation as a dynamic and competent ‘ideas man’. Ironically,
Mikhail Gorbachev also showed some neoliberal tendencies in
his efforts to spearhead modest market-oriented reforms ‘from
within’. Retaining a healthy scepticism as to the ultimate objectives
of the new Soviet leader, Reagan and Thatcher gradually warmed
up to the charismatic Secretary General. They publicly endorsed
both Gorbachev’s cultural revolution of glasnost (openness about
public affairs) and his comprehensive economic and political
restructuring programme, known as perestroika. Impressed by the
Russian leader’s willingness to consider market-oriented reforms,
his Western counterparts recognized that they could work with
him to build a new relationship based on largely neoliberal ideals.