Politics The Midterms Were About American Decline—Not Corruption Democrats who seek to make the results all about Trump’s shady dealings are missing the point. (Robin Rayne/Anadolu via Getty Images) On April 23, 1985, at the Plenum of the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee, the newly elected General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev laid out his ideas for reform in a landmark speech .
A major focus was to be stamping out corruption. “The task now,” Gorbachev said, “is to work out concrete, effective measures to rid the distributive mechanism of wage-levelling, unearned income and everything that runs counter to the economic norms and moral ideals of our society.” Soviet citizens reacted to this positively at first.
There was great hope that these reforms would be achieved, particularly after flashy television performances where the authorities showed the public seized gold, cash, and other valuables. But as time went on, the show got tiresome.