History of socialism under challenge from Solidarność, or Solidarity, a labor union under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa. The union was sufficiently threatening to the government that on 13 December 1981, the head of state, Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law, suspended the union, and imprisoned most of its leaders. Mikhail Gorbachev (born 1931), who took control in 1985, was the first Soviet leader to have been born after the October revolution. He is remembered for three initiatives: "glasnost", "perestroika", and the "Frank Sinatra doctrine". "Glasnost", or "openness", was Gorbachev's term for allowing public debate in the Soviet Union to an unprecedented degree. "Perestroika"
Mikhail Gorbachev of reform was to prop up the centrally planned economy—not to transition to market socialism. Speaking in late summer 1985 to the secretaries for economic affairs of the central committees of the East European communist parties, Gorbachev said: "Many of you see the solution to your problems in resorting to market mechanisms in place of direct planning. Some of you look at the market as a lifesaver for your economies. But, comrades, you should not think about lifesavers but about the ship, and the ship is socialism." Gorbachev initiated his new policy of "perestroika" (literally "restructuring" in Russian) and its