1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt attempt. Since assuming power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, Gorbachev had embarked on an ambitious program of reform, embodied in the twin concepts of "perestroika" and "glasnost", meaning economic/political restructuring and openness, respectively. These moves prompted resistance and suspicion on the part of hardline members of the "nomenklatura". The reforms also unleashed some forces and movements that Gorbachev did not expect. Specifically, nationalist agitation on the part of the Soviet Union's non-Russian minorities grew, and there were fears that some or all of the union republics might secede. In 1991, the Soviet
The Age of Openness international perspective." While Dikötter does not deny the devastation caused by the Chinese Civil War or the Japanese invasion, he nonetheless argues that the Republican period was a "golden age of openness" in which the country was making substantial progress toward modernity, boldly experimenting with ideas and market reforms, and building vast infrastructure projects. Historian Jonathan Spence wrote that "The Age of Openness" ""presents a cornucopia of graphic examples to show that China in the first half of the twentieth century, far from being in a state of decay that called for revolutionary action, was in fact a vibrant and