History of Ukrainian nationality Communist Party of the Soviet Union, such as Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. Religion was still persecuted, with many churches being destroyed or converted into anti-religion museums, though the Uniate church survived in Western Ukraine by going underground. In 1988, Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev began to implement his policy of "glasnost", or “openness”. It gave Soviet citizens the freedom of speech with the specific intent of criticising corrupt Soviet officials. Political prisoners and dissidents were released while the media became less censored and controlled. Taking the cue from the Baltic nations, many other national groups within the USSR, including Ukrainians,
Communist Party of the Soviet Union Constitution referred to the party as "The leading and guiding force of Soviet society, and the nucleus of its political system, of all state and public organizations, is the Communist Party of the Soviet Union". State socialism was essential and from Stalin until Gorbachev, official discourse considered that private social and economic activity retarding the development of collective consciousness and the economy. Gorbachev supported privatization to a degree but based his policies on Lenin's and Bukharin's opinions of the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, and supported complete state ownership over the commanding heights of the economy. Unlike liberalism, Marxism–Leninism