Revolutions of 1989 needed Western technology and credits to make up for its increasing backwardness. The costs of maintaining its military, the KGB, subsidies to foreign client states etc., further strained the moribund Soviet economy. The first signs of major reform came in 1986 when Gorbachev launched a policy of "glasnost" (openness) in the Soviet Union, and emphasized the need for "perestroika" (economic restructuring). By the spring of 1989, the Soviet Union had not only experienced lively media debate, but had also held its first multi-candidate elections in the newly established Congress of People's Deputies. While glasnost ostensibly advocated openness and political criticism,
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