Liberals and Conservatives

Throughout the preceding chapters, the struggle between conservatives and liberals has been a recurring theme: Gorbachev used his powers of appointment to strengthen support for his reforms, while at the same time he felt forced to placate political opponents; efforts to restructure the economy caused frequent conflicts between the two wings; political reform aimed either at creating a constitutional framework for resolving these conflicts, or at providing Gorbachev with the personal authority to operate independently of them; and glasnost and demokratizatsiia sought to strengthen the hand of the reformers. But until almost the very end, neither side gained a decisive upper hand, and Gorbachev himself, while clearly a reformer, appeared on several occasions to take a conservative stance.