Standard nomenclature includes under the term ‘perestroika’ a number of initiatives advanced by the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev that would change (‘restructure’) social, economic and political relations in the former USSR. As Mary McAuley, for instance, has described it, perestroika

However, as soon as we descend a rung or two on the ladder of abstraction and attempt to characterize perestroika more concretely, we immediately find ourselves in a thicket of controversy. What prompted the adoption of this policy? What were the actual intentions lying behind it? Did it represent merely an attempt at liberalizing the Soviet regime or were its implications, if not design, more broad-reaching, thus heralding the introduction of democratic government? Has its ultimate failure shown that Soviet communism was, as many have maintained, unreformable or, conversely, should failure here be ascribed to perestroika's partial, half-hearted and conservative thrust that proved inadequate to its announced task of reversing the decay of the Soviet system?

These questions in fact contain three distinct perspectives on perestroika captured in shorthand by the terms set out in the title of this chapter. The first two, which involve the perceptions and intentions of policy makers, refer to renewal. They direct our attention to leadership strategies, stated objectives and the calculations that may have gone into them.