The word used by Mikhail Gorbachov to indicate the need to end secrecy in the government of the Soviet Union. In Russian it means "openness". It amounted to the freeing of the Media from control by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and resulted in the founding of new newspapers, and tv and radio channels and the freedom of existing publications to discuss and criticize government policy. It went with his policy of Perestroika.

This policy has been largely reversed by Vladimir Putin.