From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishperestroikaper‧e‧stroi‧ka /ˌperəˈstrɔɪkə/ noun [uncountable] PPPa Russian word meaning ‘rebuilding’, used to describe the social, political, and economic changes that happened in the former USSR in the 1980s, just before the end of the Communist government → glasnost
Examples from the Corpus
perestroika• Supposing they are being formed into a new secret police - with the aim of destroying glasnost and perestroika?• The period of glasnost and perestroika under Gorbachev led to a great burgeoning of group activity throughout the republics.• In July a Pravda editorial had attacked perestroika for creating a new bureaucracy without solving the old problems.• More probably, the mass desertion is another sign of how the people have lost faith in perestroika and its unfulfilled promises.• The passage of time required perestroika from the musicians themselves.• The deep recession that followed shows how painful true perestroika can be.• The Gulf war could instead mark the beginning of a kind of Western perestroika.• Had they been in vogue in 1951, the words perestroika and glasnost might have been used by observers.Origin perestroika (1900-2000) Russian perestroit “to rebuild, reorganize” 