In February 1986, ITN’s Nik Gowing reported on the massive reform campaign launched by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. That week, the Communist Party would give its assent to a number of changes within the Soviet system, from allowing workers a greater financial stake in the products of their labour, to a drive for computer literacy in the schools of the USSR, to a campaign against corruption and inefficiency across the state bureaucracy. Many in the West and the Soviet bloc itself remained sceptical whether such ambitious change could be achieved. In the first of four special reports, Nik Gowing explored the challenges facing Gorbachev ahead of his opening of the 27th Party Congress, which was seen as the most important for 25 years. The next day, Gowing looked at the effects on a factory in Sumy of an experiment which allowed the company to keep a large share of the profits, thereby freeing it from some of the traditional tight controls from Moscow. Gowing was the first Western TV journalist to be allowed to see one of these experiments in action. His third report examined the push for computer literacy within the USSR, part of Gorbachev's ambitious plans to make the Soviet Union the technological equal of the West. And Gowing's final report looked at new farming methods being put into operation at the Volgadon State Farm near Volgograd, following Gorbachev's declaration on the third day of the Soviet Communist Party Congress that agricultural output must be intensified.
00:00 Introduction
00:38 1. The challenge facing Gorbachev
07:59 2. The experiment in Sumy
14:55 3. Computer revolution
21:28 4. Soviet agriculture
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