During the heady years of Gorbachev's perestroika in the 1980s

Having already lost his East European bases to perestroika

The dramatic re-politicization of society that began with perestroika also affected poetry, of course.

By that measure, the Soviet Union was still growing up to 1986, when Gorbachev launched his perestroika, and would not have been considered in economic crisis either

Certain Soviet philosophers told me in Moscow a few years ago: the best translation of perestroika was still "deconstruction".