science

Uskorenie

Uskorenie is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Uskorenie rather than just read about it. In short: Uskorenie (Russian: ускорение, IPA: [ʊskɐˈrʲenʲɪɪ̯ə]; literally meaning acceleration) was a slogan and a policy announced by Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on 20 April 1985 at a Soviet Party Plenum, aimed at the acceleration of political, social and economic development of the Soviet Union. It was the first slogan of a set of reforms that also included perestroika (restructuring), glasnost (tran…

Key takeaways

Uskorenie belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Uskorenie to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Uskorenie from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Uskorenie (Russian: ускорение, IPA: [ʊskɐˈrʲenʲɪɪ̯ə]; literally meaning acceleration) was a slogan and a policy announced by Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on 20 April 1985 at a Soviet Party Plenum, aimed at the acceleration of political, social and economic development of the Soviet Union. It was the first slogan of a set of reforms that also included perestroika (restructuring), glasnost (transparency), new political thinking, and demokratizatsiya (democratization).

History The idea of the acceleration of the economic development (and some other ideas implemented by Gorbachev during the perestroika times) was put forth already in 1982 by Yuri Andropov; it was declared in the lead article of Pravda by January 2, 1983 reporting on the November 28, 1982 Party Central Committee Plenary Session. In May 1985, Gorbachev delivered a speech in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), during which he admitted the slowing down of the economic development and inadequacy of living standards. The program was furthered at the 27th Congress of the Communist Party in Gorbachev's report to the congress, in which he spoke about perestroika, uskorenie, the "human factor", glasnost, and the "expansion of the khozraschet" (commercialization). The acceleration was planned to be based on technical and scientific progress, revamping of heavy industry (in accordance with the Marxian economics postulate about the primacy in development of heavy industry over light industry), taking the "human factor" into account, and increasing the labour discipline and responsibility of apparatchiks. In practice it was implemented with the help of massive monetary emission infused into heavy industry, which further destabilised the economy and in particular brought an enormous disparity between actual cash money and virtual money used in cashless clearings (Russian: безналичный расчёт, romanized: beznalichnyi raschet) between enterprises and state and among enterprises. The politics of mere "acceleration" eventually failed, which was de facto admitted at the June 1987 Party Plenum, and the uskorenie slogan was phased out in favor of the more ambitious perestroika (restructuring of the whole economy).

See also 500 Days Dissolution of the Soviet Union Transition economy

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Uskorenie

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Uskorenie claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Uskorenie before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Uskorenie ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Uskorenie

In research: Uskorenie appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Uskorenie in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Uskorenie is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1980s in the Soviet Union, 1985 neologisms, Economy of the Soviet Union, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Uskorenie outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Uskorenie” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Uskorenie in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Uskorenie means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Uskorenie out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Uskorenie in simple terms?

Why does Uskorenie matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Uskorenie?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Uskorenie.