ペレストロイカ

перестройка (perestroika) is the Russian source form behind ペレストロイカ. Wiktionary analyzes it as пере- (pere-, again or over) plus стройка (strojka, construction), and Japanese encyclopedic entries translate it as reconstruction or reform. The political date is 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and made reform language central to Soviet policy. Japanese borrowed ペレストロイカ through late-Showa news about the Soviet Union, especially 1986-88 reporting on economic and political reform. It appeared with グラスノスチ, meaning openness, and ウスコレーニエ, meaning acceleration. Britannica describes the program as restructuring Soviet economic and political policy. The original Russian could refer to rebuilding or reorganization in a broad sense, but Japanese narrowed it toward Gorbachev's reform program. Today ペレストロイカ is mainly a history and politics word in Japanese, though it can be used for a major reorganization of a company or school. English perestroika has the same Soviet-policy sense, but Russian перестройка remains more ordinary in nonpolitical contexts. Japanese usually keeps the 1980s Soviet context. Example: その改革は社内のペレストロイカと呼ばれた.