Glasnost was initially conceived by Gorbachev as a necessary means to the end of perestroika, and as relative to it. His heightened conviction that glasnost was integral to the reform process was reflected in the Resolution on Glasnost adopted at the 19th Party Conference in 1988. Glasnost was praised as a ‘sharp weapon of perestroika’ which helped people ‘better to understand their past and present’ and objectively ‘to assess the situation in the country’. Glasnost was a vital part of ‘socialist self-government’ and its extension was essential for democratization and for the ‘renewal of socialism’. Moreover, every citizen enjoyed ‘the inalienable right to obtain complete and reliable information on any social question’ that was not a state or military secret and ‘the right to open and free discussion of any socially significant issue’. Although by 1990 the consequences of glasnost in the republics had outstripped perestroika, Gorbachev's commitment to glasnost endured, even if he was bewildered, exasperated and provoked by some of its results. Glasnost remained crucial to his vision of socioeconomic and political change, but after 1990 with growing and contradictory qualifications.

The application of glasnost, however, has not been homogeneous across issues in content or pace.