The article presents the result of reflection on the contradictions between the ideological and theoretical substantiation of the concepts “acceleration” and “perestroika” and their real results, which became one of the most important reasons of collapse of the socialist system and the USSR. The conclusion is drawn that these contradictions were caused by the desire of the initiators of democratic transformations to resolve the accumulated problems in the political, social, and economic spheres of the country through ideological motivation and agitation and propaganda stimulation of the organizational potential of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the active part of Soviet society. However, the appeal to the subjective factor as the determining prerequisite for the success of “perestroika” was not supported by its holistic ideological justification. Attempts to fit theory into the processes of democratic reform of the USSR through conceptual de-Stalinization, appeal to Lenin’s legacy and use of the potential of “glasnost” led to the loss of ideological continuity and ideological split between the party and society. As a result, the subjective potential that was supposed to become the main driving force behind the construction of socialism “with a human face” was undermined and neutralized.