We could still have continued the arms race, but the arms race was pointless, and it was another reason we decided to start perestroika. It was senseless to continue to accumulate weapons. We had enough weapons to destroy life on Earth 1,000 times, and therefore it was very clear to us that the arms race could spiral out of control. A conflict could have started, as both the Americans and the Soviets realized, not out of a wrong political decision but because of a failure in the command-and-control systems.

What we're talking about is creating new forms of life on the basis of new values.

Nature is reminding us that it used to exist without human beings.

If not me, who? And if not now, when?

The time has come to choose a new direction of global development, to opt for a new civilization.

The new European Soviet.

The Union was destroyed against the will of the people, and it was done deliberately - with the participation of the Russian leadership, on the one hand, and that of the putschists, on the other.