The most important thing is who counts the votes.

There is only one superpower now and it doesn't know what to do with its status. As a result, we got Yugoslavia and Iraq, and the situation has only got worse.

No one, no single center, can today command the world. No single group of countries can do it. Under the current U.S. president, I don't think we can fundamentally change the situation as it is developing now. It is dangerous. The world is experiencing a period of growing global disarray.

The emerging 'environmentalization' of our civilization and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global community will inevitably have multiple political consequences. Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must assume some aspects of a world government.

...the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant...has painfully affected the Soviet people, and shocked the international community. For the first time, we confront the real force of nuclear energy, out of control.

What happened to the Soviet Union happened mainly for domestic reasons. It was a failure of the model based on a command economy and dictatorship. The rejection of freedom and democracy, the decisionmaking monopoly of one party, and the monopoly of one ideology all had a chilling effect on the country. That model turned out to be incapable of making structural changes. It did not open up ways for initiative and was overly centralized.

Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.