16 April 2010
Latest publication: "Russia-2010: Russian Transformations in the Context of World Development." Collected articles. With a foreword by Mikhail GorbachevLogos, Moscow 2010, 308 pages.. ISBN 978-5-98704-459-9
Mikhail Gorbachev. From the foreword to “Russia-2010: Russian Transformations in the Context of World Development”. Russia and its difficult journey into the future that was opened up a quarter of a century ago by the perestroika have been and will always remain the main theme of my life. The same can be said about many other intellectuals in our country. We have come to realize that the transformation of the Russian society has proven to be a much more difficult endeavour than we imagined it at the time of the perestroika. It has also proven to be fundamentally different from the “democratic transit” theory postulates. As we try to interpret the complex processes that are underway in the post-soviet societies we are not always capable of keeping up with the sweeping passage of time. And yet successful transformation of the Russian society requires profound analysis, bold imagination, and non-standard approaches. Creative intellectual efforts must be combined with broad public discussions of most diverse points of view. It is these specific objectives that were set and accomplished by the “Russia-2010” research project implemented by the Gorbachev Foundation in partnership with the New Eurasia Foundation and the Moscow School of Economics of the Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov. Assisted by a group of highly skilled researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences we attempted to analyze and assess the breathtaking changes that have occurred in all spheres of our life - economy, social relations, mass consciousness, domestic and foreign policies over the past quarter of a century. I dare say we have come up with a number of interesting results concerning our country's present and future, some pivotal points and road-fork choices that determine our further trajectory. It is my sincere hope that the “Russia-2010” monograph, which became an integral part of the project, will assist us in our quest for the right track to a free, prosperous, and respectable Russia-2030. |
The XXI century will be a сentury either of total all-embracing crisis or of moral and spiritual healing that will reinvigorate humankind. It is my conviction that all of us - all reasonable political leaders, all spiritual and ideological movements, all faiths - must help in this transition to a triumph of humanism and justice, in making the XXI century a century of a new human renaissance.
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Русский |
