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Second, it is nothing new in my practice. I used that style all along. I did that kind of thing in Stavropol. I did it here when I was transferred here before I became General Secretary. It is my usual work style. Maybe on occasion, when I have been traveling in the country, the press has given it more prominence and played it up a lot more. The press can do anything. But also I should say there was a need to go out and meet people more.
We are now in a new phase in our economic development, qualitatively in a new phase, new plans, new problems. We do have problems, some serious big problems to resolve. We have for the past several years been making a thoroughgoing analysis of our development of all the problems at hand, and we feel that there is a need to familiarize the working people generally with the conclusions that we are arriving at, to test those conclusions and the people's reactions so that when those analyses have been tried and tested we can come out with them at the forthcoming Party Congress early next year. I would say that it is not a question of whether I enjoy that style or not. You cannot work otherwise. It is the only way you should and can work, provided you want to achieve results.
Q. You have proposed some very deep changes in Soviet society and have already replaced quite a number of of- ficials. One assumes you will replace quite a number more. Are people afraid of you?
A. (Laughter from Gorbachev.) Well, what we have been doing and intend to go on doing is not a reflection of just my point of view. It is the common view of our leadership. We are convinced that we are doing the right thing. These questions are ripe for a solution and they clamor for a solution. They need to be resolved. That is the most important conclusion that I have drawn from my many meetings with people in all walks of life: workers, engineers, scientists, intellectuals, everybody. I see exceedingly warm support for what we are proposing for the line we are taking. What's more, I see that many, both within the party and among the population at large, are impatient for more than we are doing.
But while we try to be bold and determined, we also try to be circumspect in what we are doing. We will continue to act in a spirit of great responsibility to the people. But the people are really clamoring for firmness in our policies. There should be no difference between words and deeds. The deeds should match words. You know we are under very strict control in this country as to what we do and what we have been doing, that is, greater publicity for major decisions and other measures have led to a sense of greater opening and flowering of our democracy. I think that people are not only not afraid of me but welcome the approach we are taking.