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A. Over these 2 1/2 years, relations between our two countries have changed in a fundamental way. A mutual understanding has emerged that the cold war has become a thing of the past. And a great deal has been done to make that really happen. We have started to build a relationship on a new basis. We've agreed that the disputes between us can be resolved and, furthermore, that those disputes are less significant than the new challenges that confront mankind. As a result, a process of actually reducing nuclear and conventional arms has become possible and is now under way. Regional conflicts have become a subject on which we can work constructively together.
Our ties have grown noticeably in such areas as science, education and culture, and particularly in informal human contacts. We have increased the flow of all kinds of information about each other in both directions, and it is becoming more objective.
It's necessary to protect and augment what has been accomplished in Soviet- U.S. relations. We live in dramatic times. Events can take sharp and unexpected turns. That makes it all the more dangerous to have in our minds the stereotypes of the cold war. Yet those stereotypes are still alive. Let me put it this way: the strength of our relationship is being tested, and it will be tested again in the future. We should keep that in mind.
In my assessment, President Bush and I have come to trust each other more since our discussions at Malta. Contacts that followed between the Kremlin and the White House support this conclusion.
Q. How would you judge public support today for what you are trying to do?
A. I have recently been to the Urals, and I have met with working people in Moscow many times in their workplaces, in the streets and at mass gatherings. People speak candidly, critically and sometimes even sharply. But the need for perestroika is rarely questioned. People are saying, Don't delay decisions, don't be content with half measures -- act pre-emptively. And they're right.
Frankly, as our society was groping for a way out of the twilight of stagnation, it took us some time to become aware of the depths of the crisis. Today everyone is working against the clock. But we have already climbed a long, steep slope since the spring of 1985 ((when Gorbachev assumed power)). We did not do all that just to roll downhill again. Those five years have not been lost. We have gained experience; we have new knowledge, which we lacked at the first stage of perestroika. We have become wiser, we have learned to take a more reasoned and competent approach to the fundamental tasks of perestroika. So some preparatory phase -- what I would call a phase of quantitative accumulation -- was inevitable and necessary. What's more, it has persuaded us that, in principle, we are on the right track.
New, all-embracing democratic structures are coming to replace the command system in managing the country's affairs. We have made headway in dismantling monopolies both in politics and in the economy. At the party congress we're going to have to discuss quite thoroughly how the party is to act in a situation of real political pluralism, how it is going to fit into a multiparty system. This is going to be an important task, crucial to the future both of the party and of the country.