“There is a growing will to achieve consensus, and a growing understanding that we have a State, a country, a common life. This is what must be preserved first of all.”

— Mikhail Gorbachev

Nobel Address (1991)
Context: After a time of rampant separatism and euphoria, when almost every village proclaimed sovereignty, a centripetal force is beginning to gather momentum, based on a more sensible view of existing realities and the risks involved. And this is what counts most now. There is a growing will to achieve consensus, and a growing understanding that we have a State, a country, a common life. This is what must be preserved first of all.

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Mikhail Gorbachev 65

General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1931

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