I Never Intended To Be A Politician

Human Relations Tend To Be More Difficult When You're Dealing With Someone Who Weighs 30 Kilograms More Than You Do. That's When You Worry About Whether A Well-meaning Gesture Could Produce Complications. We Have No Problems With Countries Like Madagascar Or Bolivia, For Example. But Germany Is Our Neighbor And We Have A Shared Past. Besides, Germany Is Powerful And Ambitious And More Than Four Times As Large As We Are. It Makes Complete Sense That We Would Act Cautiously. It's Simply Realpolitik.

I Also Helped Write The Five-page Statement Of Principles That Civic Forum Issued In Late November. That Was The First Public Expression Of What The New Government Wanted To Do.

I Am Afraid There Are People Who Want To Stop The Economic Growth, The Rise In The Standard Of Living (though Not Their Own) And The Ability Of Man To Use The Expanding Wealth, Science And Technology For Solving The Actual Pressing Problems Of Mankind, Especially Of The Developing Countries.

I Was 25 Years Old And Pursuing My Doctorate In Economics When I Was Allowed To Spend Six Months Of Postgraduate Studies In Naples, Italy. I Read The Western Economic Textbooks And Also The More General Work Of People Like Hayek. By The Time I Returned To Czechoslovakia, I Had An Understanding Of The Principles Of The Market. In 1968, I Was Glad At The Political Liberalism Of The Dubcek Prague Spring, But I Was Very Critical Of The Third Way They Pursued In Economics.

But How Can You Speed Up The Transformation Of Society In A Country As Large As Russia? Those Sounding The Moral Outcry Are The Ones Who Are Trying To Dictate Their Standards From The Outside. Of Course, That Isn't The Right Way To Go Either. One Cannot Impose Democracy From The Other Side Of National Borders, Which Is Something We Ourselves Experienced During The Communist Era. The West's Policies Toward Eastern Europe, The Helsinki Process - None Of That Really Helped Us.