1995 Britannica book of the year /

~ am not one of those who can easily tell<br > the difference be~ een year and year??? like<br > a meteorologist with reliable charts to go<br > by. I am not even one who can refer to a<br > kind of event or quirk of fashion as ~p-<br > icany 70s or 80s. All I am capable of is<br > sensing the prevalent groundswells of life<br > and registering??? on occasion??? the undertow.<br > which is often contradictory.<br > We are in the midst of an enormous rev-<br > olution in collective behaviour??? one which<br > is too often judged by old criteria. It all<br > began??? within living memory??? with the sud-<br > ~ den dissolution of one of the most rigidly<br >controlled autocracies the world has ever known??? the Soviet<br >Union. It was as if the nation had responded to some<br >physical law??? like the boiling point??? and simply vanished.<br >Abruptly??? in a world which had obeyed a general tendency<br >to unify and coalesce??? a large number of new republics were<br >born??? all enjoying a precarious independence as though they<br >had found themselves in the middle of thc last century.<br > The example was followed by others who felt cheated of<br >their m6ment of self-identity in history. Slovakia decided to<br >secede from its Czech sister??? and the horror of Yugoslavia<br >must be invoked as the most lamentable example of blood<br >carelessly and brutally spilled during these enormous up-<br >heavals. I would go as far as to say that in Prague??? suddenly<br >released from the doctrinaire bonds of communism??? the<br >mob reacted??? perhaps for the first time in history??? with the<br >intelligence of an individual. There were no excesses; no<br >proof was needed of what was happening; joy and relief<br >created their own congenial climate.<br > Mikhail Gorbachev will certainly go down in history as<br >the great pioneer who made this extraordinaD reassess-<br >ment possible. It matters little that he is suffering from a<br >temporary eclipse in his own country. He launched a new<br >way of thinking of which we all are the beneficiaries??? and<br >nothing parochial politics can do is capable of tarnishing his<br >example. There will always be those of limited vision who<br >believe that the Cold War was won by the West and that<br >it constituted a victory over the heresy of communism??? to<br >be celebrated as such. To be so shortsighted would be to<br >judge by outmoded standards??? as 1 have mentioned above.<br >Gorbachev s importance was not merely to re-create Russia<br >out of the embers of the Soviet Union but actually to be<br >the first to hazard the opinion that the nuclear deterrent???<br >so favoured by hawks in both camps??? was a lunacy and an<br >odious reflection on the humanity of all nations.<br > Chernobyl was a frightening warning. The idea of millions<br >of deliberate Chernobyls??? killing and distorting life on a<br >huge scale??? was an idea too horrible to contemplate??? and yet<br >its possibility had been entertained by rational people. The<br >automatic result of this renunciation of the advantages of<br >nuclear weaponry by the major powers??? and the beginning<br >