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A way to the world community
The world tends to communicate more and more. Nowadays, open meetings on an international level that used to be a privilege of diplomats and state leaders at the beginning of this century, have become almost ordinary. Certainly, not by far the last role in that has been played by the modern means of communication and transport which allow the speeding up of the exchange of information and gather the representatives of different continents in one place within a couple of hours, but I think that the most important reason is elsewhere. In the same way that scientists studying some or other problem used to discuss their observations and conclusions from time to time, and to share the results they had achieved, businessmen, financiers and managers now feel the need to get together regularly and to coordinate their activities. This is a very important peculiarity of the 20th century which was very cleverly perceived by the organizers of the Davos forum, who made meetings of this kind regular and traditional. They also understood that the world community of many different countries and millions of people speaking various languages not only existed objectively but also gained strength, expanded, developed. And all this was based on the fact that the economy of any country in our time could not be separated from the world economy with all its achievements, problems and contradictions. In this sense, the St.Petersburg economic forum should be regarded, first of all, as another step towards the consolidation of the world community, as an effort to analyse the social and economic cataclysms that led to the collapse of the superpower of the USSR and as a desire to solve the totally new resultant problems of the development of society and its transition from one system of organization to another. No doubt, the organizers and participants of the forum are facing very definite and pragmatic goals, connected with the necessity to establish business contacts between CIS states, to invest money into the projects with perspective, and to develop a coordinated strategy in this field. But all these goals are somewhat based on one global objective of developing the world economy and improving social relations. Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States that suffered some very radical efforts of transformation during this century now have a both sad and successful experience of solving these extremely difficult problems. If the St.Petersburg forum is to become traditional, we can hope to study this experience and analyse it thoroughly. This experience is important because it not only increases human knowledge about the mistakes on such a scale and their consequences but also helps us to understand that today’s Russia is not a market for selling cheap goods but a country with a huge potential of its own. After realizing this peculiarity, the West will be able to develop a long-term strategy of relations with this part of the world which still occupies one sixth of the earth’s dry land. There is one more condition which is always present at international meetings of this kind and provides an atmosphere of mutual confidence and understanding. What I am talking about is that geographical, time and other borders are erased here, regardless of the role the states play on the geopolytical scene today. That there are developing and developed countries at different stages of technical, economic and social progress is an objective rule. The times when world policy was determined by one state or a small group of states claiming a special place among others on the grounds of strength are long since gone. Now we are beginning to understand the fact that many so-called developed countries created their wealth at the expense of others, and that in future the relations of mutual assistance and mutual benefit will be the most important. Probably, this will not happen soon but every international meeting like this one is a necessary step to the multipolar world I have described. The St.Petersburg economic forum will become an important catalyst of all these processes. The city on the Neva which opened Russia for the West and the West for Russia three hundred years ago is again on a new turn of history ready to become an economic bridge between the countries. With that objective the city provides its industrial and technical capacities, its well-established transport structure and its scientific and cultural heritage to the representatives of various countries for productive work. St.Petersburg has all reasons to become a city of international communication.
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