"Probably never in past decades has the USSR Government been obliged to put forward such a difficult and extraordinarily crucial report on measures which, in essence, really determine how the people are to live in the future. It is precisely this circumstance that obliges me to address not only you, members of the USSR Supreme Soviet, but also all the citizens of our country. I am convinced that the extremely difficult tasks and problems which the government has set out in its report on the country’s economic situation and the concept for a transition to a regulated market economy will catch the attention of every Soviet person. For, in essence, the transformations which we are to implement will predetermine the lifestyle and destiny not only of the present generation, but of future generations too. The country has been consistently drawing closer to this decisive step-I shall put it bluntly–over the whole five years of perestroika. We have been advancing toward it through radical changes and profound, far from painless reinterpretation of all our views of socialism; through reevaluation of the essence of such concepts as democratization, ownership, the market enterprise; through a new understanding of the role and position of the individual in the system of economic management; and much else. We have come to decisions which very recently were uncharacteristic and uncustomary for our public opinion. Therefore, I assume it is understandable how complex, crucial, and intense the work carried out by the government over the past months has been."