"Without resolving the question of power there are no revolutions. Our present-day revolution is no exception. The transfer of a large part of incomes, rights, and social privileges from the top stories of the social pyramid to the lower is connected with the redistribution of power. This is a profoundly democratic action, but it is understandable that it can only be carried out by encroaching on the interests of those groups who occupy a privileged position today, primarily the apparatus of party, soviet, and economic management. The principle of the radical redistribution of power is “built into” the very concept of perestroika, and that is what makes it a social revolution. Fundamental transformations are required to lead our society onto a Leninist path of socialist development. But it would be premature to conclude from the fact that these changes are essential that they are already taking place, in other words, that the measures that are being implemented in society are of a revolutionary nature. To assert this would mean deceiving ourselves and others. From my viewpoint, the system of measures that are being implemented so far can be assessed only as a rather incomprehensive, contradictory reform based on many compromises, a reform whose pace and only slight efficiency are so far curbing society’s development. We have yet to attain genuinely revolutionary transformations. Or, to be more precise, they must be won in a hard sociopolitical struggle that will markedly change today’s balance of social forces."