New Political Thinking

Abstract

Sociological analysis of contemporary international political relations indicates that they are without precedent in history for their complexity and diversity, for the ways in which contradictions are manifested and resolved, and for the number and quality of these relations. This is a new qualitative state. The Political Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the Twenty-seventh Party Congress emphasized: "The modern world is complex, diverse, dynamic, permeated with confrontational tendencies and full of contradictions. It is a world of highly complex alternatives, anxieties, and hopes. Never before has our terrestrial home been subjected to such political and physical stresses" [8]. The usual generalizations are no longer adequate for constructing theories of the new political reality, and consequently for establishing the correct orientation toward this reality, for pursuing a social policy that is in keeping with the spirit of the times, and in particular for substantiated decision making at all levels. Such generalizations have always been made.