Foundation Stone

Great reformers of all times and peoples have accepted this status quo as a tragedy. Political utopians, from Plato on, have called for harsh measures in order to make it possible to get rid of social atavisms as soon as possible. Plato, in particular, suggested that children be forcibly taken from their parents immediately after birth in order to raise the younger generation properly. The Bolsheviks had methods of their own, but no one has yet achieved their goal, to completely and immediately update the mentality of a society. One of the reasons is that educators and reformers also come from there, from the same old life. No new state or social order is ever being built in an empty space. And when good managers demolish an old building, they carefully pick the good stones from the rubble and lay them in the foundation, for these stones have been tested by time.

Today, whether or not we like it, the motive force of society is represented by people who came from the Soviet period. We mean here not only the destructive, but also its creative, constructive, and motive forces. The same is true of our neighbors: suffice it to recall the current Polish President Kwasniewski. Even Russia's so-called young reformers have diplomas from Soviet universities, not to mention their Communist Youth League past. A few years later, the social stage will be radically changed, but now one must choose not between the new stones and old, but between strong, reliable ones and those that seem solid but crush under the slightest pressure. For, in times of transition, one can only rely on old builders prepared by the old life for the most responsible and complex work under the new conditions. These are people who, irrespective of the regime, cannot help but work, accumulate knowledge, seek and stand up for the best solutions, simply by their force of character and lack of moral taint. Once such people were called "old specialists," and the proletariat could not do without them in spite of the deep scorn it felt for them. No regime can do without professionals.

Today, at the cusp of epochs, professionalism should also become the main trait of those who have anything to do with power. The lack of knowledge and professional grasp should be considered a far greater shortcoming in a politician than what he did "before the revolution" or even, I must say, the lack of morality. For example, Verkhovna Rada is now accusing National Bank Governor Viktor Yushchenko of all mortal sins without, however, finding any evidence (this is the kind of professionals our legislature has). It is good they found nothing, contrary to all the theoretical potential for malfeasance. What is decisive in our situation is the fact that the banking sphere has been ruled by a hand of iron for a number of years, despite the most bitter prophesies and perturbations in Moscow, thanks to a strong hryvnia and considerable gold reserves. Only this fact should be of utmost importance in passing judgment.

When people have to cross dangerous mountains or a deadly quicksand, they do not demand a resume from the guide or ask him if he goes to church. It is enough that he knows the lay of the land. And if a man capable of giving a new lease of life to our almost dead economy came to power, many of us would forgive this man everything, including anything in his past, for he would be a stone fit for the foundation of the new edifice.