ABSTRACT
Implicitly and even explicitly Mikhail Gorbachev and his cohorts elaborated an alternative view of the world that is highly coherentand can be aptly characterized as an alternative ideology. This new ideology is based on a Universalist vision of the nature of reality and of the direction of sociopolitical evolution. Gorbachev has called for the "formation of an integrated universal consciousness," something he has described as "a form of spiritual communionand rebirth for mankind". The notion of universal values as those serving the interests of all of humanity emerged partly in contradistinction to the notion of class values. New thinkers embrace democracy as a powerful universal ideal and the only viable social structure for creating stability. The idea of convergence is also consistent with the new-thinking idea that out of the dialectical process universally accepted values will naturally emerge that reflect the underlying unity of humanity.
