Until now the regional links of the system of government interests have been ignored, but the exhortation that the optimization of private utility does not lead to the optimization of general utility turned out to be mechanical and inapplicable to the realities of the society, which is riddled with complicated, self-organized systems and interknotted interests.

Despite the differing conditions, the search of each region for its own path, beginning with a concrete situation, unavoidably leads the region to find a whole spectrum of complicated and mutual interests and winds up with the necessity of discovering general goals of development and worked out models of joint behavior.

The most difficult tasks of the regional leadership in the formation of their goals in the process of creating a new federation is the need to juggle the political necessities of the population with compromise for the other regions, all the while being historically forthright for the sake of the country's reputation.

One can build a united policy for the regions on the basis of the following motives.

a) The acknowledgement of the possible consequences for all regions of the loss of Russia's place in the world owing to the ascent of the newly industrialized countries, the limitation of free capital, the creation of central powers interested in the crumbling of Russia, and the resulting scattered fragments of the country finding themselves in the third world.

b) The commonality of interests in the protection and development of interrelated economic regions.

c) The commonality of the interests of people regardless of where they live.

From such a starting point, the following basic policy goals of the regions can be presented as a sort of platform of interregional harmony and relationship to the center.

-- The creation with the participation of the regions of a stable, comprehensible and predictable "center," or the initiation of the current one in such a direction.

-- The development of interregional bilateral and multilateral cooperation on a mutual basis of compromise.

-- The improvement of the standard of living of the regions' populations.

The regions' economic demands upon the center comprise the most realistic basis for their joint action. Most of all, the demand should be voiced for a differentiated approach toward all regions in the economic and, above all, financial sphere, which takes into consideration the peculiarities of the structures of production. Such an approach comprises, firstly, the possibility of an autonomous guarantee of balanced local budgets and regulated taxation of enterprises. From here follows the devotion of an array of regions to a single system of tax collection.

The second group of demands is tied to the desire for the right of property ownership in all types of natural resources found in the territory. In this group of demands can be placed that one for the acquisition of the rights of the independent working out of a compensation method for the use of the territory of the region for common state and interregional goals (pipelines, military bases, etc.)

The third group of demands includes the provision of greater opportunities and freedoms in the attempts of the regional enterprises to enter the foreign market, and the liberalization of foreign economic ties, especially in the

area of the sale of resources and defense products, and the creation of common economic conditions for investment activities.

Beginning with these demands will begin more expedient common actions between the regions and the center.

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