Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq and Syria… Doesn’t anybody understand that a violent change of power brings more trials? It seems that’s not the point. Revolutions are always made by relatively small groups. They are guided by ideas or worse by their own mercenary aims hidden behind obscure and attractive slogans.

And then millions or hundreds of millions have to pay. Even if the initiators die (revolution often eat its children), it is a weak consolation for those who have to go on living barely making ends meet in fear of being accused of insufficiently revolutionary way of thinking or way of life.

It is impossible to bring happiness on the points of bayonets. It is impossible to lead a society to humanitarian democracy by humanitarian bombings.

Surprisingly, the pool of developed states led by the United States became the ideological heir of the early Bolsheviks. However, the Bolsheviks quickly abandon the adventurous idea of ​​the world revolution, having realized exactly what I wrote above. But our Western partners with unprecedented persistence continue to "democratize" those who in general did not ask for it.

Recently, I discovered quite fantastic figures: it turns out that over the last five years of war in Syria, the anti-Assad coalition of 87 countries spent more than $45 billion on arming and training the rebels! How many people would remain alive, how many refugees would not leave their homes if this money just stayed in banks. What if this huge amount of money was to be spent on fighting the deadly diseases or studying oncology? Even if we would not win over cancer then we would definitely have made great progress in resolving this problem within five years.

And you cannot say that the money was wasted. Alas, it was used quite effectively, carrying death and grief. In pursuit of a ghostly "democratization", the basic and most sacred human right -- the right to life -- was violated.

Being the head of FIDE, I travel a lot around the world and everywhere I go I try to meet people, see how they live and ask them what they care about and what they think. I talked with Americans and Libyans, Frenchmen and Iraqis, Byelorussians and Ukrainians and representatives of different peoples of our country. In Europe and Africa, in Asia and America people dream about the same thing: a peaceful, calm and comfortable life.

Of course, the right to vote, the right to freedom of speech or to self-expression are very important. But I am convinced that for ordinary people it is more important to have the right to security and health, the right not to starve and not to be destitute. It is important to breathe clean air and eat healthy food. They need the right to access to cultural wealth, scientific achievements and personal intellectual development.

I believe that provision of these rights to their citizens and if possible to all people is the only worthy goal for any politician and head of state. This is the most important ideology. Sanctions, bombings, trade wars and diplomatic intrigues are not needed to implement it. You can always reach an agreement on equal and mutually beneficial terms.

More than a hundred years ago, the philosopher and futurist Nikolai Fedorov proposed "to live not for oneself and not for everyone but with everyone and for all." He regarded the world as a whole and each person in it as an independent particle yet interconnected with their peers and other components of the universe.

I am sure that this is the basis on which to build a truly revolutionary new, equal and just world. Did not the Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed -- the messengers of the Creator worshiped in the world --call us to do the same?

If we kept their commandments, the world around us and in ourselves would be much better and more blessed. Unfortunately, if we began to live a little better over the past millennia it was rather due to achievements of science and technology. We remained the same spiritually. Therefore, instead of "treating others as one would like others to treat oneself" we rather think about how to deceive and subjugate our neighbour.

In reality, following the testaments leading us into a new world requires tremendous work on ourselves. It is an impossible task for most of us. That is why revolutionaries find like-minded people and followers with such ease. It's easy to make a revolution: just appoint an enemy (bourgeois, Catholics, Moscals- [derogatory name for Russians in Ukraine, Ed.]) and promise some benefits ("take everything and divide it equally" slogan, a pass to heaven or visa free entry to the European Union). And after the seduced crowd did its job, you can steadily pursue your goal.

One of the reasons of how easily we succumb to demagogic propaganda is that we haven’t reached the highest level of intelligence development. We are unable to think logically and we do not know how to foresee the consequences of our actions. That's why I'm promoting chess all over the world to make people more intelligent.

If I had an opportunity to appeal to the revolutionaries, I would offer them what once offered the Buddha to two arguing Brahmins: "Why do not you first become pure and good? Maybe then you would sooner know God."

I would say: "Do not rush to completely destroy the world because in the end you will get nothing but another and more terrible round of violence. Start with yourself. Try to become more humane, intelligent and kind and then maybe you wouldn’t want to organize a universal cataclysm." I think it was Seraphim of Sarov who said: "Save yourself, and thousands around you will be saved."

And still I think that if I had a chance to meet with Vladimir Lenin at a chessboard, we would have found a common language. Not only because he is a quarter Kalmyk. But because he dreamed of a man of the future, a builder of communism -- intelligent, knowing and kind. No wonder the Buddhists of India recognized the leader of the Russian revolution as Mahatma, Teacher. And I recall that he wrote in one of his works that his contemporaries would not live to see socialism but their grandchildren would see it.

But history ordered differently. The country was leaderless at the time and among Lenin’s comrades-in-arms there were too many who believed that it was possible to drive the people into happiness and introduce revolutionary ideas by iron hand and bayonets. How all this ended we all -- the heirs of that revolution -- know too well.