This devastating book analyses Communism as it exists in the Soviet Union today. It is perhaps the most important book ever written on the subject of Communism. Many books have been written about the structure of Soviet society, the role of the Communism Party of the Soviet Union, the structure of Soviet economic system, the growth of Soviet armed might, Soviet foreign policy and so on.
No other author, however, has managed to combine with such effect the analytical power of a major philosopher trained in the exacting field of logical systems, the inside knowledge of the Soviet system which comes from a lifetime of participation within it and a merciless commitment to state the truth as he sees it, no matter how bleak.
And the picture is bleak. Zinoviev argues that Soviet society is corrupt, élitist and inefficient - and that it is essentially a stable system set on a course which the West will be quite unable to influence. The system will not «liberalize» itself under Western pressure. Neither will it collapse: on the contrary, the Communist system has the drive for expansion built into it. Only a world catastrophe is capable of stopping it.