History texbooks have never relied exlusively on the state of the art; they were always overwhelmed by the political developments of the era. Following a particular topic of history books through the ages can tell a lot not only about the given question, but also about the politics and prevailing ideologies of those times. Such an inquiry is especially interesting, if the topic is the assessment of the revolutions of 1918 and 1919.

A maverick in contemporary Russian philosophy with dozens of books, some of them published even in Hungarian. He wrote, among others, the deep-cutting critique of the Gorbachev era titled Catastroika (combining the words catastrophy and perestroika). The portrait functions as an introduction to the article by Zinoviev.

The author never belonged to the apologists of state socialism, although he became rather critical towards the developments of the past few years and the emerging system. In his opinion, a kind of colonial democracy is taking shape in the place of the Soviet system, the economic, moral, and other type of performance of which will remain far lower than that of the previous regime. Sometimes his brave statements seem extravagant, however, they are able to stimulate discussion and further thinking.

The author presents a new approach to the assessment of the bipolar world order, illuminating from the point of view of political science how the bipolar model determined domestic political structures in various parts of the world. Neoconservativism, the breakthrough of which marked the end of state socialism, is reconsidered from the point of view of technological and social progress. The conclusions concern the changing relationship between the monopolar world order and the mode of production, as well as the periodisation of 20th century history.