The author analyses the emergence of what is called the "left wing opposition" in the Soviet Union. He states that the "leftists" who made a series of political mistakes did not have a lot of chances against the Stalinists which he traces back to the acceptance of the one party system and the fact that the mass basis which still existed during the revolution slowly diminished and melted away from behind the "pioneer guard" of the revolution as a result of the meagre conditions.

The article is based on the hypothesis that the right and left wings always organize themselves around the contradiction of property and freedom. The author expounds the idea that neither of these two extremes is suitable for becoming a principle of organising society, thus he argues in support of the validity of guidance by the centre. He joins the "pendulum" theory followed by many, which says that if politics swings in one direction for a long time, then social balance (which in the author's view is the balance of property and freedom) can only be restored if it then swings back in the other direction. The article is followed by some remarks of the Editor.

A reflection on the kind of analysis in vogue which mixes up left wing with extreme left as well as criticism of the left wing on capitalism with the one coming from the extreme right.

The author claims that the "socialist" system could not have never become the symmetric counter-point of capitalism and for this reason, its collapse was not surprising. Those who had expected the collapse of capitalism, did not take into account that monopoly capitalism is not its last stage: the lasting and surviving tendency has been posed by the organised capitalism. He states that was has ended is presumably the period in which the socialist revolution linked to the working class.