This book is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union, which completed the cascade of collapses of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. With each decade that separates us from these events, our view of their consequences also changes - from rational optimism and faith in the reforms of the 1990s to pessimism due to the anti-liberal trends of the 2010s. The authors of the book, leading researchers, historians and social thinkers from Russia, Europe and the USA, present the reader with a cross-section of modern understandings and interpretations of both the process of the collapse of the communist space itself and the key problems of post-communist development. The collection has two opposing focuses: on the one hand, understanding the past through the prism of today's social reality, and on the other, analyzing the current situation through the optics of the past. Complementing each other, these approaches allow us to create a three-dimensional picture of the dismantling of the communist system, as well as to identify the blocking mechanisms that are triggered in various transit scenarios.
2nd edition.