About the book: 1979 / It is difficult to determine the genre of the book offered to the reader. Writers' notes about industry and agriculture? But notes are not so strictly documented. A textbook on the economics of socialism? But the book is too exciting for a textbook. Journalistic essays? But the author, a former engineer, delves into the technological and organizational features of modern production in much more detail than is available to a professional journalist. And most importantly, I. Efimov managed to collect enormous factual material, systematize it and build it into such a vivid and impressive picture of nationwide ruin that anyone it becomes clear to an unbiased reader: the impoverishment of the country under the rule of socialism is not the result of certain mistakes, but an inevitable consequence of a system that suppresses not only the spiritual life of people, but also any manifestations of human talent for work.