About the book: 2021 / This book is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union, which completed the cascade of collapses of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe. With each decade that separates us from these events, our view of their consequences changes - from rational optimism and faith in the reforms of the 1990s to pessimism in connection with the illiberal trends of the 2010s. The authors of the book, leading researchers, historians and social thinkers of Russia, Europe and the USA, present the reader with a cross-section of modern understandings and interpretations of both the process of 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, an analysis of the modern situation through the optics of the past. Complementing each other, these approaches make it possible to create a three-dimensional picture of the dismantling of the communist system, as well as to identify blocking mechanisms that are triggered in various transit scenarios.