About the book: year / All sorts of political scientists, sociologists, economists and other riffraff will argue for a long time, foaming at the mouth to prove that the end of socialism was caused by the oil crisis, war in Afghanistan, or the socialist economy that was completely undermined at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. They will write articles and books, asserting with a smart look that everything was to blame for a historical, long-overdue and ready to burst through the swollen thin shell with green pus. They will wonder about how and why exactly Gorbachev came to power, whether he wanted fundamental changes or simply could not hold the helm of a huge, collapsing state that had gotten out of control, which rolled down the slope like a steamroller, crushing and dragging the hapless driver along with it. and passengers. When I hear all this nonsense, I just grin into my mustache and close my eyes for a moment. I know that it all started then, on a winter evening, when there was a snowstorm outside. It all happened because of a huge black cockroach, which crawled out of its crevice at the wrong time in the basement of the old building of Moscow University.