The idea of this book and many of its pages were born in a cell in the notorious Matrosskaya Tishina prison, where the former Chairman of the KGB of the USSR, member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee V. A. Kryuchkov ended up after the August events of 1991. The author of the book is involved in many state secrets, starting from the mid-50s, from the events in Hungary, where he worked under the leadership of Yu. V. Andropov, and ending with the last days of the existence of the Soviet Union, when a group of senior officials tried to prevent the collapse of one of the the most powerful states in the world. The author tries to analyze the reasons for the collapse of the once powerful state, characterizes prominent figures of the political elite of the Soviet Union, as well as many leaders of other countries of the world, such as L. Brezhnev, Yu. Andropov, A. Gromyko, M. Gorbachev, E. Honecker, F. Castro.