American historian David Hoffmann disagrees with historians who view the USSR as an anomaly of historical development. The book presents the history of the Soviet state in the context of ideas and practices characteristic of many states of the modern period. The study shows that it is impossible to attribute all aspects of Soviet intervention in the life of society to the ideology of socialism. Socialist ideology was based on the idea of transformation of society, which was common to the states of the twentieth century. The crimes of the Soviet regime do not become any less terrible as a result of this "normalization", but the features of the Soviet state stand out more clearly. David Hoffmann is a professor at Ohio State University in the USA.