This book is a professional biography of the Soviet party worker, Alexander Anipkin, written by his sociologist son. The author originally develops the theory of generations, considering the crisis in the CPSU and perestroika as a reaction to the lack of generational renewal in the leadership structures of the party in the 1970s. Particular attention is paid to the processes of perestroika, at the center of which was the hero of the book as the first secretary of the Volgograd city committee, then the regional committee of the CPSU, a member of the CPSU Central Committee and people's deputy of the RSFSR 1990-1993.