Publisher's abstract, 1993: There is no need to introduce Valeria Novodvorskaya, the leader of the Democratic Union is quite well known. But getting to know her confession is an unexpected and interesting read. The memoirs cover the period from the author's school years to the present day. Together with the author, the reader will go from a young anti-Soviet of the Soviet Union to the leader of a political party, learn about Valeria Novodvorskaya’s numerous actions of political confrontation, often associated with arrests and hunger strikes, get acquainted with her characteristics of various political leaders, their actions, and her assessment of situations in the country, with forecasts.

***Novodvorskaya Valeria Ilyinichna. A fiery revolutionary and extremist, which even today is often ridiculed by certain TV channels and newspapers. “Crazy” is one of the most restrained epithets addressed to her. But it hardly bothers her - it didn’t start yesterday, or even ten years ago. She began to engage in “illegal activities” back in the sixties. Her antics were, of course, only illegal from the point of view of the Soviet authorities. Throwing anti-Soviet leaflets from the theater balcony was, of course, childish, but she paid in full for this stupid prank. And - it started spinning. She associated with dissidents, but never considered herself one of them. The dissidents, in her opinion, were too spineless, too amorphous, and did almost nothing that could hasten the end of the hated system. She had to go through the entire Soviet hell of suppressing dissent - from colonies and transfers to special hospitals, where she and other similar “sluggish schizophrenics” (a special Soviet term for such intractable people) were treated for dissent with potent drugs and painful procedures that were more reminiscent of torture. It was only by chance that she managed to survive in those places, and she was saved, by the way, by those same unloved dissidents. She did not calm down, and the tanks stopped in Moscow in August 1991 were largely thanks to the “Democratic Union” she created. And she herself met these days in the KGB Lefortovo pre-trial detention center, from which she was released after the suppression of the putsch with a unique legal formulation “Due to the changed situation in the country”... Novodvorskaya describes the romance of samizdat, colonies, persecution of dissidents, executioners and a few honest people in the KGB and so on, which is now just a distant shadow in memory. But we must not forget this shadow. She will return as soon as she gets this opportunity, and will instantly turn into thick darkness. Read - and remember.