The further the “revolution of 1991” moves away from us, the more important it is to give a truthful assessment of the events of those years, the actions of the incompetent or over-trusting State Emergency Committee (?), the tragedies of Baku, Vilnius, Yerevan, Tbilisi, the heroic defense of the White House, to determine yet witnesses are alive, the motives and results of the actions of both sides. Smart people try to learn from the mistakes of others! Who are they? Yeltsin, Gorbachev, leaders of the Interregional Deputy Group, Gaidar, Chubais, the “father of Russian democracy” A. Sakharov are “heroes” who put an end to the “damned totalitarian communist regime”, giving the union republics independence, and the Soviet people the long-awaited freedom! Independence from whom and from what? Or outright traitors, under the leadership of Western intelligence services, who destroyed a great Power, plundered and squandered its wealth, plunged the majority of its citizens into a nightmare of a humiliating existence for years? Is it thanks to them that we still have not destroyed the lawlessness of criminality? and endemic corruption of Russian officials at all levels. Is it not through their efforts that God’s commandments and the code of the builder of communism have been forgotten, the basest instincts have awakened in the masses, immorality, fraud, and the passion for immeasurable profit are flourishing? Where were those wise all-seeing and all-knowing Andropov security officers, whose duty was to foresee and prevent this tragedy ?The former Chief of Staff of the Government Security of the KGB of the USSR, retired Major General Valery Nikolaevich Velichko, tries to answer these and other questions in his book. It is also interesting to read his memoirs about the organization of foreign visits of the former General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee M. Gorbachev, about the work of the KGB of the USSR and his 9th Directorate, intelligence services of the United States, India, Cuba, South Korea and others to ensure the security of senior officials of countries. Many of the judgments of a veteran of the Soviet state security agencies, of course, are not indisputable, but are undoubtedly interesting.