My dear and respected reader, when you see this book on the store shelf, pay attention to the words that I will ask the editor to put on the cover: this essay was written by a man of extremist-historical views, who is not used to being shy in his expressions when it comes to about obvious scum, crooks and cretins, pretending to be so smart and educated that some of them are even mistaken for academicians. Therefore, if you, my friend, received such a refined upbringing that before you start eating a popsicle, you tie a bib under your chin, and you are embarrassed to walk past fences because the ill-mannered proletariat sometimes writes various uncultured expressions on these architectural structures, then put this printed product back on the shelf, there is no need to take it to the cash register, spend money earned from intellectual work that is not freely convertible on its purchase, and then be offended by the author for uncultured rudeness. In fact, in life I am not different from those around me in any special intemperance in words and expressions, I can even express myself without interjections, the only problem is that when you touch post-Stalinist and modern historical science and journalism, which describes the events of the period preceding 1917 and subsequent ones, right up to the end of the process of restoration of capitalism in Russia, a feeling arises, as if you had fallen headlong into a pit of very fragrant feces. And when shaking off the stuck feces from clothes, only a person with a very unique level of intelligence will be able to limit himself to the words: what a pity, I got a little dirty... So, in order to understand at least a little about what happened to our Motherland in the past century and what we need to do in the century current, in order to save it from the increasingly real prospect of death, we need to scrape off this crap that has stuck to us. If someone can do this without unnecessary emotions, I’ll take my hat off to such an imperturbable... (P. G. Balaev, April 14, 2015, “The Corpse of the USSR”) -