Shlapentokh undertakes a dispassionate analysis of the ordinary functioning of the Soviet system from Stalin's death through the Soviet collapse and Russia's first post-communist decade. Without overlooking its repressive character, he treats the USSR as a "normal" system that employed both socialist and nationalist ideologies for the purposes of technological and military modernization, preservation of empire, and expansion of its geopolitical power. Foregoing the projection of Western norms and assumptions, he seeks to achieve a clearer understanding of a civilization that has perplexed its critics and its champions alike.

1: Theoretical Concepts; 2: Two Components of Soviet Ideology; 3: Adjusting the Revolutionary Ideology to Totalitarian Goals; 4: World Revolution As a Geopolitical Instrument; 5: Open and Closed Ideologies; 6: Policy Toward Key Social Groups Workers and Creative Intelligentsia; 7: The Political System The Supreme Leader As the Major Institution; 8: An Effective Political Machine; 9: The Economy Organic Flaws and Achievements; 10: Public Opinion Acceptance of the Regime; 11: The Regime and the Empire A Complex Relationship; 12: Reforms Alternatives in History; 13: Reforming the System, Destroying Its Fundamentals; 14: Consequences; Conclusion