Laird accomplishes two major goals: he provides an analytical, blow-by-blow description of the collapse of the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev's leadership, and he explores the legacy left by the experiment in communism by the Soviet Union. Laird concludes that the burden of that legacy is so great that for many years—probably generations—authoritarian systems, perhaps disguised as democracies, will prevail in the newly independent republics, and the economies of the republics will continue to deteriorate before they get better.