The book covers a decisive period in the history of the state and society, beginning with the introduction of a new economic policy, continuing with the collectivization of peasants, and ending with the adoption of the most democratic Constitution. For many people, this period was a time of unfulfilled hopes and enormous upheavals.
The strengthening of the party apparatus led to bureaucratization of political and public life in the country. Marxism-Leninism stopped being a revolutionary ideology and became simply an instruction that had to be followed literally. The role of the Communist Party became personified in the figure of I. V. Stalin.
The legislation of the USSR and the allied republics, which began to take shape during the NEP, slowed its development and came to serve as a cover for the administrative-command system of governance.