The Reality of Communism is in many ways the most important book ever written on the subject of Communism. Many books have been written about the structure of Soviet society, the role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the structure of the Soviet economic system, the growth of Soviet armed might, Soviet foreign policy and so on, yet no other author has managed to combine with such devastating effect the analytical power of a major philosopher trained in the exacting field of logical systems, the inside knowledge of the Soviet system which comes from a lifetime of participation within it and a merciless commitment to state the truth as he sees it, however bleak it may appear to be.

The book was first published in Russian in 1981 and is the eighth of the ten volumes which Zinoviev to date has published on the subject of Communism. It consists of 110 topics, or short chapters, which may be grouped roughly into six broad themes: the nature of Communism as such, the nature of an adequate analytical apparatus for the scientific study of Communism, the roots and origins of communal behaviour and the psychological and moral consequences of a collectivist philosophy, the nature of power in Communist society and how it is disseminated within the social structure, the nature, role and significance of ideology in an environment in which it can flourish unopposed, the stability, vitality and adaptability of the Soviet system and its prospects for the future.

The book has been written primarily for the general reader, but the picture which Zinoviev paints of Soviet society is so convincing and yet at odds with what many experts have written, that it should also be required reading for everyone professionally engaged in the fields of history, politics and sociology who writes and lectures about the Soviet Union.