About the book: 2000 / My book was not intended for Soviet readers. In it, I tried to explain and reveal from my own experience the main goals of the Soviet leadership in foreign and domestic policy. Unfortunately, the United States and the West in general often take a very naive approach to assessing what is happening in the Soviet Union and take at face value the Kremlin’s statements about the Soviet regime’s desire for peace and sincere cooperation with the West. Maybe my memoirs will help Russian readers to better understand the mechanism of the Soviet state machine, which does not act in the interests of the people, but only in the interests of a narrow group of party and other elites.