Roads to the temple : truth, memory, ideas, and ideals in the making of the Russian revolution, 1987-1991 / Leon Aron.

Revolutions, ideas, and the end of the Soviet Union -- The "mystery" of the Soviet collapse and the theory of revolutions -- For truth and goodness: the credos of glasnost -- Inside the "deafened zone" -- In search of history -- "The innocent, the slandered, the exterminated" -- The peasant hecatomb -- The unraveling of the legitimizing myths, I: food, housing, medical care, the "golden childhood", and the standard of living -- The unraveling of the legitimizing myths, II: progress, the "state of workers and peasants", equality, "freedom from exploitation", Novocherkassk -- The unraveling of the legitimizing myths, III: the Great Patriotic War -- The "immoral" economy -- The "disintegration of souls": homo sovieticus -- Who is to blame? -- The house that Stalin built: the master state and its political economy -- De-individualization, the "original sin", and the nationalization of conscience -- What is to be done? Stalin, memory, repentance, atonement -- The "spirit of freedom" and the power of nyet -- The freedom canon: Mandelstam, Dombrovsky, Solzhenitsyn, Platonov, Grossman -- In man's image, I: "privatizing" the state and economy ; In man's image, II: the empire, the "garrison state", and the world.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 427-466) and index.