The demise of communism in the Soviet Union could not have occurred without the activism of dissident, anticommunist leaders who created a climate that gave ordinary Russians the courage to stand up to and defeat communist control. But with communism ousted, what new form of government and what new leaders will emerge in Russia, a society that has never known democracy? Michael McFaul, a Western scholar studying at Moscow State University, and Segel Markov, an assistant professor at Moscow State University, interviewed anticommunist parties in the months preceding and immediately following the August 1991 attempted coup d'tetat. To examine the range of the political spectrum in Russia, they also talked to procommunist leaders who emerged to oppose Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, nationalist and anti-Semitic leaders of movements such as Pamyat', labor unions, Christian movements, and organizations opposed to the division of the Soviet Union.
