The remarkable French historian François Furet (1927−1997) seeks to understand the reasons for the great appeal of communist ideas to European intellectuals. Particularly expressive in the book are the portraits of such European intellectuals as Georg Lukacs, Boris Suvarin, Pierre Pascal, who served the cause of communism, suffered from this embodied utopia, and fought against the socialist camp, to the construction of which they had previously devoted a significant part of their lives. The author destroys the illusions and legends of left-wing European mythology.