Let me offer you some reflections of a general nature. My primary objective is to set out at least some of the problems I encountered in my first approaches to this topic. Of course, people can say that a discourse on this topic is premature, that the Soviet period of our history is not even history in the strict sense, at least not for representatives of the generation that passed a good proportion of its creative life in it. For them (...) this is not history but life, passions that have not been and, perhaps, never can be overcome, likes and dislikes that are rooted in the brain and the heart. This is our fate, if you will, and, as they say, it is best left alone. That is true. We, of course, still relate to our philosophical past emotionally, for the most part, rather than in an investigative, intellectual, objective spirit. And yet, "an epoch has come to a close. It must be described". (shrink)