The question underlying this book is a compound one: why doesn't socialism work? and, given that it rather obviously doesn't, why are believers willing to set aside normal moral and ethical considerations in pursuit of the hope that some current movement leader will miraculously produce a thousand year success?

One answer is that socialism works very well for its own senior leadership: people who generally see selling socialism as their route to power and have absolutely no personal interest in implementing the policy ideas they  pretend to believe in when stumping for votes or direct, often violent, support.

The answer applicable to socialism's believers, whether menshevik or bolshevik,  is that these people are victims: members of a cult based on a mistake that survives despite having all of its beliefs and prophecies falsified by real world experience. How and why?  because membership offers social cachet among the hangers-on; the core ideas as presented by the leadership can seem both moral and reasonable; and believer dominated university faculties in fields as diverse as Business and Philosophy teach the underlying mythologies as truths.  It's a long story and it comes in many parts - but that's the burden of this book: laying out the facts and layering it on to help you understand the violence and self-harm inherent in the progressive world view and so empower you to help its victims: your family, your community, your country.