Russia was reinvented three times in the 20th century: during the modernization of the late Tsarist Empire, under the Communists, and after the end of the Soviet Union. This book confronts the dreams associated with these upheavals with their implementation in practice, which often turned out to be a nightmare. "We wanted the best, but as always, it turned out differently." This sentence by Viktor Chernomyrdin has become a common saying in Russia, as it can be seen as a common denominator for all the beginnings undertaken in Russia during the long 20th century. The reformers of the late Tsarist Empire, the Bolsheviks, whose dream of a better society cost millions of lives, as well as the market economists of the new era after the end of the Soviet Union: all of them had to helplessly watch how different the outcomes were from what they had envisioned.