After Stalin's death, it became apparent that the violently controlled era he presided over was a chain of terrible crimes that had demoralized Russia. The regime had set out with the goal of making the world fairer and more humane, transforming it into a beautiful work of art. In his essay, Boris Groys describes the failure of this unique historical experiment and, for the first time, derives laws and perspectives from its principles that allow us to recognize contemporary Russian culture as a result of this catastrophic development: as a multifaceted, contradictory, and tension-filled attempt to come to terms with the legacy of violence left by Stalinist culture.