Numerous speeches and journalistic articles made up the collections "We and the West", "Without Illusions", "Neither Freedom, nor Equality, nor Brotherhood". Zinoviev defended his understanding of the Soviet system, wrote a lot about the relationship between capitalism and communism, the West and the East. He criticized the West for underestimating the communist threat due to a lack of understanding of the nature of Soviet society. The West assessed the Soviet system through its own criteria, however, Zinoviev argued that Western democracy and communism are completely different. He denied the role of the personal qualities of the Soviet leaders, considering them "social symbols", and urged the West not to listen to their promises. In 1983, in his report "Marxist ideology and religion" at a symposium in Vienna, he asserted that "spiritual rebirth" in the Soviet Union would not affect the official ideology, and Andropov's policy would not lead to reforms or social protest. A year later, in a series of representative events dedicated to Orwell's 1984 novel, he sharply criticized the adequacy of the description in the book of the communist society. From his point of view, the book was not a scientific prediction, but reflected Orwell's contemporaries' fear of imaginary communism.