Zinoviev's views on the history of real communism, Stalinism and the figure of Stalin are set forth in the novel "The Wings of Our Youth", other works and speeches. The events of 1917 were more like the collapse of the Russian Empire than a revolution, and, like the Civil War, were only a "foam of history". The deep-seated processes Zinoviev considered the emergence and maturation of a new society: institutional and bureaucratic changes, the growth and complication of the system of power, the formation of social cells, etc. The appearance of the figure of Stalin was inevitable and necessary. Stalin's leaderism had a national basis, Stalinism was a form of democracy: people of power (nominees) occupied power positions, people exercised power directly, using denunciations. The ruin of the village during the collectivization produced a social upheaval, millions of people from the lower classes gained access to education and culture. Repression resulted from the activities of the masses: the horror of Stalinism was not in the victims, but in the fact that the executioners, beginning with Stalin, best fit the social environment. Stalinism showed "the terrible essence of the centuries-old dream of mankind". The Stalin era was the era of the formation of real communism; Stalinism ended when a strong bureaucracy was formed. Khrushchev time was a period of unrest, under Brezhnev, communism reached a state of maturity.