By analyzing the perspectives and values of not just rulers and elites but also workers and peasants, McDaniel shows that throughout the whole modern period there was widespread loyalty to the "Russian idea." In its most basic sense, the Russian idea is the belief that Russia could have forged its own, separate path in the modern world through adherence to shared beliefs, community, and equality. These cultural values, however, mainly reversed the values of Western society rather than having provided a real alternative to them. The effort of dictatorial states, both tsarist and Communist alike, to rely on the Russian idea in their programs of change led almost unavoidably to social breakdown.