This book deals with Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov as political philosophers, presenting their philosophies in a comparative framework. He sets their dissident activities within the larger framework of the emergence of dissent in contemporary Soviet society. Both men are recognized as the products of their life experiences, their occupations as author and scientist respectively, their views of the social and political legitimacy of the current Soviet regime, and their hopes for the future as expressed in their images of the ideal Soviet society. This work also compares the Solzhenitsyn-Sakharov dialogue to the ongoing debate in western nations about the nature and future of industrial society, and clarifies the ideologies of two key figures in the modern-day Russian dissident movement.