This book examines the various ways in which the work of the German-Jewish writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924) has been ideologized and politicized in the post-war period. Kafka's work became the subject of intense controversies during the Cold War, a time when ideological competition and value conflicts between the capitalist and communist worlds were a crucial concern for global society.

The discussion of Kafka's persona and work took place at the intersection of politics and culture and was related to the fierce ideological conflict between the two worlds over key concepts such as individual, political, and artistic freedom, social justice, democracy, cultural "decline," humanism, optimism-pessimism, the possibility or otherwise of humans determining their political present and future, modern art, socialist realism, and more.

Finally, the book raises further questions.