Short Handbook of Communist Ideology

Book excerpt: We have once again decided to publish in our series a source-text for the study of Communist ideology. This synopsis of Principles of Marxism Leninism 1 (published at the end of 1959 and widely distributed in the Soviet Union) appears as a sequel to that of the Principles of Marxist Philosphy which I published in 1959 as The Dogmatic Principles of Soviet Philosphy. This book is a corporate work, done by some forty Soviet philosophers, sociologists, economists, Party-theoreticians and propa gandists, under the direction ofO. V. Kuusinen (member of the Praesidium of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union). Except for a few clarifications, we have restricted ourselves to pre senting the most important parts of the original text in an original translation which provides the material, in an authentic and handy 2 form, for our Institute's courses in Sovietology. In comparison to the other parts, the philosophical portions (Sections 1 and 2) have been held to a minimum since they repeat, for the most part, material which is already available in the synopsis of the Principles of Marxist Philosophy. I wish to thank the Rockefeller Foundation for their support which has made possible the research of our Institute as well as the preparation of the present work. J. M. BOCHENSKI 1 The original Russian title is: Osnovy marksizma-leninizma. Ueebnoe posobie (Text book), Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo politieeskoj literatury (State Publishing House for Political Literature), Moskva, 1959,774 pages, 300 000 copies.