Early in 1958 a number of research projects on Soviet philosophy were
started at the Institute of East-European Studies at the University of
Fribourg (Switzerland) under the direction of the undersigned. At
present, they are all completed or nearly so and their results are
described in 18 different volumes. In spite of the fact that all of them
have been already published or soon will be (mostly in German), it has
been thought worthwhile to present their main conclusions in the form of
short English reports. This book contains in the main these reports.
Only the two programmatic papers (my own and that of Dr. Buchholz) and
the study of Dr. Dahm are not direct results of the above-mentioned
projects. But it will be clear to everyone that they, too, are closely
connected with the subject envisaged and are written from a similar
point of view. It will, perhaps, be convenient to briefly formulate this
standpoint. All the writings included here are concerned with recent (i.
e. mainly post- Stalinist) developments in Soviet philosophy, where
"Soviet" is taken in the wide meaning of the word, covering also
Marxism-Leninism in Communist countries other than the Soviet Union. All
the authors started with the assumption that there are interesting
aspects to these more recent developments. There was also a common
assumption that only specialized work on first-hand sources can be of
relevance in this field.
