Methodological Note

Presented here is a concise philosophical dictionary of Soviet science in its 1967 edition, authored by Soviet scholars (Rosenthal, Yudin), supplemented with a small number of warnings concerning revisionist distortions.

Main types of distortions:

1. Rehabilitation of cybernetics (a bourgeois pseudoscience correctly exposed under Stalin).
2. Blurring of boundaries between Marxism and bourgeois science.
3. Slander against Stalin and erasure of his theoretical contribution through the "cult of personality" formula.
4. Khrushchevite revision of the dictatorship of the proletariat—the theory of the "state of the whole people" and "peaceful transition."

The term "Khrushchevite" is used in warnings to denote the period when revisionist distortions, previously suppressed under Stalin, became open and officially sanctioned following the 20th Congress of the CPSU (1956) and are reflected in this 1967 dictionary.

This is the final edition in a series of concise philosophical dictionaries begun in the Stalin period, in which the earliest editions are the least distorted. The very fact that corrections proved necessary confirms Stalin's thesis on the intensification of class struggle during the construction of socialism—ideological struggle continues even after the victory of socialism.

Despite the overall high quality of this dictionary, it is limited by the time of its creation (1967) and by its subject matter—Marxist philosophy. In most cases this presents no difficulty. However, when studying phenomena that emerged later or were not addressed in the dictionary (e.g., Trotskyism or world-systems analysis), one should consult the general article on Revisionism and other sources of classical Marxism-Leninism.